The visual imagery of the Italian horror cinema

• Grant number: 17/12289-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: October 01, 2017
• End date: February 28, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Arts - Art Fundamentals and Criticism
• Principal Investigator: Jorge Sidney Coli Junior
• Grantee: Letícia Badan Palhares Knauer de Campos
• Host Institution: Instituto de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas (IFCH). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The doctoral research that follows is aimed at the study of horror films produced in Italy between the 1970s and 1990s, whose dialogue with the visual arts becomes evident. From the analysis of the films it is sought to understand and weave the relations between cinematographic productions and the visual references there present, in order to establish possible connections between cinema and Art History and to understand how horror cinema, specifically the Italian, makes use of the most varied artistic productions in the conception of its visual and thematic corpus. At times expressing itself as a source of fear, in others revealing submerged issues of the images and the films themselves, the artistic survival in the cinema reveals an intense dialogue with the horror genre. Thus, films that sometimes have no relation to the artistic universe, nourish themselves on visual references and incorporate through the use of the fine arts, especially painting and sculpture, themes that turn to the Art History itself. As part of the décor and the mise-en-scène, or through plastic citations, the arts - in the Italian horror cinema - is presented as an element of the macabre. This research, therefore, aims to study the reverberation of works of art in horror movies, through a detailed analysis and study of the films and the references that they present. (AU)