07/09/2009

Whatever happened to Italian cinema is the subject of Venice Days documentary What Do You Know About Me [+see also:
trailer
film profile], by Valerio Jalongo, whose post-screening Q&A was packed.

Jalongo looks at the industry’s trajectory from post-WWII through today, along the way interviewing directors such as Liliana Cavani, Vittorio De Seta, Daniele Lucchetti, Wim Wenders and Ken Loach.

The film is most interesting when it sheds light on certain historical facts. According to the director, much of the blame lies with the Marshall Plan, which in the late 1940s brought a steady flow of American movies into Italy. Shortly thereafter, Giulio Andreotti passed a simple law allowing international co-productions. The industry mushroomed and Italian films were exported throughout the world. Over the next several decades they would come to compete with Hollywood. And then in the 1970s it all stopped.

“The only thing I can think of is that the Americans paid someone to stop great Italian films from made,” says renowned producer Dino De Laurentiis. The film implies that someone may have been a politician by the name of Corona, who in 1970 passed a second law, stating that all elements of a domestic film had to be Italian. In other words: no more co-productions. “That was the death of Italian cinema,” mourns De Laurentiis. “I left then because I didn’t want to make small films that were born and died in Italy.”

That is exactly what the present looks like now. Few local films have the artistic breadth to reach international audiences, and the film industry is further squashed by the unprecedented power of television, due in large part to the media empire of President Silvio Berlusconi.

And, of course, the US has an even greater global monopoly on cinema. Says Loach: “We are pushed out of our cinemas by American films. Imagine if museums and galleries only had American art!”

Yet the reasons cannot all be external, or due to poorly managed and ever-diminishing public funding. Il Divo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Nicola Giuliano
interview: Paolo Sorrentino
interview: Philippe Desandre
film profile] director Paolo Sorrentino makes a crucial point when he says: “We screenwriters and directors are also to blame. Too often we make films that lack courage, about obsolete subjects. Plus, everyone says that quality has suffered because audiences want inferior products. But what if audiences wanted pedophilia and incest? Do you give it to them? No, of course not.”

The answers do not even necessarily lie in greater commercial possibilities or an expanded market. In fact, Wenders warns against placing too many expectations on greater budgets. “The more money you have,” he warns, “the less you can tell. Basically, if you have €100M, you can do a lot but you can’t say anything.”

What Do You Know About Me was made for approximately €400,000 and is being released domestically in October by Cinecitta Luce.