Why I Love Italian Cinema

Lee Bishop, of Heaven and Hell Productions, is an award winning no-budget filmmaker and artist whose work is exhibited across the United States and Europe. (You can keep track of her on Twitter by following @leebishop.) We’re very pleased to have her as a guest contributor on TFAD discussing a subject about which she is so passionate.

Over to Lee:

Why do I love Italian cinema? I’m not even sure. And that’s probably what I love about it the most.

I’m no expert, and I know I haven't seen some of the greats, but for some reason Italian film, from many eras, just speaks to me in a different and deeper way than films from other nations – certainly including my own: the good ole US of A.

When I was younger, and managing a non-profit video store, the VHS video library in the basement of an old, restored theater, I spent a lot of time taking home classics and foreign films and filling in some of the gaps I left open while working at the much more commercial, though independent, video store in the area. Always a film buff, but never properly educated, I had repeatedly heard from co-workers and co-filmies ‘You just have to see this!’ about lots of movies. And Italian cinema had a special mystique about it, and a great respect from serious, creative types I knew over the years. So I tried out some Fellini. But I didn’t get it.

Around that same time (the mid 1990s, with me in my late 20s), at the same theater where I worked, I had the chance to see a brand new underground Italian-European co-production, ‘Dellamorte Dellamore’ (aka ‘Cemetery Man’). To this day I am so thankful that I saw that movie, for free, on the big screen. But I didn't get it.

And this is a personal hallmark of my all-time favorite films, as my childhood list has been replaced one by one over the last 20 years or so with my choices as an adult: Films I Don't Get (and am not even sure I like) On First Viewing. This, of course, does not apply to all films that I just don't like. There has to be some other quality in there, something that bothers me, sticks with me, makes me think, confuses my brain, and stirs me visually. And it might give me a headache or truly disturb me as I try to decipher its meaning. When I look back, re-watch favourites, or see another Italian film for the first time, more from that country are added to that list.

‘Dellamorte Dellamore’ by Michele Soavi; Antonioni’s ‘Blowup’ and ‘L’Avventura’; ‘8 ½’ and ‘La Dolce Vita’ by Fellini; and ‘Opera’ (‘Terror at the Opera’) and others by Dario Argento are on my list. Films that have seemed to mature with me. Films that may not seem to have very much in common on the surface – other than the native country of the director – but which have melded in my mind into a beautiful group of miraculous communications. Films that grab me and make me want to understand. And now in my 40s, films that make me cry, and sigh, and feel, and connect with another artist and know that I’m not the only one who sees the world or the human race in a particular way, or who struggles with self and meaning in those secret places. And films whose indefinable visual shock and clarity are just not matched.

That’s pretty grand, but I think that’s my point. For me, it’s the visionary quality combined with the true human connection and enigmatic style, and sometimes crazy experimental subtleties or self-obsession, which make Italian film so amazing. So modern, so emotional. Controlled one minute, off the board the next.

I only hope I can one day come close in my own filmmaking to that amazing mixture of technique and the secret ingredient, amore.

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