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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 9:53:48 GMT
The same holds for the German term "krimi," of course.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 16, 2010 10:23:52 GMT
watched one of the krimis, "The Black Monk" which oozed atmosphere, but suffered from a plot you might find in an Abbot and Costello comedy, and suffered even worse from just being terribly boring and overly convoluted without a good reason to be. Maybe I just happened to pick a rotten apple to start with. No, it is quite a good description for all of them. The plots ARE rubbish and overly convoluted. In all of them. At the times there was a kind of infatuation woth all things angloamerican. The audiénce wasnt interest in reality, but in a perception of reality. Just watch one of those german westerns of the time. The were hugely popular, but they look like some kids playing cowboy and indians. The Wallace movies don´t know subtle. In the better ones the fun lies in the grand guignol approach and the horror props, except that in Germany in the early sixties you couldn´t do Grand Guignol on the screen. For all the bodycount there isn´t a drop of blood to be seen, and of course no sex at all. Only the last ones whioch were in colour were a little bolder in this ( and they had to compete against the then upcoming nudies), but the whole concept doesn´t work in colour. It just heightens all the nonsense. I don´t think so. Except in the regard that the average Giallo makes even less sense than a german Wallace movie. Of course both tried to "shock" the audience, but all the elements the italian did highlight, i.e. sex and violence, were only hinted at in the Wallace stuff. In this all Wallace movies are kid´s stuff.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 16, 2010 11:07:30 GMT
Am I right in thinking this series of German Edgar Wallace films were an influence on the giallo Italian school of filmmaking? Well, yes and no. In Italy, "giallo" refers to the entire crime genre, i.e., everything from the novels of Agatha Christie to the films of Alfred Hitchcock. To use this Italian term to refer to a specific set of Italian films from the 60s and 70s, for which the Italians themselves have no special name, strikes me as silly and misleading. In horror film parlance, though, 'giallo' does indeed refer to those Italian films doesn't it? Very roughly starting with Bava's Bood & Black Lace in 1964 and continuing through to the early 1980s with Argento's Tenebrae arguably being the last good one. They may not use that term specifically in Italy but it's commonly accepted elsewhere, which is what I think Mr Samuels is implying
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 14:17:03 GMT
In horror film parlance, though, 'giallo' does indeed refer to those Italian films doesn't it? My theory is that Tim Lucas is to blame for introducing this unfortunate terminology. It seems to me that if you want to talk about a specifically Italian film genre, you should do so in terms that make sense to also to Italians---not least because primary research on the topic necessarily involves interviewing Italians about it. Ask an Italian director about his "giallo" films and he will think you mean crime films in general---because he will have little concept that some people outside Italy have defined "giallo" to mean an Italian thriller that follows certain "rules," has a black-gloved killer in it, etc. The current usage just indicates that very little primary research has actually taken place. They may not use that term specifically in Italy but it's commonly accepted elsewhere Well, we are working on changing that.
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Post by marksamuels on Jun 16, 2010 16:32:00 GMT
JoJo Lapin X The Italian who wrote the following Italian wikipedia entry doesn't seem to suffer from a lack of making sense of the term "giallo" in the context Lord P and I have utilised it it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giallo_all%27italianaI can understand enough of the lingo to know that it doesn't appear to support the view you hold. Mark S.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 17:07:23 GMT
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 17:08:58 GMT
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Post by marksamuels on Jun 16, 2010 18:02:27 GMT
My point was that use of the shorthand term "giallo" is likely to be perfectly understood, given the context, by an Italian director (such as Argento et al) as referring to "Giallo All'Italiana". Your claim was that it would invariably be misunderstood as "Giallo Cinema". You haven't provided any evidence to change my view Mark S.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 18:58:15 GMT
My point was that use of the shorthand term "giallo" is likely to be perfectly understood, given the context, by an Italian director (such as Argento et al) as referring to "Giallo All'Italiana". No, because directors who were active back in the day are unlikely to have ever heard of the concept, which is a very recent attempt by younger Italian fans to translate a term they have found in the Anglo-Saxon literature. But the most important point is that no such genre exists. There are Italian suspense thrillers from the mid-60s to the mid-70s that share certain stylistic elements---as most films from a particular place and time tend to do---but that does not mean that the directors involved believed they had invented a special genre with clearly defined boundaries and a special name, or that audiences thought so, or that it is useful to think so now. It makes as much sense as using the term "ghost story" to refer only to Victorian supernatural tales.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 19:50:51 GMT
By the way, since we are speaking of Italy: whenever I go there I always try to have some "alimento," a special type of Italian food that I love.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Jun 16, 2010 20:48:38 GMT
But the most important point is that no such genre exists . I think you're going to have a tremendous struggle convincing anyone involved in the horror genre of that seeing as pretty much every writer, director & critic I've encountered since the mid 80s knows exactly what the term giallo means in the context of horror cinema! Good luck!
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 16, 2010 20:55:17 GMT
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Post by shonokin on Jun 17, 2010 23:51:52 GMT
The Inn on the River was much better than The Black Monk. So it's 50/50 right now for me and the krimis.
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Post by shonokin on Jun 20, 2010 22:57:48 GMT
Fellowship of the Frog is very good. The second act is a bit slow but the first and third make up for it.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 22, 2010 14:45:06 GMT
Fellowship of the Frog is very good. The second act is a bit slow but the first and third make up for it. Ah yes, dirty old men lusting after young and innocent heiress. Never gets old
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