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try and of the audience, but he has cap­ "reach out to the people," and how this FILM HISTORY, tured the enormous social significance of mandate was interpreted by at least one movies in a country where filmmakers arc major director, Alessandro Blasctti, to de­ intellectuals and intellectuals have tradi­ velop a realist style. ITALIAN- tionally been politically engaged. He has also caught the cultural importance of a ondanella argues against any abrupt STYLE national cinema whose huge public until "crisis" of neorealism. De Sica's fan­ recently saw movies not just in commercial B tasy-filled Miracle in Milan (1950) Italian Cinema: From Neorealism to the theaters, but also in hundreds of local po­ and Rossellini's The Machine to Kill Bad Present by Peter Bondanella. Ungar, pa­ litical party and parish clubs that turned People (1948) admittedly pushed the play per, $ 10.95. The New Italian Cinema: Stud­ into debating societies the moment the between reality and illusion to the breaking ies in Dance and Despair by R. T. Wit- lights came on. point. But that play was always present in combe. Oxford University Press, $19.95. Bondanella is especially good on the def- the dramas of the mid-forties. The film­ init.on of neorealism. He largely rejects the makers had not abandoned their social tradition that identified social authenticity engagement. Rossellini, De Sica. Luchino Victoria de Grazia as the essence of neorcalist style and used Visconti, Fcderico Fcllini, and Michelan­ the criterion of political engagement to gelo Antonioni— who as writers and assis­ talian cinema, like Italy itself, is hard to measure thematic rigor. For him, neo­ tant directors had participated in the first grasp as a whole. No other national realism was a renascent humanism: It ad­ wave were now pushing on to new forms Icinema in postwar Europe enjoyed the dressed itself equally to individual and col­ and new issues. Their experiments were intense success that made Rome for a time lective dilemmas, ti existential and social well .>i.ited to the more complicated society the premier capital of moviemaking, and crises. Social reality could thus have a Italy became as it passed from postwar none experienced the abrupt collapse that symbolic and mythic component as well as reconstruction into the economic "mir­ practically closed down the industry in being rendered in a naturalist style. He acle" of the fifties. recent years. No other movie industry has details the diversity of sources from which Bondanella's special strength is to pro­ produced such a range of original genres, neorealists drew, from Italian verismo and vide the first English-language treatment and none such a profusion of pedestrian the Hollywood gangster film to the French of what older works called "postneo- Hollywood imitations. film noir; he illustrates the neorealists' dis­ realism." In the decade from 1958 to 1968. In a country where filmmakers have tinctive styles. humanistic concerns were expressed in been so pointed in their references to poli­ This definition allows a thoughtful treat­ highly personal styles: Visconti's grand tics and culture, and where recent social ment of directors whose work departed epic. Rossellini's didacticism, Antonioni's change has been so rapid, no purely formal from the rigorous canons of early neo­ existential inquiry. Fellini's human cir­ analysis or focus on auteurs can completely realism, not just those less famous though cuses. Pier Paolo Pasolini's iconoclastic explain the national cinema. For Italy, es­ immensely popular directors like Alberto mix of myth and Marxism, and the young pecially, we need a history of the movies Lattuada, Luigi Zampa, Giuseppe De San- Bernardo Bertolucci's stark Freudianism. and their role in society. tis. and Pietro Germi, but also the Vittorio Also, two new genres were born: the Corn- A big first step toward meeting this need De Sica and the Roberto Rossellini of the media all'Italiana and the spaghetti West­ is provided by Peter Bondanclla's Italian late forties. It also sheds new light on the ern. The comedy bore witness to the pain­ Cinema, a fine study of the last four de­ origins and impact of the neorealist epi­ ful contradictions of changing customs cades of Italian movies. It is the first such sode. Bondanella shows that the stage was with its "human tragedy" cast of lumpens, overview to appear in English since Pierre set for Italian cinema to take a greater hero-cowards, fumbling socialists, and per­ Lephron's classic 1966 treatment was interest in daily life well before the anti- petrators of crimes of passion. Sergio Le­ translated in 1972. Since then, two genera­ Fascist partisans took to the streets: one's Westerns —using modernist sound tions of filmmakers have come to maturity Neorealism was born in the dictatorship's tracks, expressive close-ups, a zipped-up and the output of cinema literature and last corrupt years. Fascism's heavy-handed editorial rhythm, and scenes of conspicu­ history has burgeoned. Italian cinema was manipulation of culture drove young peo­ ous slaughter snatched the genre from one of the first to give rise to theoretical ple to rediscover late-nineteenth-century Hollywood and yielded it up wholly trans­ and critical studies, and the recent criti­ naturalist fiction and to develop a special formed. cism is highly sophisticated, often the re­ fondness for foreign culture. This love em­ What accounted for this golden age? sult of vigorous interchange between critics braced not only Marcel Carne, Jean Re­ The economic miracle, happily overlapping and filmmakers. noir, and Rene Clair, but also Soviet film­ Hollywood's sixties production crisis and a Bondanella has tapped this rich vein. His makers and American novelists from decline in American influence, expanded approach is somewhat traditional—he fo­ William Faulkner to James M. Cain. The the public for Italian products. A broad cuses on leading directors. But in this regime's own "Hollywood on the Tiber," governing coalition lifted the heavy- deftly written, carefully illustrated synthe­ Cinecitta, combining as it did film study handed censorship. The real genius of Ital­ sis, he has successfully translated the con­ and experimentation with production, also ian cinema, however, remained its peculiar cerns of the Italian critical literature, and laid the base not just for a strong postwar social sensibility. Italian filmmakers per­ his many sketches of films are rendered recovery of the film business, but for a ceived the irreducible complexity of late with a lucidity and feeling that tell much politically engaged one. Bondanella could capitalism as did few others. And no won­ about Italian society. Political complexity have mentioned as well fascism's own pop­ der, in a country where flagrant libertinism occasionally eludes him, and he gives too ulist mandate to abandon the decadent went hand in hand with crimes of honor, little attention to the structure of the indus­ artifice of "petty bourgeois" aesthetics to skyscrapers wreathed in smog rose over

54 AMERICAN FILM SPECIAL BOOk SECTION

Langlois's celebrated embrace of all films and filmmakers had a somewhat imperialistic grasp, like a possessive bear hug.

least during his working hours, Les Truffaut makes clear in his foreword, even Why did Langlois's discovery of, and his Paysans, instead of becoming a pamphlet his staunchest supporters grew tired of great love for, American movies coincide in praise of the established order, turned these narcissistic displays. With hindsight, so remarkably with the postwar influence into a descriptive masterpiece about the quite a number of film custodians, critics, of the great American majors in France, plight and the misery of French farmers. and moviemakers have come to recognize and with the considerable facilities that Roud is a devout and sincere admirer of that in the historic fight between Langlois their representatives in Paris gave him? Langlois, a faithful disciple deeply aware and minister of culture Andre Malraux And why was Langlois so very secretive of his debt to the master. But, like the (which became a dress rehearsal for the about where most of his prints came from, greatest of the French novelists, I suspect student revolt of May 1968), not all the sometimes in flagrant disregard of their that our friend Roud at some stage got white hats were on one side and the black authors and to the detriment of the most caught up in the facts. What we get is a hats on the other. elementary principles of authors' rights? fascinating portrait, "warts and all," of a And was not Langlois at least partly re­ charming tyrant, a Bohemian womanizer, anglois was too much the Bohemian, sponsible for the absurd and poisonous no­ a dedicated manipulator of people, a po­ too dictatorial, too moody, and too tion that it is better to show a butchered litical opportunist, a paranoid, totally ob­ L disorganized ever to catalog his trea­ print, or the washed-out dupe of a dupe, sessed collector of every piece of film he sures properly, or to take adequate mea­ than not to show a film at all? could get his hands on. Even more impor­ sures to preserve them. And he was much "From the very beginning." writes tant, this fascinating and witty description too secretive to let anyone do it for him. Roud. "Langlois assumed that all the work of a fascinating and witty personality Secrecy is power, and he dearly loved of any director he considered to be of gradually turns into a sharp and accurate both. Langlois developed a proprietary interest was worth saving. |Italics mine] analysis of the society he lived in. sense toward the pieces of his collection. In that sense, he was the first of the Through Langlois, we perceive the con­ Within the boundaries of his own special 'auteurists.' " In the early years, those he nection between the intellectual traditions world, the movies became his movies, considered of interest were Jean Renoir. of the Parisian bourgeoisie and postwar through the mere fact that he approved of Marcel LTlcrbier. Louis Delluc. Rene film history. them sufficiently to want to save them for Clair, and Jean Epstein. Would it be unfair Langlois—beneath his mask of benign posterity. to assume that they were mostly friends of eclecticism, beneath his loudly proclaimed Langlois's stubborn insistence on show­ his? What harm is there in such Parisian philosophy of "let a thousand flowers ing foreign films in their original language, good-fellowship? None at all. until you bloom in my garden"—was in fact rather as often as not without any translation, is start thinking of all those w>/?friends that elitist in his tastes, sectarian in his friend­ shallow pretense at authenticity. In fact, Langlois didn't consider of interest. Be that ships and loyalties, something of a French such an elitist policy, which still exerts as it may. and for whatever reasons, his chauvinist, and very much an intellectual great influence on the current generation tastes soon grew more eclectic and more dilettante. Like most collectors, he was as of film librarians, is nothing more than an universal, so that a great many more films opinionated in his personal choices as he excuse for not spending money on subti­ became "worth saving" and indeed were was undiscriminating in his general selec­ tling. The argument that a generation of saved. tion. Roud gives many examples of these French filmmakers learned the language of Langlois's ideas about movies, his predi­ apparent contradictions. As his power and "pure film" because they couldn't under­ lections and priorities, were those of a well- prestige grew, Langlois embraced all films stand the dialogue of American Westerns educated and highly sophisticated ama­ and all filmmakers. But, on the basis of my is hogwash. And I remember from my own teur, in both senses of the word. Warts and own experience, and after reading A Pas­ experience that the charm of never quite all, he was truly a great man. Without him, sion for Films, I think this wide and gener­ knowing in advance, when you crossed the thousands of wonderful films would have ous embrace had a somewhat imperialistic Seine to go to the Rue d'Ulm, just what been irretrievably lost. His influence on grasp to it, like the bear hugging the object movie you were going to sec, wore pretty "the children of the cinematheque" -some of his playful affection as much for posses­ thin after a while. Nor does Roud throw of whom became the pioneers of auteurist sion as for love. the conventional hagiographer's veil of criticism, then world-famous moviemakers forgetfulness over Langlois's ambiguous Langlois, as Roud reminds us, was him­ themselves was enormous. The renewal behavior during the German occupation of self a frustrated filmmaker. This might that the Cahiers du Cinema and the New France. The biographer's explanation, or serve to explain why he came to put such Wave brought to our profession can only excuse, of course, is "the passion for films." exaggerated emphasis on his museum now begin to be assessed. For better or for But could a passion be made to hide a work, on the tedious exhibits of movie worse, without Langlois this evolution man's indifference to other aspects of life? posters, film costumes, and other bric-a- might never have taken place, at least not Roud's loyalties make him accept one in­ brac, and why he played the role of the in quite the same way. terpretation of the facts, but his fairness eccentric and temperamental artist, ar­ makes it possible for his readers to consider ranging and rearranging these displays un­ the others. Marcel Ophuls is the direelor of The Sorrow til the wee hours of the morning, to the Some other question marks remain. unci the Pity. A Sense of Loss, and The Mem­ utter exhaustion of his staff. In time, as ory of Justice.

JULY-AUGUST 1983 53 Italian neorealism was born in the last years of fascism, which created a "Hollywood on the Tiber, ' Cinecitta.

pig-filled shanties, and apparitions of the location in Rome (some say deliberately to Virgin became media events. Yet Italian challenge the Italians in the very genre that society was still small and well integrated had brought them success abroad in the enough that filmmakers could find their pre-World War I era), the American com­ publics, who sustained them in their inter­ pany tied up studios and equipment for pretations of confounding social transfor­ months. When shooting ended in Rome, mation. the native industry had been all but de­ Just how unintelligible recent Italian stroyed. Yet U.S. influence, which was far filmmaking can be without some reference greater after World War II. did not prevent to this broader context is clear from R. T. bursts of originality or of highly inventive Witcombe's The New Italian Cinema. It emulation. To understand what "Ameri­ covers the same post-1968 period dealt canization" meant calls for much more with in Bondanella's last sections, though study of funding legislation, public taste, so ahistorically that it's often hard to tell. and the moviemakers' own ambivalence This is a pity, because Witcombe deals about American culture. The prestige of with Italian cinema's "third wave." This is U.S. cinema has never been higher than it the moviemaking that persists in spite of is today. The brilliant young Nanni Moretti declining audiences and renewed compe­ of Ecce bonibo is no new Guido from 8 1/2, tition from American cinema, made by as Bondanella claims; he's a Romanized directors distant from Resistance struggles Woody Allen. and outside the traditional Left. In spite of Knowing what made Italian cinema so that, there is much vitality. Consider remarkable in the past gives some impor­ Liliana Cavani, whose kitsch eroticism, as tant clues to its future. Many of the forces Witcombe suggests, says something origi­ that gave Italian cinema its earlier vitality nal about gender conflicts and changing have been dissipated: Poor and rich alike sexual mores. But there is such self-indul­ now own televisions, the political debate is gence here, from baffling comparisons (for tired, state subsidies have been exhausted, instance, Visconti and Lina Wertmuiller) to and private capital prefers safe investment careless errors (four in the names on the abroad. But with its feminist subcultures table of contents alone), that this study and rebellious youth, its conservative Com­ sometimes seems a parody of old-fashioned munists and urbanized peasantry, Italy is formalist analysis. more full of contradictions than ever. Even Bondanella's much superior treat­ Whether Italian cinema still has the vigor ment leaves unanswered questions about to interpret their meaning is not at all sure. the last decade. His notion of politics and Victoria de Grazia teaches European history social engagement is perhaps too general. at Rutgers University and is the author of The Are we really to regard Wertmuller's poli­ Culture of Consent in Fascist Italy. tics of si salvi chi puo ("every man for himself) or the despairing survivalism of Franco Brusati's Bread and Chocolate or, for that matter, the measured reformism of the Taviani brothers in the same political light as the antifascism of Open City or the democratic utopianism of Miracle in Mi­ lan'? Also, Bondanella ignores the relation­ ship between Italian moviemaking and the Communist party. The issue is not the uninteresting question of which filmmak­ ers were or are card-carrying Communists, but the subtle and pervasive effects on moviemaking of a party that has been at once a political movement and a way of life for millions. Nor does he address the complexity of American influence on Italian popular cul­ ture. In 1923, when Ben-Hur was filmed on

JUL Y-AU GUST 1983