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Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Ph.D Thesis Abstract - «It’s Much More Beautiful!». Colour in the Amateur Italian Cinema: History, Discourses, Social Uses 
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Projects & Abstracts
2012-10-01
2021-09-09
2012-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Elena Gipponi
2012/10/01
Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM, Milano
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Ph.D Thesis Abstract - «It’s Much More Beautiful!». Colour in the Amateur Italian Cinema: History, Discourses, Social Uses 
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/16325/17190
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«IT’S MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL!». COLOUR IN THE AMATEUR ITALIAN CINEMA:
HISTORY, DISCOURSES, SOCIAL USES
Elena Gipponi / Ph.D. Thesis Abstract1
Libera Università di Lingue e Comunicazione IULM, Milano




  The purpose of my dissertation is to discuss the role of colour in the amateur Italian cinema.

technological review on the development of the main colour processes throughout the history of

  As a matter of fact, colour has been examined by many disciplines, from physics to chemistry,


Michel Pastoureau argues,2 therefore every universal symbolism should be avoided (red stands
for…, blue stands for…).
  If this is true in general, it can be reasonably assumed that colour perception in the cinematic
experience is culturally
                                                                         3
                                                                           it means primarily com-

on the one hand offers a faithful reproduction of reality, while on the other hand, by virtue of the
same perceptual power, triggers an imaginary and spectacular deviation from reality.




out of extra human handlings and this automatic source gives rise to an interesting contradiction:

colour becomes actually invisible. Colour is everywhere but, because of its “naturalness,” it tends

in the mainstream and genre

                                                                                                   -
                                                                                                   -


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                                                                                                141
ELENA GIPPONI

days, christenings and weddings, holidays and Carnivals. It’s exactly because of their stereotyped
nature that amateur images are truly representative of a nameless style: they resemble each other
and in this repetitiveness lies their illustrative power; furthermore, home movies images are the
quintessence of collective memory, as Roger Odin points out.4 At the same time, and conversely,
                                                                                                 -
stricted public (family members), every home movie is a unique exemplar, because it is usually

projection). The second chapter of the thesis describes and analyzes some important studies on the

has been studied in many countries, from Europe to the US, little attention has been devoted to

small-gauge (16 mm, 9.5 mm, 8 mm, Super8) technological history, a pivotal factor emerged: co-
                          before in the small-gauge and reversal version employed by the amateurs
and only at a later stage in the 35mm negative-positive version used by the professionals and the
industry. This technological leadership shows that amateur cinema was considered by manufactur-

“from below” and was directed to the mass of the amateurs.
                                                              Italian cinema and home movies: did


                                                                                              -
ed to the discourses’ analysis: a sample of around thirty Italian, French, English and American


how should a good                                                                      colour home

good colour home movie does not distance itself from standard norms and approved solutions of
harmonius composition. Colour should not jar on our senses and should be limited in order not to
distract from the story: it must be practiced “colour restraint,” just as in the classical Hollywood


solutions and his/her creative potential is neutralized.
                                                                                                    -




their widespread availability in Italy was achieved only since the mid-1950s. Therefore, in order to
observe not only the introduction but also the stabilization of this innovation, it has been isolated

because this format was launched in 1965, when colour movies were by then common not only in
the amateur practices but also in the theatrical cinema. In order to collect some information about
the social and technological context, the amateur (or a family member) has been interviewed.

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                                                                          «IT’S MUCH MORE BEAUTIFUL!»

    From the analysis carried out, it can be observed that a shared and widespread chromatic style

represented for instance by magic lantern plates, hand-painted photographs, picture postcards or
                                                                                               -

                                                                                                        -




end, Carnivals are the quintessential topic). Thus, the two main cultural meanings of colour – real-
ity and, on the other hand, daydream – are put together in our Italian home movies sample. In turn,
this textual aesthetic negotiation get along with a deeper contextual change in the Italian culture
and society. In fact, between the 1950s and the 1960s Italy was overcoming postwar hardship and
was opening up to a sudden modernization that appeared also by way of new colours in the every-

food and beverage… Although for the most part Italy still was an outdated and underdeveloped

Italian amateurs were a sort of advance guard projected toward technological progress, an inner
circle of pioneers that eagerly embraces newness and, doing so, helps decreasing the fear of tech-
nology and, more broadly, of the future. Even though many colour home movies show the “same
old subjects,” nevertheless their representation is as much up-to-date as possible just because it is
in colour. In conclusion, the amateurs met during the research are not true innovators of the visual
chromatic style; rather, they are active protagonists of their time because of their openness toward




1    Ph.D. dissertation defended on 18 March 2013. Thesis supervisors: Prof. Luisella Farinotti and Prof.
     Federico Pierotti.
2    Michel Pastoureau, Dictionnaire des couleurs de notre temps. Symbolique et société, Bonneton, Paris
     1992; Michel Pastoureau, Dominique Simonnet, Le petit livre des couleurs, Editions du Panama, Paris
     2005; Michel Pastoureau, Les couleurs de nos souvenirs, Seuil, Paris 2010.
                        Introduction à la couleur: des discours aux images, Armand Colin, Paris 1994; Id.
     (ed.), La couleur en cinéma, Cinémathèque française, Musée du cinéma/Fondazione Mazzotta, Paris-Mi-
     lan 1995.
4    Roger Odin (ed.),                                                                                Le
     cinéma en amateur, Communications (edited by Roger Odin), no. 68, 1999.




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