What the World’s Watching

Violent films aren’t particularly successful here in Italy.

Film critic Fausto Giani from the daily newspaper La Repubblica said: “After the ‘Rambo’ period, these violent films don’t attract the public anymore, because it’s not the violence in the film that attracts the public but the ‘star’ who is playing the role in the film, like Sylvester Stallone in his golden time.

“Today we could say that violent films are the films from Oliver Stone or [Quentin] Tarantino. People don’t go to the movie because it’s a violent film, but because they want to see a Tarantino or an Oliver Stone film.”

Antonello Villani, professor of cinema at the American University in Rome and a filmmaker, said, “One of the main channels for Hollywood is television, . . . and in Italy at the moment, TV stations are buying less from America. They are buying a lot from Germany, so there are less American films on TV.

“As far as cinema is concerned, if you look in the film listings in the newspaper, you really don’t see a lot of thrillers. In Italy the demand is much more generalized, much more varied across the board. . . . Frankly, I don’t think that the number of thrillers and violent movies is that high, and I think there may be a reverse trend, perhaps.”