Commedia all'italiana

For the Italian improvisational theatre, see Commedia dell'arte.

Big Deal on Madonna Street by Mario Monicelli (1958)

Commedia all'italiana (pronounced [komˈmɛːdja allitaˈljaːna]; pl.: commedie all'italiana, "comedy in the Italian way"), or Italian-style comedy, is an Italian film genre born in Italy in the 1950s and developed in the 1960s and 1970s. It is widely considered to have started with Mario Monicelli's Big Deal on Madonna Street in 1958,[1] and derives its name from the title of Pietro Germi's Divorce Italian Style (1961).[2] According to most of the critics, La Terrazza (1980) by Ettore Scola is the last work considered part of the commedia all'italiana.[3][4][5]

Rather than a specific genre, the term indicates a period (approximately from the late 1950s to the early 1970s) in which the Italian film industry was producing many successful comedies, with some common traits like satire of manners, farcical and grotesque overtones, a strong focus on spicy social issues of the period (like sexual matters, divorce, contraception, marriage of the clergy, the economic rise of the country and its various consequences, the traditional religious influence of the Catholic Church in Italy) and a prevailing middle-class setting, often characterized by a substantial background of sadness and social criticism that diluted the comic contents.[6]

  1. ^ "I soliti ignoti" (in Italian). Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  2. ^ "Divorzio all'italiana (1961) di Pietro Germi" (in Italian). Retrieved 21 November 2022.
  3. ^ Brunetta, Gian Piero (1993). "Dal miracolo economico agli anni novanta, 1960-1993". Storia del cinema italiano (in Italian). Vol. IV. Editori Riuniti. p. 386. ISBN 88-359-3788-4.
  4. ^ "Ultimi bagliori di un crepuscolo (1971-1980)" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 26 November 2005. Retrieved 23 November 2022.
  5. ^ Giacovelli, Enrico (1990). La commedia all'italiana - La storia, i luoghi, gli autori, gli attori, i film (in Italian). Gremese Editore. pp. 11–12. ISBN 978-8876058738.
  6. ^ "Commedia all'italiana" (in Italian). Treccani. Retrieved 21 November 2022.