Post thumbnail of “Out West, Down South” in The Italianist.
2 July 2010
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“Out West, Down South” in The Italianist.

My latest article, on the cinematographic nuances of Damiano Damiani’s political Italian Western Quien sabe? (1966), appears in this summer’s edition of The Italianist. This publication has become established as one of the leading international journals of Italian Studies. The annual Film Issue provides an outlet for research into an aspect …

Post thumbnail of Mannaja: A Spaghetti Valediction
9 June 2010
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Mannaja: A Spaghetti Valediction

“HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT’S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.”
(T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land).
Sergio Martino’s Mannaja / A Man Called Blade (1977) is about as entertaining a death-rattle as one might hope to encounter, but a terminal gurgle it remains. The Italian Western phenomenon …

Post thumbnail of Planet Spaghetti Western!
6 April 2010
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Planet Spaghetti Western!

If, like me, you struggle to keep up with the plethora of Spaghetti Western-related material floating around this here interweb, then the chaps over at the invaluable Spaghetti Western Database have a treat in store. Planet Spaghetti Western is a new syndicator, which pulls content from throughout the Spaghetti blogosphere …

Post thumbnail of Call For Papers – Spaghetti Western Reviews
27 January 2010
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Call For Papers – Spaghetti Western Reviews

I am currently editing the “Spaghetti Westerns” chapter of Intellect Books’ forthcoming Directory of World Cinema: Italy. I am therefore on the lookout for scholarly submissions for consideration in this exciting new project, which will be published both as a printed volume and an open-access database of articles and film reviews.

Submission Guidelines:
If …

Post thumbnail of “A Marxist’s Gotta Do What a Marxist’s Gotta Do”
11 January 2010
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“A Marxist’s Gotta Do What a Marxist’s Gotta Do”

Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation, edited by Iain Robert Smith, is now online. This exciting new eBook of original scholarship on processes of adaptation in film, television and new media is a special edition of the peer-reviewed journal Scope: an Online Journal of Film and TV Studies. It includes my …

Post thumbnail of Raging Against La Macchina: Transatlantic Dietrologia in Sergio Sollima’s “Revolver”
5 January 2010
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Raging Against La Macchina: Transatlantic Dietrologia in Sergio Sollima’s “Revolver”

“Society”, opines Reinhard Kolldehoff’s gleefully shady lawyer, “has many ways of defending itself: red tape, prison bars and the revolver”. His line serves a dual purpose. On a narrative level, it suggests to the key protagonist Vito Cipriani (Oliver Reed) the futility of resistance against the state apparatus facing him. …

Post thumbnail of Django Spara per Primo and Narrative Dissonance
24 November 2009
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Django Spara per Primo and Narrative Dissonance

Fade in. A lone bounty hunter occupies centre-frame of a long shot amidst an arid Andalucían desert landscape, his recently-slain human quarry sprawled limply over the saddle of a spare horse. As the camera pulls out to reveal Glenn Garvin waiting in the near foreground, the inevitability of a stylised confrontation …

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