[ecrea] CFP the giallo and cinema in Italy (1910-1972) - Bianco e Nero I/2017

Call for Proposals

Bianco e Nero I/2017

Giallo all’italiana: the giallo and cinema in Italy (1910-1972)

edited by Luca Mazzei and Paola Valentini

In 1929, the publishing house Mondadori launched a book series that was 
destined to become historic: the “libri Gialli” that were entirely 
dedicated to crime novels. In Italy, crime stories – sombre narratives, 
recounting fictional adventures à la Dumas with grisly back drops in the 
style of Grand Guignol – had existed for a long time, in fact from as 
early as 1872. In Mondadori’s “Gialli”, however, everything was new. The 
conjecture of the narratives was Cartesian, with rigorous logic, yet at 
the same time they were open to limitless interpretation 
(Morpurgo-Tagliabue 1986). Gialli were aimed at a new readership, a 
reinvigorated and international bourgeoisie. From 1931, in part 
following the demands of a decree of the Fascist government, the series 
published the first Italian Giallo writers. From this moment onward the 
Italian crime novel took off, it became a “genre”, initiating a lengthy, 
intense inter-medial dialogue (Quazzolo 2000, Valentini 2007). The 
Giallo phenomenon intersected theatre, cinema and radio: from L’anello 
di Teodosio by L. Chiarelli, 1929 to Giallo di M. Camerini, 1934; from 
L’ombra dietro la porta, A. De Stefani, 1934, to Il gran Cinema by G. 
Gherardi, 1930, from Grattacieli by G. Giannini 1930, to L'anonima 
Roylott, 1936, G. Giannini and R. Matarazzo. Though momentarily 
interrupted by the Second World War, the Giallo wave re-emerged in the 
post-war period, cross-contaminating and becoming influenced by the 
noir, the polar, the procedural drama and even the coarse realism of 
hard boiled detective fiction. The moment therefore witnessed the 
emergence of the solitary detective all’italiana (from Sheridan to the 
TV adaptation of Maigret, from Lizzani to Germi, from Petri to Di Leo or 
Castellari), who was contaminated, redefined, parodied, but nevertheless 
an internationally recognized brand. In 1972, the cultural hybrid 
changed again, and as the “Giallo all’italiana”, or that specific filone 
of the thriller known as the “Italian Giallo”, it took on a clear shape 
and identity – albeit articulated in various manifestations - that was 
highlighted in 1972 alone, a year of particularly prolific filmmaking, 
via the work of Lucio Fulci or Riccardo Freda, Dario Argento or Umberto 
Lenzi, of Aldo Lado or Emilio P. Miraglia. However, it was specifically 
the preceding culture of the Giallo (in film but not only) – which was 
just as pervasive as the more widely studied comedy – that matured into 
a stable identity in 1972, producing a historically important juncture 
and provocation, which is the object of study of this issue.

Much scholarship has addressed the Italian Giallo in literature 
(Benvenuti, Rizzoni 1979; Cremante 1989; Crovi 2002; Pistelli 2006; 
Milanesi 2009); a few scholars have also focused on the cinematic 
context (Vermander, Jansen, Lanslots 2010); there is a rich bibliography 
on specific individuals, in particular Mario Bava and Dario Argento 
(Pugliese, 1996; Carluccio, Manzoli, Menarini 2003; Lucas 2007; Zagarrio 
2008; Jones, Kermode 2012; Pezzotta 2014); and more recently, some 
attention has been paid to production dynamics (Shipka 2011), moving 
beyond the traditional thematic analyses (Koven 2006). However, the 
object’s relevance deserves an “ecosystemic” investigation that takes 
full account of the intermedial context, the professionals employed, the 
reconfiguration of production that took place around the Giallo, the 
technological modernization that it inspired, or the new types of 
audience that it generated, not to mention the close-knit relationship 
the genre created and maintained with the surrounding cultural industry, 
starting with the extremely fruitful link to television.

  >From this perspective, issue I/2017 of Bianco e nero aims to reflect 
on all aspects of the Giallo in Italy, in film and across the media and 
cultural panorama, from literature to theatre, from literary 
illustrations to graphic novels, from radio plays to TV dramas, all 
sectors with which the Giallo has intersected in an intense dialogue. In 
this sense, the field of study of the Giallo in Italy will be bracketed 
by the earliest cinematic manifestations and the conquest of television, 
with magical Gialli and detective shows like Geminus (Luciano Emmer, 
1969) or Il segno del comando (Daniele D’Anza, 1971). It offers the 
chance to reflect on personalities and professionals, not only directors 
but also screenwriters, musicians or set designers; on single films but 
also sub-genres or TV programmes; on expressive techniques but also 
technological ones; and on the critical discourses that have closely 
intersected with the Giallo between 1910 and 1972.

The editors encourage proposals that address the Giallo while 
privileging little considered historical moments and personalities 
(silent film, pre-war, etc.) with a historical-cultural approach that is 
able to account for the entire cultural and media panorama.

Areas of study may include (but are not limited to) the following:

·      The birth and expansion of the critical and theoretical category 
of the Giallo, between nationalism and an international vocation

·      Italian silent cinema and its relationship with European crime 
serials

·      Giallo and exploitation, production and co-production, the 
exploration and imitation during the post-War period

·      The role of sound and music: technological innovation and new 
creative collaborations between musicians and directors

·      Cinema and images: literature, para-literature, graphic novels 
and illustrations as a foundation for the realization and visual 
promotion of a film

·      TV programming, between the national re-contextualization of 
global crime and “native” Gialli

·      Detective fictions, conjecture and Italian scientific culture

·      The Giallo and ephemeral culture: design, fashion and architecture

·      The Giallo and censorship, visibility and the obscene

·      The Giallo and audiences

   Proposals, consisting of a brief abstract (no more than 200 words), 
five keywords and a concise author’s biography, should be sent by 30 
September 2016 to the following email addresses: 
(biancoenero /at/ fondazionecsc.it); (lucamazzeigir /at/ hotmail.com); 
(paola.valentini /at/ unifi.it). Once the proposal has been approved, the 
deadline for the complete essay will be 30 December 2016. Articles 
should be between 20,000 and 30,000 characters, and they will undergo a 
double blind peer review.

Bibliography

Stefano Benvenuti, Gianni Rizzoni, Il romanzo giallo: storia, autori e 
personaggi, Mondadori, Milano 1979

Bertusi 1997

Giulia Carluccio, Giacomo Manzoli, Roy Menarini (a cura di), L’eccesso 
della visione. Il cinema di Dario Argento, Lindau, Torino 2003

Renzo Cremante, Le figure del delitto: il libro poliziesco in Italia 
dalle origini a oggi, Grafis, Casalecchio 1989

Luca Crovi, Tutti i colori del giallo. Il giallo italiano da De Marchi a 
Scerbanenco a Camilleri, Marsilio, Venezia 2002

Claudio Gallo 1994

Alan Jones, Mark Kermode, Dario Argento: The Man, the Myths & the Magic, 
FAB Press, London 2012

Mikel J. Koven, La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo 
Film, Scarecrow, Toronto - London 2006

Tim Lucas, Mario Bava. All The Colors Of Dark, Cincinnati, Video 
Watchdog, 2007

Claudio Milanesi (a cura di), Il romanzo poliziesco. La storia, la 
memoria, Astraea 2010

Guido Morpurgo-Tagliabue, Metacritica del romanzo giallo, 
«Intersezioni», 1986, n. 2.

Alberto Pezzotta, Mario Bava, Il Castoro Cinema, Milano 2014

Maurizio Pistelli, Un secolo in giallo. Storia del poliziesco italiano 
(1860-1960), Donzelli, Roma 2006

Roberto Pugliese, Dario Argento, Il Castoro, Milano 1996

Paolo Quazzolo, Delitti in palcoscenico. La commedia poliziesca, 
Campanotto, Udine  2000

Danny Shipka, Perverse Titillation: the Exploitation Cinema of Italy, 
Spain and France, 1960-1980, McFarland, Jefferson – London 2011

Paola Valentini, Presenze sonore. Il passaggio al cinema sonoro in 
Italia tra cinema e radio, Le Lettere, Firenze 2007

Dieter Vermander, Monica Jansen, Inge Lanslots, Noir de noir: 
Un'indagine pluridisciplinare, Peter Lang, Paris 2010

Vito Zagarrio, Argento vivo: il cinema di Dario Argento tra genere e 
autorialità, Marsilio, Venezia 2008

---------------
ECREA-Mailing list
---------------
This mailing list is a free service offered by Nico Carpentier and ECREA.
--
To subscribe, post or unsubscribe, please visit
http://commlist.org/
--
To contact the mailing list manager:
Email: (nico.carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
URL: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
--
ECREA - European Communication Research and Education Association
Chaussée de Waterloo 1151, 1180 Uccle, Belgium
Email: (info /at/ ecrea.eu)
URL: http://www.ecrea.eu
---------------