CINEMA, THEATRE AND TELEVISION

Mass media have formed intense and fruitful relationships with the song since their inception. The first Italian talkie was titled “La canzone dell’amore” (The song of love 1930) and during the Fascist era cinema strengthened its position in the entertainment industry also through songs and interpreters that were already familiar to radio audiences. During the 1960s this relationship intensified as popular songs gave rise to a whole new genre, the “Musicarello” which exploited the popularity of records and singers in films with faint plots built around them. Italian film music matured at the same time, with many classical and jazz composers writing soundtracks some of which were awarded Oscars (Rota, Piovani, Bacalov, Morricone). In this section of the portal there is also space for the many actors who lent their talent to the world of music recording songs, thus embodying the connection between cinema, theatre and television. Television also owes its popularity to songs, from the Sanremo Festival to the Saturday night variety shows, which in turn revitalized a tradition that had first emerged in theatre and dated back to the beginnings of the modern song. In addition to bringing many members of the entertainment industry into the limelight, television produced several cult programmes whose theme music has entered popular history. Finally, theatre has a long musical history behind it, which evolved from the late nineteenth-century cafe-chantants to the tabarin (cabarets) of the early twentieth century, to the variety shows between the two wars, the 1950s revues, and cabarets and musical comedies in the 1960s. All of these genres were pervaded with comedy, parody, satire, and a taste for brilliance, ingredients that were similarly incorporated by cinema and TV; an extremely effective mixture that would reach wider audiences and extend the confines of the song form itself, giving rise to a repertoire eminently able to define the identity of Italian popular culture.