PROJECT OVERVIEW
This UK/Italian documentary provides the first examination of how the decade of terrorist activity known as the anni di piombo (years of lead) impacted on 1970s popular Italian cinema. That’s La Morte utilizes exclusive access to the archives of Dania Film, one of Europe’s most prolific production houses from the era.
During anni di piombo, Dania Film produced 115 influential films providing both entertainment and political critique across a range of populist genres. The documentary profiles 3 key Dania Film cycles: the giallo (thriller), the polizieschi (rogue cop film) and the Italian sex comedy, combining socio-cultural and textual analysis with exclusive interviews from directors, producers, performers, composers and historians. The documentary also draws on a range of film excerpts, promotional materials and wider correspondence with government bodies. In so doing, it provides new knowledge into these films and the wider social, political and cultural contexts of the anni di piombo.
Mapping the importance of Italian popular film traditions during the anni di piombo is the key aim behind That’s La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead. Its key research questions are:
1. 1. How did the production processes of companies such as Dania Film lead to the proliferation of popular Italian film genres in 1970s Italy?
2. 2. What were the key features and social relevance behind the following Dania Film cycles of: the giallo (thriller), the polizieschi (rogue cop film) and the Italian sex comedy?
3. To what extent do key Italian popular film cycles released by Dania Film reflect wider theoretical debates surrounding the anni di piombo?
Dania Film’s archives have been utilized on the development of the documentary, while key historical theoretical accounts of the anni di piombo and Italian culture underpin the project, with key scholars associated with these debates appearing in the finished film.
UNDERPINNING RESEARCH
The documentary That's la Morte was based on the 2015 monograph Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Film 1970-1985. This volume sought to be the first academic volume to fully explore the emergence of 1970s Italian cult film genres in light of the wider social, political and cultural anxieties that dominated during the decade.
As part of this consideration, the volume provided primary theoretical readings of a range of key Italian directors, performers and cycles associated with 1970s Italy. Through these considerations, the volume situated 1970s Italian cinema against the toxic backdrop of political violence and terrorist activity that shocked the nation. In so doing, the volume drew heavily on a range of Italian Studies scholars such as Professor Ruth Glynn (who appeared as the primary narrator in the subsequent documentary). Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress analysed Glynn's research on Italian terrorism as mediated through crime films of the era; it also examined her research on the iconography of the sexually liberated female as recast as a symbol of fear and violation in a range of Italian cult film narratives. In addition, the book also analysed how longstanding regional distinctions between Italy’s urban North and the much maligned rural South fed into a number of film cycles produced between 1970 and 1985.
PRESENTING THE ARTEFACT
That's La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead was premiered at a range of international conferences and film festivals across the UK and Ireland, Europe, USA and Canada. A contextual introduction that situated the documentary in light of wider research in the field was provided to each of these exhibitions.
THE ROLE OF THE NARRATOR
That's La Morte uses Professor Ruth Glynn (University of Bristol) as the academic narrator for the documentary. The choice of Professor Glynn reflects the significance that her research on the Italian Anni di piombo and images of female terrorism had on the development of the 2015 monograph Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema 1970-1985 (upon which the documentary is based).
Professor Glynn's narration provides an academic framing across 5 areas of the documentary:
- The influence of Dania Films and Italian production contexts of the 1960s-1970s
- The Italian giallo cycle as reflecting wider social, cultural and gender transitions of the 1970s
- Images of the Anni di piombo in Dania crime films of the 1970s
- Gender and sexual tensions in Dania sex comedy cycles of the late 1970s and early 1980s
- Social and technological changes that led to the decline of the Dania production system in the 1980s
THE RECEPTION
That's La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead was screened at a number of international film festivals and conferences including:
Cine-Excess International Film Festival and Conference, 8th November 2018, Birmingham, UK.
Telling and Retelling Stories (Re)Imagining Popular Culture, 1st March 2019, Wayne State University, USA (screening and Q and A).
Underground Indie Film Festival, 8th June 2019, Florida, USA (+ documentary award winner, 2019).
International Conference on European Popular Conference, 16th July 2019, Limerick, Ireland (screening and Q and A).
Rome Independent Prisma Awards, 28th July 2019, Rome, Italy
September 14th, 2019.
Helsinki Education Film Festival International, Helsinki, Finland (+ documentary award winner, 2019).
Arizona Underground Film Festival, September 17th 2019, Arizona, USA
Montreal Requiem Fear Fest, September 21st 2019, Montreal, Canada
Sitges International Festival of Fantastic Film, 6th October 2019, Sitges, Spain.
Salem Horror Fest, October 13th 2019, Massachusetts, USA.
SUBSEQUENT RESEARCH
During the development of the That's La Morte documentary, a number of related articles were published which both charted the progress of the project as well as outlining the range of archival and interview-based resources it employed:
Links to articles
- Death, Desire And Dania: Satire, Sexuality And Erotic Mobility In 1970s And 1980s Italy
- Red Light Memories: The Dania Creatives Speak
While That’s la Morte: Italian Cinema and the Years of Lead emerged from theoretical studies conducted by Mendik between 2014-15, the documentary component was greatly influenced by the collaborative input of the Italian film company Dania, who allowed the researcher to have extensive access to their archival holdings in a series of site visit between 2014-16.
Access to the Dania film archives confirmed that during the 1970s period of the Anni di piombo (years of lead), Italy became one of the largest domestic film industries in Europe and the startling and frequently nihilistic images it created were exported to both arthouse and popular cinemas around the globe. However, by the mid-1980s the impact of television and socio-cultural changes in audience consumption had drastically altered the impact of the industry and the content it created. One of the most prolific production companies during this period was Dania Film, which was co-owned by leading Italian director Sergio Martino, and his late brother/producer Luciano Martino. During this turbulent period, Dania film pioneered an iconic mode of popular film production resulting in 115 feature films across the key genres (westerns, thrillers, horror films, spy movies, sensational documentaries, ‘rogue cop’ movies) that provided both populist entertainment and political commentary for a range of regional, national and international audiences.
As a result, the organisation and output of Dania Film provide a particularly compelling case study of how the Italian film industry functioned and responded to global and technological changes during a key period of political turmoil and social transition. Exclusive access to the film and paper archives of Dania Film between 2014-16 helped provide unique insight to the content, reception and industrial trends of genre cinema during the era, and how they were influenced by the social, political and gender disruptions associated with Anni di piombo. It was the utilization of the resources contained in the Dania Film Archives that facilitated the development of the documentary practice output That’s La Morte: Italian Cult Cinema and the Years of Lead between 2016-18.
All images provided for use in the documentary and reproduced here remain the property of the Dania Film Archives.
Alongside access to the Dania Film Archive’s, That’s La Morte also undertook new interviews with leading filmmakers, producers, performers, screenwriters, composers and set designers associated with genre productions during Italy of the 1970s. Following the work established Italian Studies scholars such as Ruth Glynn, the documentary treats these interviews as a form a testimony or reflection on the traumas of terrorism that beset the nation during this decade.
Therefore, alongside discussions of their own work during the 1970s, all respondents were asked to recount their memories of widely publicised controversies such as the kidnap and murder of Christian Democrat politician Aldo Moro in 1978, as well as public perceptions of the Italian state’s role in such terrorist activities. Respondents were also asked to consider how transitions in gender relations in Italy during this time impacted on sexual tensions that become filtered through the popular films they created. In so doing, these interviews serve the wider intellectual project of the documentary by seeking to create new knowledge on the films being discussed and the wider social, political and gender contexts of the anni di piombo.
Interviews were arranged in 3 broad sections in the planning stage of the project:
- Directorial Visions: Italian fears into Italian ‘fictions’
- The Performance Perspective: Reflections from Key 1970s icons
- Script, Scene and Sound: Screenwriters, producers, musicians Talk Trauma
The enclosed Production Diary captures some of interview sessions undertaken at this stage of the project.
