Masters update

Before I actually start work on the Phd, I have got to finish the Masters. My Masters examines the character of Za La Mort, a romantic Parisian apache. Emilio Ghione created Za La Mort and directed himself in a series of Za La Mort films from 1914 to 1924. Ghione then wrote two Za La Mort novels, a Za La Mort serial in a cinema magazine, took Za La Mort on a theatre tour and found time to write his autobiography and an essay on Italian silent cinema before dying in 1930.
My work is indebted to Denis Lotti's research, in Emilio Ghione L'ultimo apache. This book is very good and can be purchased from the Cineteca di Bologna website for just 8 Euros, but is in Italian.

Masters chapter division:

Chapter one. The real apaches of Paris and the construction of a serial narrative around them in newspapers. Criminological viewpoints on the apache phenoomenon. French crime serials. Italian crime films, divided into three categories: comedy, apache film and serial-hero crime film. 10,000 words target

Chapter two: analysis of Za La Mort films made by Ghione. 20.000 words target.

Chapter three: Za La Mort on paper; Ghione's writing and theatre performances. Metacinematographic texts, focused on preserving Za La Mort, who was rapidly disappearing from popular fiction 10.000 words target

Chapter four: Analysis of two attempts to revive the Za La Mort character. Raffaele Matarazzo's film, starring Emilio Ghione Jr, Fumeria D'Oppio (1947). Za La Mort fumetto ( Italian comic) series in 1946-7. 5,000-7,000 words target

Conclusion 3,000 words target

So far, I am about 30% through on words target. All research is pretty much complete for chapters 2,3,4 and nearly done for chapter 1.

All is going well. I am currently doing research into the Italian variety theatre of the 1900s and 1910s and its connection to the various Italian crime films of the 1910s, such as the serial hero crime film (featuring Detective Holmesock, Nat Pinkerton, Raffles, Griffard etc) and the apache films, which were based on the theatrical representations of the Parisian apache gangsters. The Parisian apache identity was quickly romanticised and turned into a performative identity by the dancers Mistinguett and Max Dearly, who invented the apache dance. This dance mania quickly spreas throughout Montmartre and eventually into other national variety theatres in London, Rome and America. I have found some interesting things, but the chapter is tricky because I am venturing into uncharted waters and attempting to combine theories and ideas that have not been put together before. So, in essence, the first chapter of the Masters will be a dry run at the first chapter of the Phd.