The origins of Italian Gothic cinema Original title: La maschera del demonio
Director: Mario Bava
Year: 1960
Production: Italy
Genre: horror
Length: 84 min. (B / W)
Cast: Barbara Steele, John Richardson, Ivo Garrani
Rating: 8
In the panorama of Italian cinema authors declaimed that there will in all likelihood, etched in collective memory (as well as on celluloid) forever. Then there are people unjustly forgotten, despite their contribution to the seventh art has been fundamental. Fortuna and abroad (the United States and much of Europe) there is still a "small and modest little man who, as he was skilled artisan is able to transform into brilliant artist, taking advantage of the metamorphosis that between the late fifties and the beginning of the seventies, the Italian company involved, marked - in large part - from the birth and spread of television. The much-discussed appliance accelerates the process of secularization in a public showing in the process of post-war recovery and therefore highly receptive, a costume more daring and uninhibited. The work of Mario Bava , active as director from 1960 to 1980, fits in this context: the advent of state television to the proliferation of private TV stations, from production to the prevailing sentimental melodramas of the fifties to the advent eroticism and violence that dominated the films of the sixties and seventies. It changed the people's way of thinking and changed the components of the stories involving the people themselves: a transformation conveyed primarily from two genres that reached their commercial peak in that period: the comedy el'horror.
A Light it with unanimity of thought, accountability of the invention of cinema Italian Gothic, and the first (along with Riccardo Freda) for breaking the ban on producing films that belong to a genre you do not like the Fascist regime. While it is true that the master Ligurian (San Remo to be precise) draws liberally from the acts of foreign productions - those of his contemporary English Hammer, and the more classic Universal thirties and forties - it is also true that can permeate all his work with a unique style and original, finding that the source of pure entertainment place, thanks to connubbio of three different elements: the fantastic, the irony and visual search, mixed with a great technical knowledge gained in years of Light Institute, first in the role of operator, then as director of photography and later as chief of tricks, becoming producer of special effects . All his skill is condensed in this monumental debut, "The mask of the devil" also highlights its ability to disrupt the idea of \u200b\u200bstarting to rebuild a screenplay, adapted from a story by Gogol load of irony, surreal atmosphere and attitudes fantastic, it becomes an epitome of cruelty, horror and macabre. Surrounded by an atavistic paganism cloaked Romantic ism is totally unknown to Gogol's original. The only element to remain is that sense of insecurity typical of representations of the Russian nobility which will, in Chekhov's one of its greatest singers. Do not miss the literary references to Dracula and the eternal conflict between Good and Evil, but the core revolves around the threat to the moral taboos, produced by the "monster" as a provocative girl, through sexual behavior judged by the company (and even more reason than forty years ago) deviant and perverse, effect of creating an attraction-repulsion using images "scandalous." Theme that will predominant for almost two decades, at least until the public will not be sufficiently astute and will need many other nightmares and fears in order to be fulfilled in a satisfactory manner. To embody this seductive terror are a young and charming Barbara Steele, with its special features, will have a key role in the emerging poetics of "ginecofobia," as has been described by some experts in the cinema of that period. The structure of the film is characterized by a kind of dichotomy is found in the characterization of the characters (above all, of course, the dual role of the protagonist), is one of the places: the contrast between the inn (and the village that it represents) and the mysterious castle is another clear reference to nineteenth-century literature. But Bava, with a brilliant intuition, likes to challenge certain conventions, involving, for almost the entire duration of the film, the evil in the light - just think of the face of the witch Asa seqenza initial showing in its execution, illuminated by a glow almost "sacred" - compared to the darkness that surrounds the sarcedoti - that would be rather a symbol of the good. The castle and gardens surrounding it appear obvious decay and symbolize the moral decay of the same characters. The other ever-present environments, common to any classic horror film, are the forest by the dense vegetation surrounding the coach on which they travel the two doctors, and the cemetery, the place unhallowed, which resurrected the victims of the witch to do his will. Light Dress with a beautiful black and white that allows him to show moreover that, until before him, was considered not displayable, returning to the fantasy genre that belongs to the physicality of law. The black and white becomes the new means of communication while maintaining unchanged, while the charm of its retro. To realize the greatness of this work is sufficient to recover the DVD published by the RHV and admire, in addition to the film, the documentary "Mario Bava: Maestro of the Macabre", listen to testimonies of directors like Tim Burton, John Carpenter or Joe Dante, who weave rightly his praises, as well as any other in Italy has never done enough, and maybe even move us to a remote past that will never return. article by David Battaglia
published in Italy Travel No. 35 Clementi Press, December 2006
