Many Ways of Being Young: The Topical Role of Cantautori in Italian Cinema of the 1960s

As recent researches have shown, the phenomenon of cantautori marked a particular phase in the evolution of Italian popular music, as a collective label whose origin has been grounded in its opposition to both the ‘old’ melodic tradition epitomized by the Sanremo Festival and to the ‘new’, ‘shouter’ styles of the late 1950s derived from early AngloAmerican rock’n’roll. Especially during the 1970s, cantautori gained an aesthetical primacy based on rhetorical, musical, and behavioral features centered on individual expression and authenticity. The paper explores how their image construction was first established in film featuring singer-songwriters on screen during the previous decade, forecasting some of the traits later recognized as typical of these artists. The audiovisual strategies by which their own, unique personality was visually depicted are highlighted, whether in auteur films such as "La cuccagna" (L. Salce, 1962) or "La vita agra" (C. Lizzani, 1964), or in popular productions, such as "Urlatori alla sbarra" (L. Fulci, 1960), "Questi pazzi, pazzi italiani" (T. Piacentini, 1965), or "Quando dico che ti amo" (G. Bianchi, 1967).