Cinema of Italy - The 1980s Crisis

The 1980s Crisis

Between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, Italian cinema was in crisis; "art films" became increasingly isolated, separating from the mainstream Italian cinema.

Among the major artistic films of this era were La città delle donne, E la nave va, Ginger and Fred by Fellini, L'albero degli zoccoli by Ermanno Olmi (winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival), La notte di San Lorenzo by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, Antonioni's Identificazione di una donna, and Bianca and La messa è finita by Nanni Moretti. Although not entirely Italian, Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, winner of 9 Oscars, and Once Upon a Time in America of Sergio Leone came out of this period also.

During this time, "trash films" were popular in Italy. Films of little artistic value, these comedies reached their popularity by confronting Italian social taboos, most notably in the sexual sphere. Actors such as Lino Banfi, Diego Abatantuono, Alvaro Vitali, Gloria Guida, Barbara Bouchet and Edwige Fenech owe much of their popularity to these films.

Also considered part of the trash genre are films which feature Fantozzi, a comic personage invented by Paolo Villaggio. Although Villaggio's movies tend to bridge trash comedy with a more elevated social satire; this character had a great impact on Italian society, to such a degree that the adjective fantozziano entered the lexicon. Of the many films telling of Fantozzi's misadventures, the most notable were Fantozzi and Il secondo tragico Fantozzi.