Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress: The Golden Age of Italian Cult Cinema 1970-1985

Bodies of Desire and Bodies in Distress is a volume that fully explores the emergence of 1970s Italian cult film genres in light of the wider social, political and cultural anxieties that dominated during the decade. As part of this consideration, the volume provided the first theoretical readings of a range of key Italian directors, performers and cycles associated with 1970s Italy.Through these considerations, the volume situated 1970s Italian cinema against the toxic backdrop of political violence and terrorist activity that shocked the nation. The volume also considered why the iconography of the sexually liberated female became recast as a symbol of fear and violation in a range of Italian cult film narratives. In addition, the book also analysed how longstanding regional distinctions between Italy’s urban North and the much maligned rural South fed into a number of film cycles produced between 1970 and 1985.