Looking at the Screen through the Spindle Hole
A Phonographic Approach to Italian Cinema of the 1960s
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.37322Keywords:
45 rpm single, soundtrack album, Italian popular music, media convergence, record productionAbstract
The use of songs in Italian cinema could be regarded as a minor issue from a cinematographic perspective, being seen possibly as a derivative by-product in both a film’s production and in its critical reception. However, music plays a crucial role in postwar Italian popular culture, as evidenced by the heated debate about the ideological function of popular and folk music that has raged among intellectuals (most notably Umberto Eco), musicians, ethnomusicologists, and composers. My starting assumption is that a perspective on cinema production gained from the vantage point of the phonographic medium can help to enlighten issues related to changing styles and production practices in Italian popular culture after World War II. Investigating the connections between the film and recording industries also highlights the need for film composers to be versatile and proficient in different genres, a quality that was an integral part of their role as specialized professionals.
References
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———. 2014. Il passacaglio tetracordale come tòpos poetico-musicale transculturale: Usi antichi e moderni a confronto (secc. xvi–xvii e xx–xxi). Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale 20, nos. 1–2: 27-95.
Liggeri, Domenico. 2007. Musica per i nostri occhi: Storie e segreti dei videoclip. Milan: Bompiani.
Liperi, Felice. 1999. Storia della canzone italiana. Rome: RAI-ERI.
Morricone, Ennio, and Sergio Miceli. 2013. Composing for the cinema: The theory and praxis of music in film, ed. G. Anderson. London: Scarecrow Press.
Mundy, John. 1999. Popular music on screen: From Hollywood musical to music video. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Nelson, John S. 2013. Popular cinema as political theory: Idealism and realism in epics, noirs, and satires. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Romano, William. 2014. Prog rock FAQ: All that’s left to know about rock’s most progressive music. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat.
Smith, Jeff. 1998. The sounds of commerce. New York: Columbia University Press.
Straniero, Michele et al. 1964. Le canzoni della cattiva coscienza. Milan: Bompiani.
Ashby, Arved, ed. 2013. Popular music and the new auteur: Visionary filmmakers after MTV. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bayman, Louis, and Sergio Rigoletto, eds. 2013. Popular Italian cinema. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Bertellini, Giorgio. 2014. Emir Kusturica. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Borio, Gianmario. 2013. Music as plea for political action: The presence of musicians in Italian protest movements around 1968. In Music and protest in 1968, 29-45, ed. B. Kutschke and B. Norton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bratus, Alessandro. 2013. Many ways of being young: The topical role of cantautori in Italian cinema of the 1960s. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Music Semiotics in Memory of Raymond Monelle, University of Edinburgh, October 26–28, 2012, 374-82, ed. N. Panos et al. Edinburgh: IPMDS. https://sites.eca.ed.ac.uk/edmusemiotics/files/2014/02/ICMS_MRM-Publication.pdf
Brizio-Skov Flavia, ed. 2011. Popular Italian cinema: Culture and politics in a postwar society. London: I.B. Tauris.
Brown, Keith H. 2012. Deleuzean hybridity in the films of Leone and Argento, PhD dissertation, University of Edinburgh.
Buzzi, Mauro. 2013. La canzone pop e il cinema italiano: Gli anni del boom economico (1958–1963). Turin: Kaplan.
Calabretto, Roberto. 2010. Lo schermo sonoro: La musica per film. Venice: Marsilio.
Carpitella, Diego. 1992. Musica popolare e musica di consumo. In idem, Conversazioni sulla musica. Lezioni, conferenze, trasmissioni radiofoniche 1955–1990, 41-51. Florence: Ponte alle Grazie.
Cohen, Annabel J. 2000. Film music: Perspectives from cognitive psychology. In Music and cinema, 360-78, ed. J. Buhler, C. Flynn, and D. Neumeyer. Hanover, NH: Wesleyan University Press.
Comuzio, Ermanno. 1980. Colonna sonora: Dialoghi, musiche, rumori dietro lo schermo. Foligno: Il Formichiere.
Conti, Jacopo. 2016. Politique des chant-auteurs: French auteur theory and Italian canzone d’autore compared. In The singersongwriter in Europe: Paradigms, politics and place, 37-49, ed. I. Marc and S. Green. London: Routledge.
Corbella, Maurizio, and Ilario Meandri, eds. 2015. Musica, suono e processi produttivi nel cinema italiano (1950–75)/Music, sound and production processes in Italian cinema (1950–75). Special issue of Musica/Tecnologia 8–9 (2014–2015).
De Angelis, Enrico, Enrico Deregibus, and S. Sacchi. 2007. Il mio posto nel mondo. Luigi Tenco, cantautore: Ricordi, appunti, frammenti. Milan: Rizzoli.
Della Casa, Steve, and Paolo Manera, eds. 1991. Speciale i musicarelli. Cineforum 310: 24-36.
——— and Paolo Manera, eds. 2012. Sbatti Bellocchio in sesta pagina: Il cinema nei giornali della sinistra extraparlamentare 1968–76. Rome: Donzelli.
Doherty, Thomas. 2002. Teenagers and teenpics. The juvenilization of American movies in the 1950s. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Donnelly, Kevin J. 2015. Magical musical tour: Rock and pop in film soundtrack. New York: Bloomsbury.
Dyer, Richard. 2012. In the space of a song: The uses of song in film. London: Routledge.
Facci, Serena, and Paolo Soddu. 2011. Il Festival di Sanremo: Parole e suoni raccontano la nazione. Rome: Carocci.
Fisher, Austin. 2011. Radical frontiers in the Spaghetti Western: Politics, violence and popular Italian cinema. London: I. B. Tauris.
Forgacs, David, and Stephen Gundle. 2007. Mass culture and Italian society from fascism to the cold war. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Gianneri, Mimmo. 2011. Il musicarello: Modello intermediale e propulsore di nuove ibridazioni. Comunicazioni Sociali 1: 66-73.
Grant, Barry K. 1986. The classic Hollywood musical and the “problem” of rock’n’roll. Journal of Popular Film and Television 13: 195-205.
Hubbert, Julie. 2014. The compilation soundtrack from the 1960s to the present. In The Oxford handbook of film music studies, 291-318, ed. D. Neumeyer. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
James, David E. 2016. Rock’n’film: Cinema’s dance with popular music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
La Via, Stefano. 2006. Poesia per musica e musica per poesia: Dai trovatori a Paolo Conte. Rome: Carocci.
———. 2014. Il passacaglio tetracordale come tòpos poetico-musicale transculturale: Usi antichi e moderni a confronto (secc. xvi–xvii e xx–xxi). Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale 20, nos. 1–2: 27-95.
Liggeri, Domenico. 2007. Musica per i nostri occhi: Storie e segreti dei videoclip. Milan: Bompiani.
Liperi, Felice. 1999. Storia della canzone italiana. Rome: RAI-ERI.
Morricone, Ennio, and Sergio Miceli. 2013. Composing for the cinema: The theory and praxis of music in film, ed. G. Anderson. London: Scarecrow Press.
Mundy, John. 1999. Popular music on screen: From Hollywood musical to music video. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Nelson, John S. 2013. Popular cinema as political theory: Idealism and realism in epics, noirs, and satires. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Romano, William. 2014. Prog rock FAQ: All that’s left to know about rock’s most progressive music. Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat.
Smith, Jeff. 1998. The sounds of commerce. New York: Columbia University Press.
Straniero, Michele et al. 1964. Le canzoni della cattiva coscienza. Milan: Bompiani.
Published
2019-09-09
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Bratus, A. (2019). Looking at the Screen through the Spindle Hole: A Phonographic Approach to Italian Cinema of the 1960s. Journal of Film Music, 8(1-2), 51-65. https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.37322
