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Giallo Cinema and Its Folktale Roots
A Critical Study of 10 Films, 1962–1987
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Book Presentation:
The Italian giallo film genre—the equivalent of the American whodunit but incorporating extreme violence and sex—was based on popular British and American fiction of the 30s and 40s, adapted to the explicitly liberal filmmaking of 1970s and 1980s Europe. Seldom released in American theaters, these films were usually distributed as redacted bootlegs, awaiting digital technology to be restored to their original content and pristine visual form.
This book analyzes the censored sex and violence of giallo films, finding in them an inherent beauty and tracing their literary antecedents to the elements of the fairy tale as described by Russian folklorist Vladimir Propp. Each chapter covers a film and its director, from 1962 to 1987. The author argues that despite their formulaic production and designation as “Euro-sleaze,” these films are works of individuality and artistic virtue.
About the Author:
Michael Sevastakis has served as a full professor in the communication department at the College of Mt. St. Vincent in Riverdale, New York. He lives in Bronx, New York.
Press Reviews:
"makes the case for the giallo’s artistic merit"—Flick Attack; "detailed, insightful, and intelligent"—Bookgasm.
See the publisher website: McFarland & Co
> On a related topic:
Italian Giallo in Film and Television (2022)
A Critical History
Blood in the Streets (2019)
Histories of Violence in Italian Crime Cinema
Giallo! (2021)
Genre, Modernity, and Detection in Italian Horror Cinema
Bloodstained Narratives (2023)
The Giallo Film in Italy and Abroad
Fame Amid the Ruins (2025)
Italian Film Stardom in the Age of Neorealism
The Celluloid Atlantic (2025)
Hollywood, Cinecittà, and the Making of the Cinema of the West, 1943–1973
Traveling Auteurs (2024)
The Geopolitics of Postwar Italian Cinema
Women, Feminism and Italian Cinema (2023)
Archives from a Film Culture
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