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Not just abroad. In the latest decades the cultural production of Italy has been, on average, rather embarrassing. As an Italian, I have developed an easy heuristic: if it is an Italian title (either book, song or movie, whatever) it is likely to be bad. Exceptions exist, but they are rare. It is true that what gets exported from a country is usually the best, so one probably encounters the local bad and the foreign best, but cultural production of Italy certainly was better once. It is as if my country has suffered some kind of creative collapse.
Not at all. The creative collapse which caused this decline only happened in the 80ies as everywhere else but lasted until 2000, longer than everywhere else. It happened to kill the major italian studios and producers de Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti. Cinecittà went almost bankrupt 1997. Scorcese almost killing off again Cinecittà with his fatal Gangs of New York epic didn't help, Passion of Christ and the fire in a big Cinecittà hall 2007 neither.

But since 2000 Italian cinema is the most exciting in Europe again. They are the only ones who successfully experiment in new visual aesthetic with the new available camera technology. It's not only Paolo Sorrentini (Camera: Luca Bigazzi) * L'uomo in più (2001) * Le conseguenze dell'amore (2004) * L'amico di famiglia (2006) * Il Divo (2008) and then his famous ones, but also Zapruder Filmmakersgroup (Nadia Ranocchi, David Zamagni, Camera: Monaldo Moretti) with "All Inclusive 3D" (2010), Luca Guadagnino, Salvatore Maira, Michelangelo Frammartino and in the last years many more. Compare it e.g. to the current decline of the french movies.

The directors with which the decline of the Italian cinema started were Gianno Amelio, Guiseppe Tornatore, Roberto Benigni, Gabriele Salvatores, Franco Zeffirelli and Silvio Soldini. They should rest in piece.

In long-form television (or, some of these may have been created as films, a distinction in some European media that seems to depend in part on schedule and budget), I've been quite enjoying Il commissario Montalbano:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inspector_Montalbano_%28TV_ser...

You will like these if you enjoy quieter productions that depend on subtleties. And if you enjoy works that are both artistic (think about the state of the filmed street-scapes) and that seek to imbue local flavor.

Also, depending on where you get them from, the subtitles may not accurately convey some of the language and subtleties.

P.S. RAI subsequently launched a "prequel" series, The Young Montalbano. I haven't seen it in a while. It's ok, I guess, but I prefer the original.

How do you explain Benigni's Oscar for "Life is beautiful"? Although I would partially agree with you on your opinion about Benigni nonetheless.
Benigni is a class on its own. I think many folks don't really get what he is really trying to say; you can view his movies with a quarter of a brain, but you need all of your heart!
Of the ones GP mentioned, Tornatore and Salvatores also won the academy award.

Personally, I feel most movie awards are BS, but I do not understand why GP believes these authors are the cause of the "italian cinema decline" in the context of abroad appeal, given they are have actually been rather more successful at it then others.

I can't explain Benigni's Oscar. I will not say categorically that it is impossible to make Holocaust humor, but I will say that Benigni had not discovered how.
The exception proves the rule. A blind squirrel and all that.. (Not comparing Benigni to a blind squirrel but modern Italian cinema.)
Lots of creative Italians in Berlin and London. I reckon that's part of the reason. The climate in the country simply isn't supportive of artists. So they go elsewhere. To much more interesting places, where they can live well, and earn well.

As one personal example of someone I know in the industry who left... an Italian who left was not even getting paid for the subtitle translation work she was doing. For something like six months.

There's that, but I'm not sure that's the end of it, France has seen similar decline despite pretty extreme cultural protectionism.

Globalisation seems to be more of a "culprit": once upon a time, a country's local cultural production had a semi-captive audience (there was less foreign content and less of it moved from the original country to others, leaving more room for local production) and a much easier time competing (lower budgets, lower technological finesse and lower economies of scale all around).

Today, there's more high-production-quality quickly-available content than ever, between more people being able to consume anglo content directly and home-grown sub scenes, international mostly-anglo content is easier than ever to access for individuals, and going the other way it's much harder for local content to break international markets because the accessibility is much lower the other way around, which means it's harder for local content to recoup the same production budgets.

Yes, there is definitely more 'content' available now. Also a lot more Italians are speaking English.

Paris is an even worse place for artists to live and work. Make things affordable for artists, and artists won't leave. Society is much better when you have artists amongst your midst.

When a media baron runs the country (like in Italy), it can't be good for the films being produced.

Germany has a license fee twice as much as in Italy. (much Germany cinema is beyond terrible but). The UK also has a higher tv fee.

Interesting, but on the other hand affordable cities are not the cities that are desired, the price being often a supply and demand relationship. That Paris is an expensive city can only mean that the demand far exceeds the supply. San Francisco for example is amongst the most expensive cities on earth and personally I don't get its allure for software developers, especially given that we can work from anywhere, but it's probably about the potential. Software developers, much like artists, want investors and an audience.
>France has seen similar decline despite pretty extreme cultural protectionism.

Despite?

>> France has seen similar decline despite pretty extreme cultural protectionism.

> Despite?

Yes?

"it's much harder for local content to break international markets because the accessibility is much lower the other way around, which means it's harder for local content to recoup the same production budgets."

How does this explain the success of Scandinavian crime dramas such as The Killing, The Bridge, Wallander? These have enjoyed much success in the UK and are always shown with subtitles.

So success for foreign language drama is certainly possible in English speaking markets, and without dubbing either.

If you read what your quoted, I said it was much harder for non-anglo content, not impossible.
My italian film buff husband is also a bit desperate to find good new movies - there are a lot that leave you wondering how on earth they got funded.

Caos Calmo (Quiet Chaos) was fantastic though.

It's probably corruption. It eliminates competition and breeds mediocrity.

If your capital isn't allocated fairly results will be pretty bad.

Soviet cinema had lots of masterpieces without "fair allocation of capital" (and lots of corruption one would presume).

And I wouldn't call the Hollywood situation of giving multi-million dollar budgets to BS like Transformers and spare change to far better movies a "fair allocation" either when it comes to artistic merit.

When it comes to art, allocation of capital and "efficient markets" just means more popular works get more money -- it doesn't say anything about their quality, which is part of what the article is about.

(Expecting accusations of 'elitism', I'm not talking about esoteric, self-congratulatory arthouse films either. The Godfellas for example, a mighty good movie, is anything but that, or Pulp Fiction (or, at their era, The Searchers, Vertigo etc.).

And I wouldn't call the Hollywood situation of giving multi-million dollar budgets to BS like Transformers and spare change to far better movies a "fair allocation" either when it comes to artistic merit.

To be fair, the title asks about its appeal, not artistic merit. Transformers is a shitty film, but it certainly has appeal.

This wouldn't explain why it used to be so good in the past though.
Elena Ferrante is the huge exception.
I'd suggest access in general is a problem. In the past, this can be simply written off as the difficulty in moving and translating the works, but this hasn't been an issue for a very long time.

I'm a bit of a fair-weather fan of Italian cinema insomuch that I usually enjoy what I am able to find online that gets translated. My partner is close to fluency in Italian and loves watching Italian film to test her understanding, but we find ourselves constantly struggling to locate any reliable source for Italian film, legally or otherwise acquired. The most famous pieces of Italian cinema are certainly obtainable, but exploring the rest just seems to be a fools errand.

I'm not sure whether the Italian studios don't want to take the time, if Publishers world-wide don't see the return on investment for spreading Italian film, or what is stopping access, but there can be no interest if there's no chance in getting at the film.

I suggest the films of Nanni Moretti and Paolo Sorrentino (mentioned in the article).

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0604335/ http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0815204/

Io Sono Li is also a good, rather recent film. For documentaries, try Videocracy and Women Bodies (aka Il Corpo Delle Donne), the latter of which is on Youtube. BBC did a series called Italy Unpacked where two guys travel around Italy experiencing its cuisine. Italy, Love it or Leave it is on my list of documentaries to see but I have yet to find it available somewhere. As for TV, try Gomorra La Serie and/or Inspector Montalbano.

The movie Gomorra is great, as is Il Divo.

I'd be interested in a list of good Italian films since the year 2000. (That's just an arbitrary cut off.)

Especially if they have ahem YIFY try before you buy samples.

The latest loud Sorrentino movie is quite awful.

I don't know, maybe hardcore movie fans find something in it, but this demographic is thin these days. For me as a common viewer, every single Italian movie I've seen in the last years was much better. And I'm talking random stuff from festivals.

True that, "La Grande Bellezza" was awful, yet it managed to win an oscar for what is worth.
I loved "La Grande Bellezza", but I am italian...
What for? I'm genuinely curious.

The only thing that kept me wondering thru the film is - where do those people get that kind of money to make their life style possible? Now, if he made a film explaining THAT, I would be first to watch. Otherwise, characters are ageing impostors, but first of all boring.

I’m an American, and I very much enjoyed La Grande Bellezza. I thought it was a fascinating glimpse of a world I otherwise know nothing about. It was also a visually engaging movie with some gorgeous scenery and nice camera work.
I can't really explain... I can try thought...

It make a clear picture of the decay of Rome, it make you see what people thing, what are their values, why the behave the way the do... Everything is completely clear.

Except that isn't Sorrentino's last film. And both Youth and La grande bellezza are beautiful movies.
What's awful in "La Grande Bellezza"?
Try watching "The Best of Youth" (La meglio gioventù), it is fantastic.
It's funny, I see this anti- self-consciousness stance more and more. Objections to hipsters. Objections to political correctness.

We're at a funny time where we sort of remember the time when we weren't all splayed out on the internet in front of each other, and we can still pine for a return to that... We have given up some important things that are worth trying to get back.

But unfortunately for these people, I think we're only seeing the beginning. And we'll be horrified at what the next generation will share publicly and demand space for in the public discourse. The Internet wants to see everything and it is only getting stronger. It's "eye" will grow 1000x every thirty years for the next century.

The swaggering unselfconscious architype she misses is going to increasingly read as tone-deaf until we reach the next civil rights plateau. Minimally we'll need free basic medical care and housing for all humans.

At that point I think he swagger could come back in full blast--nothing wrong with a little self-aggrandizement if everyone is fed and people are enjoying watching.

La grande bellezza / The Great Beauty was quite good.
Also: in the US foreign (or at least European) movies seem to attract an aging demographic.