The cinema of Italy comprises the films made within Italy or by Italian directors. Italy is widely considered one of the birthplaces of art cinema, and the stylistic aspect of Italian film has been one of the most important factors in the history of Italian film. As of 2018, Italian films have won 14 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film as well as 12 Palmes d'Or, one Academy Award for Best Picture and many Golden Lions and Golden Bears.
Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as saws and ladders.
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane, and the industrial city. Its key figures included Italian artists Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Giacomo Balla, and Luigi Russolo. Italian Futurism glorified modernity and, according to its doctrine, "aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past." Important Futurist works included Marinetti's 1909 Manifesto of Futurism, Boccioni's 1913 sculpture Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, Balla's 1913–1914 painting Abstract Speed + Sound, and Russolo's The Art of Noises (1913).
Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War. It follows a melodramatic main plot about an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mount Etna, heinous religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze".
Mario Bava was an Italian filmmaker who worked variously as a director, cinematographer, special effects artist and screenwriter. His low-budget genre films, known for their distinctive visual flair and stylish technical ingenuity, feature recurring themes and imagery concerning the conflict between illusion and reality, as well as the destructive capacity of human nature. Widely regarded as a pioneer of Italian genre cinema and one of the most influential auteurs of the horror film genre, he is popularly referred to as the "Master of Italian Horror" and the "Master of the Macabre".
Antonio Sant'Elia was an Italian architect and a key member of the Futurist movement in architecture. He left behind almost no completed works of architecture and is primarily remembered for his bold sketches and influence on modern architecture.
Mario Alberto Lattuada was an Italian film director.
The Allies, the Entente or the Triple Entente was an international military coalition of countries led by France, the United Kingdom, Russia, the United States, Italy, and Japan against the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria in World War I (1914–1918).
Reginald C. Barker was a pioneer film director.
Cinema of Europe refers to the film industries and films produced in the continent of Europe.
Flesh for Frankenstein is a 1973 horror film written and directed by Paul Morrissey. It stars Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, Monique van Vooren and Arno Juerging. Interiors were filmed at Cinecittà in Rome by a crew of Italian filmmakers.
World War I or the First World War was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Central Powers. Fighting took place mainly in Europe and the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and was characterised by trench warfare and the use of artillery, machine guns, and chemical weapons (gas). World War I was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, resulting in an estimated 9 million military dead and 23 million wounded, plus up to 8 million civilian deaths from causes including genocide. The movement of large numbers of troops and civilians was a major factor in spreading the Spanish flu pandemic.
Pietro Germi was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor, noted for his development of the neorealist and commedia all'italiana genres.
A list of some notable films produced in the Cinema of Italy ordered by year and decade of release For an alphabetical list of articles on Italian films see Category:Italian films.
Augusto Genina was an Italian film pioneer. He was a movie producer and director.
The Avenging Conscience: or "Thou Shalt Not Kill" is a 1914 silent horror film directed by D. W. Griffith. The film is based on Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 short story "The Tell-Tale Heart" and his 1849 poem "Annabel Lee".
Supercapitalism was a concept introduced by Benito Mussolini in a speech given in November 1933 to the National Council of Corporations of the Kingdom of Italy. Mussolini gave this speech in the context of the ongoing Great Depression, and he attempted to explain the economic crisis in the world at the time by arguing that capitalism had gradually degenerated from its original form: first there had been dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830–1870), followed by static capitalism (1870–1914), in turn followed by the final form of decadent capitalism, known also as supercapitalism, which began in 1914. Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously".
The World Film Company or World Film Corporation was an American film production and distribution company, organized in 1914 in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
Events from the year 1914 in Italy.
Vincenzo Leone, known professionally as Roberto Roberti, was an Italian actor, screenwriter and film director. He made over sixty films, mostly during the silent era. He was married to the actress Bice Valerian. Their son Sergio Leone became a celebrated director.
