The Other Italian Cinema

The Other Italian Cinema, a multimedia lecture by Australia's leading film historian, Barrie Pattsion, presented by the Chauvel Cinematheque on Sat. the 26th of June at 12 noon and Mon. the 28th of June at 6:30pm. The lecture will kick off a small season of rare screenings of popular Italian cinema.

Here’s a one of a kind chance to confront movies of a kind that usually slip under the critical radar.

Though it was the first country to industrialise and once rated as the world’s number three movie market (titles like Open City, La Dolce Vita and Last Tango in Paris figure prominently in pocket histories) Italy’s films are often less accessible than those of it’s European neighbours. Whole decades represent a black hole in film history. Many of it’s famous stars are unknown outside its borders - Adriano Celantano, Assia Norris, Leonardo Pieraccioni anyone?

The historical dramas, gladiator movies, or pepla (the name of the Imperial Roman tunic) show up about the time movies start to move. They impacted on the Hollywood beginnings of film makers Griffith and De Mille, with the famous Cabiria. Half a century later, Steve Reeves would bring this material to the world. We ended up with strip cartoon entertainments having a fundamental connection to Dante and Homer. The Chauvel Cinematheque programs contains a multi screen history of pepla, running from WW1 to the Drive-Ins. With this come glimpses of other Italian cycles - the celebrity zanies, mother love weepies, white telephone comedies, regional dramas, carabiniere action, giallo thrillers, pop musicals and spaghetti cowboys.

This is a Fellini free day. These are not the famous titles that mesmerized the world’s critics, leaving them forever searching for a new replica of Bicycle Thieves. The films cited here are stranger and often richer. There’s a chance to see slasher king Mario Bava at work on an art movie and high priest of neo-realism, Vittorio De Sica, doing dumb comedy.

Battle-scarred from his time in the flea pits, film museums and Drive-Ins of the world, career movie goer Barrie Pattison presents an alternative history of Italian film at the Chauvel Cinematheque in Paddington Town Hall, Oxford Street, Saturday June 28 at noon and Monday June 30 at 6:30.