Line #10 Film/Cozzilla


1	%%
2	%% Image selected per Image Pickin thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=17030017410.47332600
3	%% Please don't change or remove without starting a new thread.
4	%%
5	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/cozzilla.png]]
6	%%
7	->''"Godzilla. A savage, catastrophic metaphor for atomic war, rendered in stark, dramatic black and white... or, is it a rainbow-colored acid trip with a bunch of stolen footage from other movies?"''
8	-->-- '''Ed Glaser'''
9
10	1954. The Creator/IshiroHonda, Creator/EijiTsuburaya, and Akira Ifukube-helmed {{Kaiju}} film ''Film/Godzilla1954'' hit Japanese theaters, acting as a symbol for [[UsefulNotes/AtomicBombingsOfHiroshimaAndNagasaki the Hiroshima bombings]] and reminding people of the tragedies of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.
11
12	1956. ''Gojira'' was recut, re-edited, and Americanized into ''[[Film/GodzillaKingOfTheMonsters1956 Godzilla: King of the Monsters!]]'', introducing the movie, and the title monster himself, to audiences in America, where it would find new success and take on the title "King of the Monsters" for the first time.
13
14	1977. Wanting to take advantage of the release of ''Film/KingKong1976'', an Italian filmmaker by the name of Luigi Cozzi decided to release the American ''Godzilla: King of the Monsters'' in Italy ([[WhatCouldHaveBeen he was planning on releasing]] the original ''Gojira'', but due to rights issues had to settle for ''King of the Monsters'' instead).
15
16	However, simply dubbing the movie into Italian wasn't enough, for there was one problem: the movie was in black and white. Italian theaters at the time weren't confident that black and white movies would do well with audiences. So Cozzi came up with a solution: colorize the movie.
17
18	However, Cozzi didn't stop there. He not only colorized the movie (itself being done by cutting out pieces of translucent gel and laying them over general areas of each frame), but also cut out scenes for pacing reasons, and even (sloppily) inserted stock footage from various other movies (one of them even being ''Gojira's'' [[Film/GodzillaRaidsAgain sequel]]), as well as wartime newsreels (meaning that some of the devastation in this version of the film actually did happen). These new sequences were accompanied by new electronic music by Fabio Frizzi, who would later compose music for the horror classic ''Film/{{Zombi 2}}''[[note]]The main theme from ''Zombi 2'' is, in fact, a remix of the ''Cozzilla'' theme.[[/note]], and the sound effects in general were remixed and enhanced.
19
20	The result? A recut of ''Gojira'' that manages to be trippy and psychedelic, as well as a hell of a lot more disturbing than the original version... for all the wrong reasons.
21
22	Surprisingly, this Italian version was a success in Italy and is sometimes considered superior to the American version. It's also rather rare, as it was only released in Italy and possibly Turkey as well. You can get an idea of what the recut is like from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ePtjMbETOI this video]], and Ed Glaser of ''WebVideo/DejaView'' (from whom the page quote comes from) dedicated an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoJd5oouZ3s episode]] to it.
23
24	'''Note:''' Tropes pertaining to the original movie and ''King of the Monsters'' belong in their respective articles.
25
26	----
27	!!Tropes pertaining to this version of ''Gojira'':
28	* FanSequel: There's a proposed rainb-OW-vision cut of ''Film/GodzillaRaidsAgain'' in the works by [=BoxMonster=], the guy responsible for the hybrid source fan restoration of ''Film/KingKongVsGodzilla''.
29	* {{Recut}}: An odd example, as it's a recut of a preexisting recut.
30	* KickTheDog: As if Godzilla's death in the original wasn't tragic enough, Cozzi throws in some stock footage of fighter jets and ships firing their weaponry, implying he's being shot to death at the same time.
31	* StockFootage: Some of which are actual footage of death and destruction take from wartime newsreels.
32	* UnnaturallyBlueLighting: The main result of the "colorization" technique used for the film. To add color to ''Godzilla'' Cozzi's team cut out pieces of translucent colored gels and pasted them over certain areas of the film based on what was most prominently displayed there, such as placing a blue gel where the sky was, sticking a yellow gel over a crowd of people, and covering an entire frame in red gel because the city shown was up in flames.
33	* ViolenceIsDisturbing: The original ''Gojira'' and its ''King of the Monsters'' Americanization may have been symbols for Hiroshima, but at least the events shown were fictional. The added wartime newsreel footage in ''Cozzilla'', however, is very much real and adds a new level of disturbing to the movie.

Context Film / Cozzilla