Variations on an Italian theme

Duration: 28

Year Published: 1960

Creator: Alitalia

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Description: This film was done as a commercial assignment for the New York office of Alitalia Airlines, the state airline of Italy. It was a reaction to the airline travelogue so usual at the time. I tried to create a few small incidents, with a few perhaps memorable characters, so that the pretty pictures might conceivably stick in the mind for a while. I modeled the production on the tone poem 'Pictures at an Exhibition,' with an incident (one of the pictures) joined to another by a repeating motion theme, in this case traveling shots of the Italian countryside from a moving car. These were provided by the cameraman (me) standing on top the station wagon, feet hooked under the baggage rack to keep from falling off backward, and hand holding the camera--Director, Carson Davidson.