The Italian Widescreen Era: The Adoption of Widescreen Technology as Periodizing Element in the History of Italian Cinema

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Notes

1. Specialized literature differentiates panoramic systems in three relatively homogenous groups. The first group is made up of “multi-camera” systems as Cinerama, which is characterized by the joining various film cameras and projectors in frame-for-frame synchronization. The second group is made up of “anamorphic” systems like CinemaScope, which obtain a panoramic image by employing a special optical device. The third group includes the “large-format” systems like Todd-AO, which are characterized by the use of large negative areas. See Brad Chisholm, “Widescreen Technologies,” The Velvet Light Trap 21 (Summer 1985), 67–74.

2. Even if recent anniversaries are finally triggering a systematic reflection on widescreen cinema as a complex historical object, with the exclusion of the United States, greatly documented in John Belton's work, there is a decided lack of research that addresses the institutionalization of panoramic technology in a specific country. For the American context, the main reference is always John Belton, Widescreen Cinema (Cambridge-London, 1992).

3. “Widescreen formats did not radically challenge, let alone overturn, classical Hollywood norms of shot composition: balance, centering of the narrative dominant, emphasis through camera position and sound […] all remained in force. Shot/reverse-shot remained a convention in Scope: one simply left more shoulder in one side of the frame. […] We must also remember that within the Hollywood film industry, technology is created and developed with an eye already on its absorption into the existing aesthetic system.” David Bordwell, “Widescreen Aesthetics and Mise en Scene Criticism,” The Velvet Light Trap 21 (Summer 1985), 25.

4. Francesco Casetti has been the coordinator of the national research project “Technology of Cinema, Technology in Cinema,” established in 2002, and continuing until 2007 through the publication of ten books of documents and research papers. Sandro Bernardi is the editor of Svolte tecnologiche nel cinema italiano: Sonoro e colore: una felice relazione tra tecnica ed estetica (Roma, 2006).

5. See Alberto Farassino, “2000 o 2001? Problemi di periodizzazione,” Bianco & Nero 6 (2000), 122–134. Problems of historical periodization in film studies are deeply analyzed in Enrico Biasin, Roy Menarini, Federico Zecca (eds.), Le età del cinema (The Ages of Cinema, Udine, 2008).

6. The first film shot in CinemaScope, The Robe, premiered in Italy on the 27th of November, 1954 at the Capitol theatre in Rome, was widely welcomed wherever scheduled, and easily won the Nastro d’argento as sales champion of the Italian season (1954). See “La Tunica nastro azzurro 1954,” 20th Century Fox, 1–2 (1955), 16.

7. The Techniscope format uses a two film-perforation negative pull-down per frame, instead of the standard four-perforation frame usually exposed in 35mm film photography. Thus, Techniscope release prints (2.35:1) are made by anamorphosizing and enlarging each frame by a factor of two. On Techniscope and Sergio Leone, see Barbara Crespi, “Sergio Leone e il wide screen all’italiana,” Comunicazioni Sociali 1 (2004), 87–100.

8. I’m applying to widescreen technology methods and concerns that Gaudreault has been discussing in relation to early cinema. See André Gaudreault, “Il ritorno del pendolo, ovvero storia di un ritorno in forza…della Storia,” in Gian Piero Brunetta (ed.), Storia del cinema mondiale Vol. IV (Torino, 2001), 121–144.

9. After a typical phase of uncertainty linked to the display of values at stake, the 20th Century Fox anamorphic technology won the commercial fight between competing systems. See John Belton, “CinemaScope: The Economics of Technology,” The Velvet Light Trap 21 (Summer 1985), 35–43.

10. The enrichment of the sensorial experience provided by the new screening technologies implies relevant interventions on theatre equipment, and a structural revision of architecture, in order to valorize the technological updating of the facilities, especially with regard to the location of seating. See Gaetano Mannino Patané, Guida pratica per l’operatore cinematografico (Milano, 1961), 255–285.

11. On the promotional strategies to sell the new widescreen technologies, although from a prevailing American perspective, see Augusto Sainati, “Tecnologie di integrazione o tecnologie di esibizione?,” in Alice Autelitano, Veronica Innocenti, Valentina Re (eds.), I cinque sensi del cinema (The Five Senses of Cinema, Udine, 2005), 173–195.

12. Applied to the first panoramic films, the attractional model makes explicit the desire to exhibit the technology that is hidden behind some recurrent stylistic options. See André Gaudreault, Tom Gunning, “Le cinéma des premiers temps, un défi à l’histoire du cinéma?,” in Jacques Amount, André Gaudreault, Michel Marie (eds.), Histoire du cinéma: nouvelles approches (Paris, 1989), 49–63.

13. Of these about 200 films, more than 85% were made with anamorphic systems. The remaining 15% were instead shot with horizontal film systems such as VistaVision and Technirama, which can be classified as large-format systems but which did not utilize the 70mm circuit. See Adriano Aprà, “La tecnica: colore, formati e lavorazioni,” in Sandro Bernardi (ed.), Storia del cinema italiano (1954–1959), Vol. IX (Roma-Venezia, 2004), 633–647.

14. Produced and commercialized by the Parisian Distribution Internationale Cinématographique (DIC) of the press mogul Jean Paul Mauclaire, Cinépanoramic was the most important European CinemaScope clone, featured in Italy by Report Film, a Roman film equipment rental service. See “Le procédé français Cinépanoramic a objectifs Anamorphot,” Le Film Français 470 (1953), 4-5.

15. For the technical problems related to the conversion of Italian postproduction laboratories to widescreen systems, see Elio Finestauri, “Il CinemaScope e l’industria cinematografica italiana,” Bollettino A.I.C. 1 (1955), 17–19.

16. According to the journal Cinematografia ITA, more than 20% of the total output of short movies made in 1955 was filmed in an anamorphic process, which is about 200 films, among them the debuts of such filmmakers as Ermanno Olmi and Vittorio De Seta. See “Panorama statistico della cinematografia italiana,” Cinematografia ITA 6 (1956), 41.

17. The making of Continente perduto, the first Italian movie filmed in CinemaScope, was constantly monitored by the specialized press, through advertisements (Cinemundus 1 [1955]), production notes (“Terminato di girare Continente Perduto,” Araldo dello spettacolo 136 [1954], 2), filmmakers’ comments (Enrico Gras, “Girando Continente perduto,” Ferrania 9 [1955], 16–21), and income analyses (Alessandro Ferraù, “I primi della classe,” Bollettino dello spettacolo 242 [1955], 2).

18. The panoramic effect can be used in a more or less attractional way, depending on its connection to the story. See Federico Vitella, “The Critical Style of Early Widescreen Italian Cinema: Attractional Strategies and Symbolic Forms,” in Enrico Biasin, Maria Pia Comand, Veronica Innocenti, Roy Menarini (eds.), Lo stile cinematografico (The Film Style, Udine, 2007), 227–236.

19. Peplum films were launched by the enormously successful Le fatiche di Ercole (Hercules, 1958), a film designed for the national Italian circuit and easily capable of penetrating the markets of the whole world; in the United States, especially, quickly dubbed into English, the film was a major commercial hit for distributor Joseph E. Levine. See Alberto Farassino, Tatti Sanguineti (eds.), Gli uomini forti (Milano, 1983).

20. The Technirama camera used 35mm film, running it horizontally and utilizing an 8-perforation frame, as VistaVision did, plus 1.5:1 anamorphic lenses. In the lab, the 8 perf. horizontal negative would be optically reduced with a further 1.33: 1 squeeze to create normal 4 perf. print (vertically running), with images having a squeeze ratio of 2:1, the same as CinemaScope. See Giorgio Marpicati, “Il sistema Technirama-Technicolor,” Filmtecnica 6 (1960), 30–31.

21. The first film shot with the Todd-AO system, Fred Zinnemann's Oklahoma! (1955), was presented at the Adriano movie theatre in Rome from the 14th of February 1957, but until the end of the decade the system had a hard time finding new outlets. By the end of 1959, the Milan-based company Cinemeccanica was responsible for the installation in 26 theatres. See “Todd-AO,” Rivista tecnica di cinematografia, elettroacustica, televisione 1 (1959), 4.

22. For the distribution of the first fiction film shot in Cinerama, John Ford, Henry Hathaway, George Marshall and Richard Thorpe's How the West Was Won (1962), Fred Waller's Cinerama was technologically updated and strongly re-promoted under the name “Super Cinerama.” During the sixties, “Super Cinerama” installations arrived worldwide to more than one hundred, four of them running in Italy: the Royal Theatre in Rome, the Politeama Margherita theatre in Genova, the Golden Theatre in Palermo, and the Manzoni Theatre in Milano. For “Super Cinerama” in United States, see “Costruzione di 15 sale Cinerama,” Araldo dello spettacolo, 202 (1961) 4; in Europe, see “Il quadro delle sale Cinerama in Europa,” Araldo dello spettacolo 38 (1963), 2; in Italy, see “Cinerama,” Rivista tecnica di cinematografia, elettroacustica, televisione 2 (1964), 12.

23. For a biographical profile of Giovanni Ventimiglia, see Alfredo Baldi (ed.), I Ventimiglia, tre generazioni in cinema (Roma, 1993), 29–39.

24. The film was to be shot in CinemaScope according to both production documents and the Italian technical press, but Rossellini was ultimately forced to use the Academy format in order to reduce production time and expense. See “Tabella di lavoro. La produzione italiana attualmente in cantiere,” Cinematografia ITA 1 (1954), 4, and “Rossellini ha rinunciato al CinemaScope per Giovanna,” Araldo dello spettacolo, 51 (1954), 4.

25. There are various reasons for the lack of affection towards the widescreen format: first of all, the association between widescreen and Hollywood films; secondly, an implicit willingness to differentiate “auteur” films from genre films; and finally, a certain skepticism towards a technology that determined such limitations for expression. For the statements of some Italian directors (Vittorio De Sica, Luigi Zampa, Clemente Fracassi, Alessandro Blasetti, Alberto Lattuada, Duilio Coletti, Mario Camerini) on the advent of widescreen, see Luigi Costantini, “I registi italiani di fronte al CinemaScope,” Filmcritica 53–54 (1955), 361–365.

26. Almost fifty years after his famous article heralding CinemaScope, “Vertus cardinales du CinémaScope” (Cahiers du cinéma 31 [1954], 36–39), Rohmer has reconsidered his opinion about widescreen systems: “Le scope”—he claims in 2001”—“est responsable de la pauvreté expressive de l’image.” See Eric Rohmer, “Le large et le haut,” Cahiers du cinéma, 559 (2001), 59–61. It's interesting to note that Rohmer has never used anamorphic systems as a filmmaker, nor even widescreen masking, except for Le signe du lion (The Sign of Leo, 1959).

27. See Rick Altman, “Toward a Theory of the History of Representational Technologies,” Iris 2 (1984), 111–125.

28. See, for example, the debate on widescreen technologies promoted between September 1953 and March 1954 by the film journal Cinema Nuovo: Michele Gandin, Renzo Renzi, “CinemaScope, prime impressioni,” Cinema Nuovo 19 (1953), 181; Lo Duca, “Dov’è Lauren?,” Cinema Nuovo 21 (1953), 247; Morando Morandini, “CinemaScope contro la crisi,” Cinema Nuovo 22 (1953), 279; “Il Napoleone di Hollywood,” Cinema Nuovo 31 (1954), 135; Callisto Cosulich, “Il montaggio può attendere,” Cinema Nuovo 31 (1954), 136.