Another chance to hear one of the most popular episodes of Cinema Italia, recorded in 2023.

Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom was released in 1975 and became an instant milestone in the cinema of transgression. A political fable, it tells the story of four men who in the waning days of Fascist Italy retire to a villa to enjoy their perversions and sadism at the expense of the young people they have captured. Torture, rape, murder and degradation are explicitly depicted in a way that remains shocking to this day. I talk with Jason Wood, author and film programmer for the BFI, about this electrifying, challenging film. The Music for the podcast is provided by Two Minute Noodles and more can be found here.

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Barry Forshaw is the author of the Guide to Italian Cinema: Arthouse to Exploitation.

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Italian cinema is one of the most glorious and energetic celebrations of the medium that any nation has ever offered. For many years, this astonishing legacy was largely unseen, but the DVD revolution is making virtually everything available, from Steve Reeves' muscle epics to long-unseen Italian art house movies. The one characteristic that most of the great (and not so great) Italian movies have in common is the sheer individualism of the directors. This applies to populist moviemakers and the giants of serious cinema. While Fellini, Visconti and Antonioni have rightly assumed their places in the pantheon, so have such talented popular auteurs as Sergio Leone, who was doing something with the Western that no American director would dare do. All the glory of Italian cinema is celebrated here in comprehensive essays, along with every key film in an easy-to-use reference format.

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My report from the Cinema Ritrovato Festival in Bologna

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Gillo Pontecorvo's film was one of the first movies to deal with the concentration camps. It starred Susan Strasberg and was inspired by the books of Primo Levi.

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We look at Federico Fellini's masterpiece 8 1/2, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale. Matthew Asprey Gear is a writer and lecturer. His online courses are available here: www.matthewaspreygear.com

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The masterpiece by the Taviani brothers is a wartime tale of a village in Tuscany on the eve of allied victory, as fascists and Germans take their terrible revenge. All is seen through the eyes of a young girl and the horror is fringed with comedy and wonder. I talk to Michael Brook about the film.

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