The Political Films of France, Italy, and the United States, 1960-1976

Visualizing State and Society: The Political Films of France, Italy, and the United States, 1960-1976 Master's Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Department of Comparative History Alice Kelikian, Advisor In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Master's Degree by Peter Andrew Novick May 2010 Copyright by Peter Andrew Novick 2010 ABSTRACT Visualizing State and Society: The Political Films of France, Italy, and the United States, 1960-1976 A thesis presented to the Comparative History Department Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Peter Andrew Novick While much study has been devoted to the respective revolutionary film movements of France, Italy, and the United State between the years 1960 and 1976, few have attempted a comparative analysis. Even fewer authors and critics have attempted to link each movement's omnipresent themes with their respective political and social superstructures. By looking at a select sample of films from several countries in the designated period, however, one ultimately find similar thematic approaches inextricably linked to those nations' social and political idiosyncrasies. The following essay, in turn, seeks to investigate the relationship between three national cinemas in a sixteen year period, with an eye towards two specific themes—images of corruption and bureaucracy and changing sexual and familial norms. i Table of Contents I. Introduction……………………………………………………1 II. Political Films in the Postwar Era……………………………..2 III. Historiography…………………………………………………7 IV. Contrasting Visions: Bureaucracy and Corruption…………………………………………….............11 V. Contrasting Visions: Sexual and Familial Norms……………32 VI. Conclusion……………………………………………………51 ii INTRODUCTION While film historian William J. Palmer’s pronouncement in 1987, “…that movies both reflect and comment upon the society in which they are made"1 now seems apparent, it might come as a surprise to historians and film-buffs alike that this aesthetic viewpoint had only come into vogue in the latter quarter of the twentieth century. This is not to suggest that film has not long provoked debate concerning its social and political implications. American film in the Golden Age of Hollywood long portrayed an ideological conservative fantasyland while film’s initial introduction into Europe provoked a due amount of anxiety with regards to its “mass” appeal and as a threat to the traditional political and aesthetic status quo. While politics, thus, have long been invoked by industry and auteur alike as an ideological weapon however, the political film has rarely garnered attention as a topic deserving research, despite the slow recognition of its importance as “vital component in the network of cultural communication and the nature of their content.”2 In this respect, the twenty year period from 1960 to 1976 represents a cultural watershed not only in the political content of film on both sides of the Atlantic, but in newfound critical assumptions regarding the inherent nature of the art form as a political commodity—the “…ways in which films reflect ‘dominant ideologies’ but also challenge values'—3 in addition to film’s role as a catalyst in breaking down aesthetic “geographic 1 Palmer, 2 2 Sklar, Robert. 1994. Movie-made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. New York: Vintage Books, 3. 3 Ibid., 310. 1 exclusivity.”4 This is not surprising considering the aforementioned sixteen years bore witness to cinematic trans-Atlantic dialogue the likes of which had never before been witnessed. Whole cinematic movements—New Hollywood, the French New Wave, New German Cinema—were inspired and launched under the influence of moving images created by people in countries of vast distances and cultures of disparate origins. The following essay accepts the above premises regarding the nature and influence of film. There’s no questions films of this designated period are “talking to us,”5 often concerning topics which transcend traditional, political boundaries and social milieu. Few would argue otherwise. In broaching explicitly political films of the era in question, however, one should not forget the extent to which films also remain inextricably linked to national contexts and reflections of cultural variegations in addition to their representation of collective wishes and myths.6 After all, it is these national idiosyncrasies which ultimately defined the political films of the era. Given the sheer volume of politically-themed films created in two continents spanning more then a decade, this essay uses this notion of cultural distinctiveness to investigate the political films of three countries—France, Italy, and America. Ultimately, the themes to be investigated—visions of state and bureaucracy and shifting sexual and familial norms—will broadly serve to illustrate the ways in which comparable political and social structures of the nations in question rendered transnational themes unique. POLITICAL FILMS IN THE POSTWAR ERA 4 Palmer, William J. 1987. The Films of the Seventies: A Social History. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press., 8. 5 Monaco, James. 1979. American Film Now: The People, the Power, the Money, the movies. New York: Oxford University Press, 6 Monaco, Paul. 1976. Cinema and Society: France and Germany during the Twenties. New York: Elsevier, 20. 2 Before looking at the specific themes and the corollary films in question, it is important to have a brief overview of the respective countries’ histories with regards to political films in the given period, all of which had enormous influences on each other leading up to the Sixties and throughout the subsequent decades. In this manner the aesthetic links will provide the underlying current by which each respective national film culture painted different images on what often appeared as a common palette. Following World War II, both Italy and France were forced to rebuild their cultural institutions not only in the shadow of political division and defeat but against the new, massive influence of the United States. In Italy, the neo-realist movement in film entertained both these issues, emphasizing realistic treatment, popular setting, social content, historical actuality, and political commitment.”7 This can be seen a number Rossellini classics, including Rome, Open City, which commenced filming as the German tanks were abandoning the Italian capital and Paisan, a film of multiple vignettes chronicling the struggles of communication between Italians and Americans during the war and its aftermath. As a legacy of the anti-fascist resistance, Rossellini and the other neo-Realists were undoubtedly conscious of their own aesthetic engagement—the need to not only tell a story about politics, but express it in an overtly political manner. As the immediate postwar era gave way to the Fifties, however, obedience to the neo-Realist doctrine waned, even among its greatest practitioners who never fully identified with the all- encompassing label. Italian directors “…moved closer to traditional commercial 7 Bondanella, Peter E. 1983. Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the Present. Ungar film library. New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co., 31. 3 Hollywood genres and away from the close connection between documentary and fiction that was at least partially responsible for the appeal of the early classic [neorealist] films.” Furthermore, economic issues insisted on new “commercial considerations” as American capital became the primary financier of Italian films.8 Italy was not an exception, however, to the high-brow/low-brow disparity. France, too, was party to this cultural bifurcation, even during the famed golden age of the Thirties when heavily political Poetic Realist films like Renoir's Grand Illusion coexisted with more popular fare.9 Following Vichy, though, when Poetic Realism was all but banned, films truly embraced artistic compromise, initially as a means to stem the new Hollywood juggernaut. Hence, the Blum-Byrnes Agreement (1946), which guaranteed a cancellation of French war debts to America in return for the latter's unrestricted access to the filmmaking market.10 Not surprisingly, French political films languished throughout the following decades, with le cinema de papa11 becoming a prime target for the brash young writers of Cahier du Cinema.12 Times were changing, though, and it was not long before the new guard replaced that of the old. The Fifties, after all, witnessed a trans-Atlantic prosperity boom, the likes of which had yet to be seen. Additionally, by the end of the decade, a new generation with more leisure time was approaching adolescence. Thus, the baby boomers had the duel advantage of more money to spend and more time to think, the inevitable result being a shift in political and social mores. Furthermore, “By 1965 there were radio and 8 Ibid., 100. 9 Chapman, James. 2003. Cinemas of the World: Film and Society from 1895 to the Present. Globalities. London: Reaktion, 213. 10 Ibid., 228. 11 "Dad's cinema" – the derogatory label fashioned by the Cahier generation of filmmakers towards French cinema of the Fifties, which they deemed bland, tame, and cliché 12 Giannetti, Louis D. 1991. Flashback: A Brief History of Film. Englewood, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 340-341 4 television programs, magazines, shops, products and whole industries that existed exlusively for the young and depended upon their patronage.”13 Film, though, remained a prime locus of such changes. France, having been a pioneer

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