Varnishing in Cinecittà The studio as a parallel art industry

In the sixties, cinema and art tend towards a troubling identification with each other because of the emergence of a new kind of artwork in Italy called ambiente. This art form aims to cause very powerful aesthetic experiences. Through an examination of the film Femina ridens (Piero Schivazappa, 1969), this article argues that the film’s set design was influenced by ambiente and its fundamental properties such as light and a claustrophobic atmosphere.