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The strange vice of Mr. D.: The American Cinematheque talks Italian, 7/9-7/16
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Chris D., Head Programmer of The American Cinematheque talks about the Italian Grindhouse Festival playing at the Egyptian Theatre from July 9-July 16.
Marvin Miranda: First off: How would you best describe "Italian Grindhouse" to the uninitiated? What sets it apart from "typical" Italian movies or from American Grindhouse movies? In other words, what's special about Italian Grindhouse? What do you personally love about it?
Chris D.: "Italian Grindhouse" films are not the films that are the so-called Italian "classics" (99% of which I love, by people like Fellini, Antonioni, de Sica, Rosselini, etc.,) but the "pop" cinema of the time period. Every country has that "pop" cinema aimed at the masses, a colloquial or vernacular kind of movie that grows out of trends and genres that seem to draw people into the box office. Whether it be horror, crime, the western -- all done and executed to varying degrees of success by the Italians as well as the Americans, et. al. Then they had their own genres which, for all intents and purposes, they virtually invented themselves: the giallo (or sexy suspense thriller), nunsploitation, sword and sandal, etc.,. These genres really flourished in the 1960s through the 1970s. And many giallo, horror and crime thrillers continued to be made in Italy -- though not in as great a number -- in the 1980s and 90s.
MM: Let's talk about the list of films. Very impressive cross-section of Italian genre cinema, or as you're dubbing it, "Italian Grindhouse." Definitely up my alley: A few giallos (Italian murder-mysteries/slashers), a couple of spaghetti westerns, a couple of sword and sandal films (gladiators, ancient rome epics), a couple of Poliziottesco (Italo-crime, "tough cop" movies); some dating back to the early '60s, one as recent as 1996. Was there a unifying theme that you were going for with the examples in this cross-section. Well, I mean, besides "impressive"?
CD: I just wanted to do a cross-section because frankly it is hard to come up with enough films in any one genre to do a whole week of programming. We have done a giallo week once or twice before. But the prints are almost impossible to find. Because we have a really superb digital video projection system now, it loosens up things a little as we can project off of DVD and it looks almost as good -- if not as good -- as a regular projected film print. I want to show stuff that is not available on DVD here in the United States (except for a few really popular titles like OPERA, CEMETERY MAN and HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD.)
MM: You know, a series like this, where it's more of a cross-section of Italian sub-genres than a retrospective on one specific director or one specific type of movie, has more of a feel of what it could have been like on any given day in the '70s and early '80s in the glory days of American cinema theatre rows like 42nd St. in New York or Downtown L.A. What inspired this particular series and its cross-section?
CD: That's exactly the kind of thing I'm striving for. One thing that people come to the movies for when they're not going to the latest new flash-in-the-pan blockbuster, when they're coming to a repertory cinema or retrospective like this, is to re-experience something they may have had a taste of when they were much younger, either as kids or teenagers in the 70s or 80s. Then there are younger folks who are too young to have been going to movies then who are savvy enough to know, partly from people like Tarantino and partly just their own innate sense of adventurousness (based on things heard from older friends or from buying an interesting "old" film on the internet or at someplace like Amoeba), that there was something fascinating going on back then and it is worth experiencing on the big screen in a communal audience -- not just at home on a TV with a couple of friends.
MM: Why do you think there has been (and continues to be) such a strong interest in these films over the past decade or so, especially in the home theatre market? You can argue that the interest for these films has been longer than ten years--really since VHS tapes were first introduced--but certainly where there was a home video label like Anchor Bay putting out the occasional Italian genre film alongside American and International films, now there are labels that dedicate a substantial amount of their catalogue to these Italian subgenres. Why do you think this is so?
CD: I think it's because alot of the people at the labels themselves are fans of the films and want to see them out. I know that was so with Bill Lustig when he was at Anchor Bay then later when he started his own label Blue Underground. It's true with people like Carl Morano and his colleagues at Media Blasters. No Shame was another, although they are also an Italian company and put out so much stuff, including great obscure classic Italian films, that they just could not financially sustain themselves here in the U.S. (though I think they're still in business in Italy). The sales just did not warrant or reflect the volume of stuff they were putting out. So they went belly-up here. They seem to have resurfaced in Mya Communications (which I believe are the same No Shame people in Italy), although their output is much lower in volume and the quality of their DVD mastering is nowhere near what it was before.
MM: How does the Cinematheque go about acquiring such an array of films, especially since I imagine most of them (if not all) are not prints that are lying around in American Studios? How difficult was it to obtain some of these prints, especially the ones that aren't even available on DVD? Although almost all of them will be projected from film, some of them will be projected from "digital sources." Why is that? Any titles you wish you could have obtained but couldn't? If so, why not?
CD: We get some of the prints from collectors, some from archives. We project some off of European DVDs since we have a kick-ass digital projection system now. We have to kind of patch things together as best we can when we do a series like this. I check out an enormous amount of stuff and often times we just have to give up on a title because, if it's a print, the color might be too faded or it might be too splicy, or if it's on DVD, the resolution quality is not up too par when projected on the big screen. So it's trying to just find the best stuff available that is going to look decent on the screen and is also worth being shown. There are alot of films I'd like to get that are just not available as prints or decent digital transfers. Or else the films have been in print way too long on DVD and I intuitively know the audience will not turn out in big enough numbers to warrant screening them. None of the prints are coming from Europe. The only time we can afford to do something like that is when we have some heavy sponsorship from an outside source (like we did from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs when we did our French Crime series a couple of years ago). But that kind of outside sponsorship is virtually impossible to find on a series like this.
MM: I see that you've personally compiled this list of films. How much preparation and time is needed to compile a series like this? How does the Cinematheque decide on such a series? Can you briefly summarize that whole process from inception to actual screenings since I'm sure it's probably complicated?
CD: It takes a few months of research, emailing and calling around. Then sometimes borrowing prints ahead of time to inspect to make sure the quality is good enough. An awful lot of watching PAL DVDs from Europe. Then agonizing over what will bring people in. Gambling on what has enough word of mouth cult notoriety, which can be very hard to calculate sometimes. It's always a gamble. But programming films, no matter what the series, is always a gamble if you're adventurous and don't want to just keep showing the same mainstream, tried-and-true stuff over and over again. It's very hard to strike that balance, a constant struggle. There is an evergrowing competition from all kinds of other outside media, as well as other local movie venues.
MM: I see directors Quentin Tarantino and Dario Argento are both given special thanks for, I imagine, lending the Cinematheque some of the prints from their personal collections, or at the very least, helping it acquire some of them. Which prints belong to who and is it as simple as picking up the phone and asking them?
CD: I don't like to say which prints I'm getting from whom, because I don't want them deluged with requests. But I usually personally thank them the night of the screening. Quentin loaned us a couple of prints. As far as Dario, it was just a matter of getting permission from him to screen the print of OPERA that MGM has, because Dario is the worldwide rightsholder. And we had a contact for Dario and he is very friendly with the Cinematheque because he knows how much of his stuff we've shown over the years, going back to the series we did at Raleigh back in the mid-1990s when he was our guest. We also get prints from collectors like Harry Guerro. Also we sometimes get stuff from Bob Mirowski, Sam Raimi's fave editor and he's also co-editor with his girlfriend Chris on Kathryn Bigelow's new pic THE HURT LOCKER (which I highly recommend by the way). Bob has Grindhouse Releasing with Sage Stallone and they often supply collector genre prints to the New Beverly as well as us and others like I think Cinefamily. Although we're not getting anything from Bob this time around.
MM: Any specific film or double feature where you thought, "Oh, I have to include it/them!" or "Man, I love this/these film(s) and have to get my hand on it/them for this series!"
CD: Well anything by Argento brings people in. Besides being an Argento fan, I really need to consider which filmmakers or titles are going to have the strongest draw. I've had a few requests for peplum or sword and sandal pix, which are enormously hard to find as far as prints, and I knew of the HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD print and we had not shown it the last time we did a Bava series a couple of years ago. There are a couple of films we've shown in the past like PARANOIA directed by Umberto Lenzi with Carroll Baker that people love (and with good reason because it is so entertainingly, masterfully wacked-out!). I finally got an excellent DVD (not yet released here) of QUIET PLACE TO KILL also with Baker directed by Lenzi which is nearly as good, which I thought would round out an excellent double feature. There are a couple of films I've wanted to get for years in 35mm print form but are just not available or, if they are, they are available only from Italy and too expensive to bring in. My ideal double feature would probably be Jorge Grau's THE LIVING DEAD AT MANCHESTER MORGUE and Pupi Avati's HOUSE WITH LAUGHING WINDOWS. But that bill has proved impossible so far. One of my fave double bills we've shown before is INVESTIGATION OF A CITRIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION (which actually won the Best Foreign Film Oscar that year) and A QUIET PLACE IN THE COUNTRY (both directed by one of my fave directors, Elio Petri, someone who really bridged that arthouse and pop cinema gap). I wanted to show it again, but we showed it a bit too recently. I'd love to show Petri's THE 10TH VICTIM. But the only decent print is in Italy. There are many other crazy, enormously entertaining giallo and crime films I'd love to show, but have been unable to.
MM: Besides an awareness of these specific films and Italian sub-genres, what else would you like someone who has never heard of these titles but who might be piqued after reading this interview to try out one or a double feature; what would you like them to experience or come away with from the experience.
CD: People who love that ultra-mod, groovy insanity of Italian fashion and interior design (think 5 DOLLS FOR AN AUGUST MOON) should come to see the Carroll Baker double bill (PARANOIA and A QUIET PLACE TO KILL) as well as the double bill of giallo THE NEXT VICTIM and QUEENS OF EVIL (a hip counterculture, sexy adult fairy tale with horror overtones). There are a couple of spaghetti westerns that are impossible to see on the big screen, SARTANA and MINNESOTA CLAY. Both comparatively unknown here. But SARTANA was enormously popular all over Europe in its initial release and had countless sequels. The one thing about all these films is they are totally unpretentious (and if they are pretentious, it's in an endlessly amusing, hilarious way). There is a kind of an infectious fun about these movies, a kind of headlong delirium that is really kind of intoxicating and really takes you out of yourself. Which is what movies should be all about. Escape from your normal, humdrum or troubled life.
MM: Now, you probably know this: I absolutely LOVE the American Cinematheque and for the past 15 years or so, since its days at the Raleigh Studios on Melrose, have considered it my other "home" . So, I'm aware of these types of series happening all the time. But what thrills me like few other things is finding out what else the Cinematheque is cooking up for future engagements. For the remainder of the year, is there anything coming up that movie lovers, especially of the genre/exploitation/grindhouse variety might want to know about? Can you throw out some specific titles?
CD: In August we're doing a So Bad They're Brilliant series co-prorammed with writers Alonso Duralde and Stephen Rebello with titles like KITTEN WITH A WHIP, XANADU, MAHOGANY, THE LONELY LADY which should be a lot of fun. In last part of August we're doing our annual Fantasy, Horror and Sci-Fi series which will start with a 10th Anniversary of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT with the directors, producers and hopefully a few of the cast. We'll be doing a Euro thriller triple feature with TERROR CREATURES FROM THE GRAVE (a good 35mm print of the impossible to see on the big screen Barbara Steele film, which I almost programmed in this month's Italian series), with RETURN OF DR. MABUSE and WEREWOLF IN A GIRL'S DORMITORY. We'll be doing a double bill with actress Diane Baker in-person (STRAIT-JACKET and MIRAGE), a John Carpenter double bill of THE THING and THEY LIVE, a double bill of Ken Russell's THE DEVILS and Fulci's BEATRICE CENCI, a ghostly love story double bill of classics PORTRAIT OF JENNIE and THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. We'll be closing out with the L.A. Premiere of BLAIR WITCH director Eduardo Sanchez's new film, SEVENTH MOON. We'll also be doing more mainstream stuff, like an Indiana Jones marathon (of the first three films). And in September or October I'm hoping to put together another installment of Japanese Giant Monsters films
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