CINEFOLLIE. Influences and Interactions between Variety and Cinema
International Conference promoted by CSC–Cineteca Nazionale and AIRSC–Italian Association for Research in Film History
Rome, CSC–Cineteca Nazionale, 16–17 September 2025

Call for Papers for "CINEFOLLIE. Influences and Interactions between Variety and Cinema", International Conference promoted by CSC–Cineteca Nazionale and AIRSC–Italian Association for Research in Film History
Rome, CSC–Cineteca Nazionale, 16–17 September 2025

Since the silent era, cinema has been interacting with variety theatre in a twofold way: on the one hand as a show-within-a-show, on the other by absorbing its artists and “numbers”. Illusionists, acrobats, jugglers, dancers, comedians and singers are among the many artists coming from the stages of popular theatre who have found a place on the screen, bringing with them the attractions and the school/practice of the stage.

Consider Leopoldo Fregoli (Colagreco 2018; Artigas 2020), who included films in his shows, as his transforming acts flowed into the Fregoligraph; but also Ruth St. Denis (Shelton 1981; Di Bernardi 2006) and Mistinguett (Bret 1990), Lina Cavalieri (Mosconi 2018), Karl Valentin (Calandra 2016) and Tórtola Valencia (Clayton, 2012), to stay within the boundaries of silent cinema.

With the advent of sound cinema, the phenomenon was destined to grow further: the so-called “avanspettacolo” theatre and the revue offered cinema a seemingly endless inventory of texts, repertoires, sketches, actors, authors, and themes, on which cinema drew heavily.

As far as the Italian context is concerned, in the interwar period great “mattatori” of the stage such as Ettore Petrolini (Mazzei-Orecchia 2018), Sergio Tòfano (Faccioli-Pitassio 2005) and Totò (Anile 2017, Fofi 2017) “landed” on the big screen. The latter also paired with another popular theater performer, Macario, in Il feroce Saladino (Mario Bonnard, 1938). Then in the 1940s it was the turn of Za Bum, the innovative company that, between radio, theater and cinema, surprised Italians with its promotional campaigns, even before they entered theaters (Mosconi, 2022).

Nonetheless, the real “explosion” of this phenomenon took place in the 1950s, when low theater invaded the broad and varied strand of Italian comic and comedy cinema. The format of the so-called “film-carosello” emerged in those years indeed (Autelitano, 2011), with its parades of comedians, capable of attracting an audience of modest pretensions. Then it was the turn of the “film-barzelletta” (joke movies), such as Ridere! Ridere! Ridere! (Edoardo Anton, 1954).  While Camillo Mastrocinque’s Café Chantant (1954) denotes a greater production effort, through color shooting and the presence of Corrado (Corrado Mantoni) introducing sketches of the best numbers from the season’s variety shows. Alongside such filmed “variety shows”, there were some films that attempted to develop a partly autonomous plot, in the form of a backstage-show film, namely a film that portrayed the staging of a variety or musical show. These were true “film revues”: a strand that developed from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, until it died out, when revue theatre was “vampirized” by the new medium of television (Mosconi, 2024). Think of I pompieri di Viggiù (Mario Mattoli, 1949) and Vita da cani, by Mario Monicelli and Steno (1950) with Aldo Fabrizi, Gina Lollobrigida and Delia Scala or even Luci del varietà (1950), by Alberto Lattuada and Federico Fellini, with Peppino De Filippo, Carla Del Poggio and Giulietta Masina.

Cabaret, music hall, vaudeville, burlesque, variety theatre, café-chantant, café-concert, “avanspettacolo” and revue theatre: so many are the identities assumed by “the miscellaneous art theater”, namely that form of low theater that between the second half of the nineteenth century and the 1950s employed entire generations of performers and successfully entertained an equally diverse audience, from the proletarian to the aristocratic and upper-class.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the cinematic perspective on variety theatre became bitter and nostalgic at the same time: this is the case, for instance, of Polvere di stelle (by Alberto Sordi, 1973), Primo amore (by Dino Risi, 1978) and Ginger and Fred (Federico Fellini, 1986).

With regard to the international context, the variety show took on specific prerogatives, referring to different models and traditions: from the American vaudeville and music hall to the café chantant, the French varieté and revue, to cabaret and the German Kabarett revue, and a wide range of further European and world experiences.

In the broad and varied Anglo-American context, the most successful models ranged from the dance numbers, animal acts and the dramatic sketches absorbed by the American silent film (Mayer 2022), to the singing, contortionism numbers, clowns and specialty dancers that would be celebrated in the early talkies, such as The Broadway Melody (Harry Beaumont, 1929); The Hollywood Revue of 1929 (Charles Reisner, 1929) and King of Jazz (John Murray Anderson, Pál Fejös, 1930). These would pave the way for film-musicals, from Busby Berkeley's “choreographic films” and pictures starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the 1930s, to those with Gene Kelly in the 1950s and, more recently, to La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016), to name but a few of the most famous names and titles.

Scholars are invited to propose presentations pertaining to the intersections between the broadly understood “miscellaneous art theater” and cinema, from its origins to the present day, with interventions that integrate film analysis with cultural context reconstruction, possibly drawing on new acquisitions in the field of documentary research.

The covered topics may include (without excluding further proposals):

• National models (café chantant, variété, vaudeville, cabaret ,music-hall, revue…)
• Transnational influences and interactions
• The transnational circulation of performers and spectacular attractions
• “Backstage-show films” and “film revues”: patterns, formulas, intersections, and differences
• The influence of theatrical acting techniques on film performance
• Music and songs between the stage and the screen
• The sketch as a textual model
• The transmigration of specific performers and authors, from the stage to the screen
• The transmigration of specific texts and numbers, from the stage to the screen
• Art movements and their influence between the screen and the stage
• Racial issues between stage and movie screen (e.g. in reference to black-face and minstrel shows; specific performers; discrimination; etc.)
• Variety, morality and censorship
• Relationships with television variety
• Hybrid textual forms and contaminations between variety and cinematographic and television genres
• Gender issues between the stage and the movie screen (e.g., in reference to en travesti performances; specific performers; discrimination; etc.)
• Body theories and their impact on artistic performances between stage and screen
• The relationship with the space, understood as the context intended to “accommodate” the theatre show, intended both as performance of miscellaneous art and film screening.

Proposals, approximately 300 words long and accompanied by a brief biographical-professional profile (approximately 250 words), should be sent by 10 June 2025, to Elena Mosconi (elena.mosconi@unipv.it), Maria Assunta Pimpinelli (mariaassunta.pimpinelli@fondazionecsc.it), and Elisa Uffreduzzi (elisa.uffreduzzi@uniroma2.it). Authors will receive a response by 20 June 2025.

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