Torso (I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale/Carnal Violence). Sergio Martino, 1973.
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Edition screened: Blue Underground Blu-ray, released 2011. Includes Italian language version with English subtitles, and alternate English language version. Runtime approximately 93 minutes.
Summary: No particular depictions of violence toward animals.
Torso opens with a college art history lecture exploring the emotional content in Perugino’s work, specifically nuances of his depiction of St. Sebastian. Comments by the professor are insightful, well articulated, and made me want to be in his class. How sharply this contrasts to Hannibal Lecter’s remarkably stupid fly-over of Dante Alighieri and Renaissance images of the hanged Francesco Pazzi in Hannibal (Ridley Scott, 2001).
The earlier of these two films about homicidal killers is comparatively obscure and part of the polarizing giallo genre, thus inviting sneers and phony cringes over its B-movie production values, while Hannibal is a super-slick, star-studded film from a screenplay by David Mamet. The context of Torso’s lecture scene is a plain old college class populated by typical students, whereas Hannibal Lecter pontificates to a group of well-dressed Trustee types who tap the tips of Cross pens against their lips in curious interest to hear wearisome tourist twaddle about their home city.
Today’s Smackdown: Italian drive-in slasher film using insightful aesthetic comments to develop character both directly and ironically for an attentive audience VS huge budget big name production using a cartoon of book-larnin’ to advance plot and plot only for other folks.