Why Bad Things Happen to Bad People: Investigating Evil in the Italian Giallo. Issue 1 (19th July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Bayman, Louis
• Is Part Of: Open screens. Volume 5:Issue 1(2022)
• Publication Date: 2022-07-19
• Subjects: Motion pictures -- Periodicals; Television broadcasting -- Periodicals; Motion pictures -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; Television broadcasting -- Study and teaching -- Periodicals; 791.43
• DOI: 10.16995/os.8010
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2516-2888

Abstract

Abstract : Scholars generally find little to say about morality in the Italian giallo film, beyond proposing that it must be conservative and then moving on to more interesting topics. At the same time, the genre is often thought to display aspects of modernist radicalism. I explore this potential contradiction by identifying how the genre suggests the presence of evil. This suggestion offers new ways of thinking about the moral and artistic strategies of a genre which I argue represents a break in the history of Italian popular cinema. This break is as violent as it is uncertain, and its uncertainty offers a key to positioning the giallo in relation to its cultural background. To recognise the presence of evil in the giallo thereby helps in understanding the particularities of the modernity, the morality, as well as the pleasures the genre presents.