Fan du Cinéma: Imitation, Europe and The Trip to Italy (2014)

his essay considers the role of imitation in Michael Winterbottom’s film The Trip to Italy, with reference to the performances of mimicry by its two protagonists (Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon), but also on the part of the film itself, both as a sequel to The Trip (2010) and through its inter-textual links to earlier works of European and English film, and American-Italian co-production. As I will discuss, this preoccupation with reproduction, situated within a travelogue format, brings into focus a series of related issues concerning the meaning of contemporary film, especially in terms of European cinema in a ‘post-cinematic’ age, as well as the place of cinematic travel in constructing an idea of Europe