There are a couple of remarks by Luigi Cozzi (I think) that I mention in my thesis, which I could remember well enough to paraphrase, but cannot remember their sources.
First, Cozzi remarking that a difference between Bava and Argento's films was that Bava's tended not to play in the first-run circuit (except maybe very briefly) whereas Argento's did.
Second, Cozzi remarking that in Italy producers did not want to know what a film was about, but what films it was like.
Thanks in advance
6 comments:
The first might be from An Eye for Horror documentary.
The second might not be Cozzi's remark. I have a vague recollection that someone said something similar on the extras of one of these Sergio Martino giallo films.
I have a citation for the Cozzi quote:
"In Italy, when you bring a script to a producer, the first question he asks is not "what is your film like?" but "what film is your film like?" That's the way it is, we can only make Zombie 2, never Zombie 1"
Ghastly Beyond Belief by Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman, Arrow Books, 1985 p327.
Where the original quote is from I don't know, but 'Ghastly Beyond Belief' quotes 'Starburst' Magazine a lot, so maybe there.
This is a strange and difficult quote to properly source. In Koven's La Dolce Morte he quotes it on p. 11 and assigns it to Newmnan's Monthly Film Bulletin 3-parter on Italian exploitation, pt. 3, p. 92. I have the article, and it ends on page 91, the quote is not in there! Recently I've seen it assigned to Ken Gelder's reader, The Horror Reader, to Leon Hunt's piece A Sadistic Night at the Opera. I don't have the reader but do have the Hunt essay, and it is not in there either. So it is probably in another essay from In the Horror Reader, my guess would be Gelder's intro to the section housing the Hunt essay. It's never been easy tracking this quote!
On the Sinister Film edition of "La ragazza che sapeva troppo" is an introduction by Luigi Cozzi in which he talks a bit about the difference of the means Bava and Argento had at disposition. He also states that "La ragazza" was not a success at the same level as "L'uccello" (I do not know how reasonable such a comparison is, given there's almost a decade between the films).
During this introduction Cozzi holds also his book on Bava in the camera. I have never read this book, but it seems to me worth a try for both quotes
I think the second quote - Cozzi remarking that in Italy producers did not want to know what a film was about, but what films it was like - is from Leon Hunt's essay A (Sadistic) Night at the Opera.
I think he makes a similar remark in an interview on one of the special features of a recent Arrow Video release - could be an Argento one, I can't remember. Hope this is of some help!
I am fairly certain that the second Cozzi remark appeared in a Cinefantastique article in the 1980s. I cannot recall where exactly; it might have been a piece about CONTAMINATION or possibly his HERCULES film with Lou Ferigno.
Back in those days, writers often recycled their work to different publications on either side of the Atlantic, so the article might have been published elsewhere, too. And of course Cozzi may have said the same thing on multiple occasions.
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