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Another Kind of Spaghetti Western: Italo Zingarelli and The Production of The TRINITÀ FILMS

2020; Routledge; Volume: 40; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01439685.2020.1715599

1465-3451

Stefano Baschiera,

Italian Literature and Culture

The purpose of this article is to engage, from an industrial perspective, with Italian cinema’s concept of filone (a near equivalent of genre) by analysing the production and distribution of two of the most popular and successful Italian films at the box office: Lo chiamavano Trinità (They Call Me Trinity, Enzo Barboni, 1970) and its sequel Continuavano a chiamarlo Trinità (Trinity is Still My Name, Enzo Barboni, 1971). Produced by Italo Zingarelli’s West Film, the two films represented, on the one hand, a departure from consolidated Spaghetti Western violent tropes in order to offer a family friendly form of entertainment. On the other hand, they represented the pinnacle of the bottom-up/low budget production strategy characteristic of the heyday of the Italian genre factory. The article argues that a contextualisation of the two films within the Spaghetti Western filone, alongside an analysis of Zingarelli’s work as producer and distributor, is revealing of the ambition of Italian producers of the period and the role played by regional distribution in the development of filoni and a cinema of imitation.