Italy, land of good food, timeless art, stunning architecture...and great pop culture!
In their music, movies, and more, the craftspeople of Italy have proven time and again their ability to stimulate that elusive sense of wonder. Which is why I think a thread celebrating their myriad contributions to global pop culture is long overdue.
Let's start with...DIABOLIK!
The long-running fumetti (comic book) chronicling the adventures of the master thief and all-around anti-hero Diabolik and his lover/partner-in-adventure Eva Kant was made into a movie in 1968. Despite the best efforts of ironists (including the vile Beastie Boys and, sadly, the misguided latter-day MST3K) Diabolik the movie has endured as a visionary merging of the cinema and the comic book. But don't take my word for it -- in the DVD's special features, there's a great interview with none other than comic book artist supreme Steve Bissette, who praises the movie far more eloquently than I ever could.
I do, however, want to make note of the fact that Diabolik the movie was directed by Mario Bava (1914-1980), an exceptional craftsman in his field and a talent which I hope to cover in detail in future posts in this thread.
Sorry, but I fear I know little or nothing about Fantomas (he was a French creation, right? Nothing against France, of course.)
The closest connection I can think of is that I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Grant Morrison's creation Fantomex is a hybrid of Fantomas and Diabolik.
Actually, Diabolik is a source of controversy amongst the MSTies over at Club MST3k. Some of them feel like it was picked on unfairly. Others, like Yours Truly, thought the savaging it got at the end of The Age of Best Brains was well-deserved. I don't know which faction holds the lead, however.
I confess that the Italian stuff I've seen via The Brains often does have some stylish Mod flourishes that make it more fun and endurable than, say, the ouevre of Ed Wood. Still, the overpowering misogyny on display generally makes me want to bang my head against the wall.
I've never read the Diabolik comic, but I would imagine Eva was less of a damsel in it than she was in the movie, because it was created and initially written by women.
Viva Italia! In addition to spending many hours in undergrad and grad school learning about Italian history--ancient, middle age and modern, I've also grown to love various aspects of Italian culture!
I come from a town with a long history of Italian immigrants. Half my aunts, uncles and cousins are part Italian.
First: the food. I love it! Not only is my aforementioned home town loaded with great Italian restaurants, I'm of course near NYC. My sister studied in Italy for a year at the Italian Culinary Institute to be a chef.
And of course, the pop culture. I'm not all that familiar with Diabolik other than hearing about how awesome it is for years. But something I do love is the film catalogue of the amazing Dario Argento. Argento has spear headed a horror movement with a style that stands apart for its color and beauty. The films are a beacon of creativity in an often repetitive and lackadaisical genre.
Comic book genius Francesco Francavilla infuses all of his work with the trappings of Italian pop culture and the result is amazing. I highly recommend anything he touches. He's a writer / artist / colorist that is 10 steps ahead of everyone else.
I agree with you on Dario Argento. I think Deep Red, Suspiria, and Tenebre are among the best horror/thriller movies ever made. Inferno has some amazing moments, too, as does the "Animal Trilogy" that started Argento's career.
We should definitely discuss Argento further in this thread.
I think the Deep Red I saw years ago was a cut version. I remember it being rather disjointed. I was going to say more than the usual Italian giallo. But perhaps all the ones I've seen have been cut.
I know this isn't quite popular culture, but it's still significant that Italy has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites than any other world nation: italy has 49. The only other countries that have more than 40 are China with 45 and Spain with 44.
This becomes more significant when you see how much larger countries fare:
Mexico - 32 Russia - 25 USA - 21 Brazil, Australia - 19
I should finally have a new computer bought and installed within the next couple weeks, so then I can pick and choose songs. Right now, I can only stumble blindly, and that won't do. But...
...will this 4-minute sampler suffice for the moment?
Hey, I actually know one of the songs! I heard it for the first time this year, on some random internet radio station.
The song is awesome, but it has one of the worst videos I have ever seen. I was just a kid in 1984, but I think I could have come up with something better than this.
Moving forward, I want to share a wonderful gallery of photos of Italian LGBT icon Eva Robins (best known in America as the evil temptress in the flashback scenes from Dario Argento's Tenebre.)
Warning: due to nudity, this is not work safe or child friendly.
So... am I the only forum member who's actually from Italy? I didn't see anyone else chime in on this or other threads.
Question: You seem to be mainly a superhero fan, but were you into Paperino or Zio Paperone or Topolino as kid? I ask because one of the best things for me about growing up in South America was getting Spanish-language reprints of wonderful Italian Disney stories by such great creators as Romano Scarpa.
Question: You seem to be mainly a superhero fan, but were you into Paperino or Zio Paperone or Topolino as kid? I ask because one of the best things for me about growing up in South America was getting Spanish-language reprints of wonderful Italian Disney stories by such great creators as Romano Scarpa.
To anyone who's interested those are the Italian names for Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck and Mickey Mouse (they literally translate to Little Duck, Uncle Big Duck and Little Mouse). Not a huge fan because in the 90s the weekly Disney comics were publishing mostly contemporary new stories which were crap. If they did publish good stuff I didn't catch it... I was buying way too many superhero comics to keep up with multiple weekly Disney books. Years later I did read a few Scarpa comics and wondered why they didn't print THOSE regularly, because their fame was more than deserved. I might've been a Disney fan if I read some of that at the right age.
Aha. I see. I was definitely the right age and the right time. My peak Disney comics years were 1978 to 1984, and most of the Italian stories reprinted were from the early and mid 70s.
One of my favorite Scarpa stories is one where a crazy book publisher kidnaps Scrooge, Rockerduck, and Filo Sganga (the chicken in the green checkered jacket,) and forces them to go find a legendary parchment from Ancient Phoenicia.
I understand that Scarpa had his entire canon of work reprinted in Italy, in volumes with scholarly commentary and interviews? I'd love to see that, even though I don't speak Italian very well.
I understand that Scarpa had his entire canon of work reprinted in Italy, in volumes with scholarly commentary and interviews? I'd love to see that, even though I don't speak Italian very well.
Yeah, those can get crazy expensive. A few reprints in English seem to be available through Kindle or Comixology, though. https://www.amazon.com/s?i=digital-text&rh=p_27%3ARomano+Scarpa
Fantagraphics also has some reprints, though a lot seems to be out of stock.
Well the thread certainly took a strange turn from 80s Ivana Spagna. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7q28O5UT-o She's more famous in Italy for her career in the 90s and early 2000s when she switched to singing in Italian with a completely different, almost conservative style. I knew she started that way but before this thread I'd never heard one of her disco songs. But apparently enough people remember to put them in a 2014 concert (minus the crazy hair). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_PI-QkMwvo
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