Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film

Given Italy’s unparalleled contributions to the visual arts
from the twelfth century to the present, it would have
been unusual, indeed, if its culture had not made fundamental
contributions to the development of film art from
the silent era to the present. After being identified with
the historical epic in the silent cinema, Italy’s film culture
was virtually ignored during the fascist period, but the
advent of postwar Italian neorealism after 1945 threw
Italy into the forefront of modern European filmmaking.
Subsequently, a number of the individuals associated
with neorealism developed into auteurs, and Italy produced
several generations of Europe’s best art film directors.
Italy also contributed a great deal to commercial
film genres, such as the spaghetti western, the sword and
sandal epic, the giallo (horror-mystery), and even the
cannibal and zombie cult movies of the late twentieth
century.
BEGINNINGS: THE SILENT PERIOD
On 11 November 1895, Filoteo Alberini (1865–1937)
applied for a patent on an early device, the Alberini
Kinetograph, and between 1909 and 1916, the Italian
silent cinema represented a major force in world cinema
before the hegemony of Hollywood was firmly established,
with major production centers in Turin, Rome,
Naples, and Milan. Alberini produced the first feature
film with a complex plot—La Presa di Roma (The Taking
of Rome, 1905)—which was based on a patriotic theme,
the annexation of the Eternal City in 1870 to the new
Italian republic. The next year, CINES, a major production
company, was founded, and it rapidly allowed
Italian silent films to capture an enormous international
market share for a brief period. While Italian silent films
ITALY
reflected a variety of genres, including Roman costume
dramas, adventure films, comedies, filmed drama, even
experimental or avant-garde works by the Futurists, there
is little question that the success of the costumed film set
in classical antiquity was responsible for much of the
industry’s early success. Italy’s Roman past, the wealth
of classic ruins and grandiose monuments all over Italy,
the favorable climate and natural light of the peninsula,
plus the relatively low labor costs for huge crowd scenes,
all encouraged on-location shooting of costume dramas
and interior scenes with lavish neoclassical decors.
Important works in this epic vein include Gli Ultimi
giorni di Pompeii (The Last Days of Pompeii, 1908) by
Luigi Maggi, Quo Vadis? (1913) by Enrico Guazzoni,
and the silent cinema’s most famous epic by Giovanni
Pastrone (1883–1959), Cabiria (1914), whose majestic
treatment of the Second Punic War introduced the use of
the dolly into cinematic practice, influenced D. W.
Griffith’s Intolerance (1916), and subsequently inspired
many neomythological or peplum films, a staple export
item of the Italian industry in the 1950s and 1960s.
In addition to historical epics and filmed versions of
themes taken from drama, opera, and history, the Italian
cinema quickly developed the star system (the diva), a
development that naturally led to an increased use of
close-ups to convey passionate emotions. Italian femme
fatales such as Lyda Borelli in Ma l’amor mio non muore
(But My Love Won’t Die!, 1913) by Mario Caserini,
Maria Carmi in Sperduti nel buio (Lost in the Dark,
1914) by Nino Martoglio, and Francesca Bertini in
Assunta Spina (1915) by Gustavo Serena, set an international
standard for melodramatic passion. The most
memorable male lead was the muscular former
SCHIRMER ENCYCLOPEDIA OF FILM 41