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Guido Crepax
Intermediate
16 Videos

The documentary film Cercando Valentina: il mondo di Guido Crepax (Looking for Valentina: the world of Guido Crepax) is about an Italian author and comic book artist, born in Milan in 1933. Crepas, known as Crepax, was a great innovator who melded elements of art, design, music, and fashion into his comic books. Valentina is perhaps the most famous of his characters and the film takes a real journey between past and present on the trail of this female icon, whose sensuality conquered not only its creator, but an entire generation. Journalists, directors, scriptwriters, and musicians will recount the story of how she influenced an era.

Videos
Pages: 1 of 2 
─ Videos: 1-15 of 16 Totaling 1 hour 15 minutes

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 1

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

This documentary is about Guido Crepax, the creator of a famous fumetto (comic strip) that came out in 1965. The main characters are Philip Rembrandt, an art critic, and Valentina Rosselli, a photojournalist.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 2

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Crepax started out with one protagonist, Philip Rembrandt, but gradually phased him out, along with his superpowers. Valentina then took over as the protagonist. Crepax talks about Milan in the sixties.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 3

Difficulty: difficulty - Adv-Intermediate Adv-Intermediate

Italy

In 1963 Crepax got his start in the world of comic books and two years later created his famous character, Valentina. The comic strip first appeared in the anthology comic book, "linus," founded by Giovanni Gandini, who had known Crepax as a kid.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 4

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Filmmakers Tinto Brass and Giuseppe Tornatore comment on how some elements of expressivity are shared between comic strips and the cinema.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 5

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Crepax's Valentina was an intriguing character because she openly reflected the sexual freedom of the late sixties and was attractive to both men and women. It was very "in" to be seen walking around with an issue of "Linus," an Italian comics magazine published in Italy beginning in 1965.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 6

Difficulty: difficulty - Adv-Intermediate Adv-Intermediate

Italy

Valentina's success coincided with the beginnings of feminist movements in Italy. She depicted a woman who was strong and independent, who could do anything a man could do, a departure from the stereotype of the Italian housewife.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 7

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Among the pages of the comic strip, family members find familiar objects, drawings, and personal information from their everyday life. Although Valentina was a figment of Crepax's imagination, she was also an integral part of his family.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 8

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

One of Crepax's techniques is to use the details of everyday life to build his stories and provide context. We even see the titles of the books in Valentina's bookcase.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 9

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Besides his much better known activity as a graphic artist, Crepax was a keen wargamer and wargame designer and collector of paper soldiers, drawn by himself.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 10

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Crepax loved playing at battles and would change the outcomes, using his friends to fine-tune the moves. He had some famous personalities as willing participants in the games, too.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 11

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Guido Crepax's son Antonio talks about the day Antonio Custra was killed in May of 1977, during an armed demonstration in Milan. This was during the so-called anni di piombo (years of lead), a period of social turmoil, political violence and upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right incidents of political terrorism and violent clashes. Many demonstrators were arrested, but Antonio Crepax managed not to get loaded onto a paddy wagon.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 12

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Just as in Cubist art, Crepax would design his figures to be seen from various points of view simultaneously. Sometimes he would use small windows to attract attention rather than making them larger.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 13

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Who was the model for Valentina? Certainly, the actress Louise Brooks who portrayed Lulu in the movie Pandora's Box directed by G.W Pabst (based on two plays by Frank Wedekind), but also Crepax's wife, Luisa Mandelli.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 14

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Crepax's stories were based on imagination and vision. In those years, artists contaminated one another's works, and there was even a curious connection between Crepax's Ciao Valentina and Antonioni's Blow-Up.

Guido Crepax - Cercando Valentina - Part 15

Difficulty: difficulty - Intermediate Intermediate

Italy

Which came first? Blow-Up or Ciao Valentina? Which work stole from the other? In any case, there are some striking similarities.

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