Sound and Horror in the Giallo Film

By (author) Damien Pollard

ISBN13: 9780253073907

Imprint: Indiana University Press

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Format: Hardback

Published: 03/11/2025

Availability: Not yet available

Description
The Italian giallo was a sleazy, violent, and stylistically baroque form of horror film that was produced in great numbers from the 1960s to the 1980s. Sound and Horror in the Giallo Film listens closely to these films and asks how their soundtracks and their use of the human voice can help us understand their significance within Italy's profound postwar social, economic, political, and cultural changes. Throughout the history of Italian cinema, soundtracks have been a site of concerted and sustained intervention by political and economic forces. In Sound and Horror in the Giallo Film, author Damien Pollard argues that, because the giallo film pushed the boundaries of the form while also touting unapologetic commercialism, the voices on its soundtracks were both aesthetically exaggerated and directly shaped by commercial imperatives, which were influenced by Italy's turbulent postwar years. Featuring case studies of several well-known giallo films, including The Girl Who Knew Too Much, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, and Tenebrae, Sound and Horror in the Giallo Film is an original analysis that reveals how the cinematic voice binds film and history.
Acknowledgments Introduction: Eavesdropping on History 1. Intertextual Voices: The Girl Who Knew Too Much 2. Directorial Voices: The Bird with the Crystal Plumage 3. Ideological Voices: Short Night of Glass Dolls 4. National Voices: Don't Torture a Duckling and Torso 5. Economic Voices: The New York Ripper and Tenebrae Conclusion: The Voice as a Process Bibliography Index
  • Film theory & criticism
  • Film: styles & genres
  • General (US: Trade)
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List Price: £74.00