From song to the big screen. Movements of (audio)visual translation and media regeneration on the Italian scene

Abstract

This paper explores some intermedial steps of the relationship between song and cinema in the Italian media landscape, identifying the movements made by the song towards the big screen. Two types of movements emerge: a syntagmatic and a paradigmatic movement. The former stands out in parallel with the development of the national media system and the relationship between the two cultural industries, generating some different forms and formats of interaction; the latter considers songs as cultural devices that act differently depending on the context in which they are placed. In particular, three specific movements are identified: from the sound-film to the song-film; from authorial uses to post-modern contaminations; from the documentary idea to the mediated liveness. The paper explores this movements diachronically and synchronically through some significant examples, and shows two of the most interesting changes: the modes of (audio)visual translation that Italian cinema has applied in its use of the song, and the media regenerations that cinema itself achieves once it employs the songs, recirculating them from screen to the media landscape. The aim of the study is to propose a model for the analysis of the interaction between songs and cinema from an intermedial perspective that could also be applied to other types of screens used in the postmedia society.