Introduction 1 in the Ruins of Fascism

Notes Introduction 1. For a very illuminating discussion of Crocean thought in relation to fascism, see Dalle Vacche, Body 10–15. 1 In the Ruins of Fascism 1. Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione, which came out in 1943, is the other contender for the label “first neorealist film.” In fact, many other fascist-era films, including Rossellini’s, incorporated elements that would later come to be iden- tified with neorealism. Rossellini’s early work, and neorealist films in general, were critically and financially much more successful outside Italy than within it; this may partially explain why foreign—and many Italian—scholars have tended not to discuss neorealism in terms of a prior national cinema or culture. André Bazin, especially, was important in constructing neorealism as a trans- national phenomenon. See Bazin 93–100. 2. Rossellini’s personal relation to fascism was complex. Biographers and critics, including Brunette, RR 16–18 and Gallagher 60–65 make clear that he was never a convinced fascist; he took whatever opportunities were offered to make films and developed within the constraints of the fascist system many elements of what would later emerge as a distinctive individual style. See Ben-Ghiat, in Forgacs, RR 20–35, points out that the fascist film studios of the 1940s were highly collaborative institutions. Therefore, the films in Rossellini’s early trilogy, especially La nave bianca, also bear the mark of other filmmakers, most notably Francesco de Robertis. Ben-Ghiat also stresses the paucity of scholarly discussion of the fascist war trilogy. 3. For a rare discussion of the transition from fascist cinema to neorealism, see the historian Ennio Di Nolfo’s illuminating “Intimations of Neorealism in the Fascist Ventennio,” in Reich and Garofalo 83–104. Di Nolfo’s opening sen- tence is an excellent summary of the prevailing scholarly view of the relationship between neorealism and fascist cinema: “Since its inception, many critics have regarded Italian cinematic neorealism as a splendid and sumptuous flower that bloomed miraculously, almost by chance, among the ruins of a country ravaged by war” (83). 4. For a discussion of the heterogeneity and commercial aspirations of fascist-era films, see Bondanella RR 5. He states: “the fascist regime took a genuine in- terest in the health of the film industry and wanted it to flourish, without, 166 / notes however, insisting on ideological purity . the totalitarian regime’s model was Hollywood, not the rigidly controlled popular culture of Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany.” 5. By the late 1930s, attitudes toward popular culture had changed, becoming more restrictive. Ricci points out a number of measures taken by the state to control the influence of Hollywood film, including mandating dubbing (a skill for which Italian studios are still known) that amounted to censorship of content and, in 1938, the passage of laws limiting distribution of non-Italian films (157). 6. See Tag Gallagher’s comments on Rossellini and De Robertis’ enthusiasm for Eisenstein and the influence of Eisenstein on the La nave bianca 70–72. Gallagher also defends the film as being covertly antifascist. 7. See Rossellini’s autobiography My Method 44. 8. Millicent Marcus, in her very illuminating analysis of Paisà in After Fellini, comments on the double, almost paradoxical quality of the film, arguing that it attempts to achieve two different and perhaps contradictory goals. She states that it “stands as a powerful example of filmmaking as a foundational act, as a building of national consciousness out of the ravages of Fascism and war. But Rossellini’s insistence on historical representation is counterbalanced by an equally intense awareness that Paisan is a filmic artifact, a complex aesthetic construction that transcends its documentary or didactic scope” (10). 9. See Mirella Serri, I Redenti: Gli Intelletuali che vissero due volte 7–24. I am in- debted to Frank Adler for drawing my attention to this very useful book. 10. See Gallagher 47–49. 11. See Gallagher 83. Gallagher also notes that the screenplay for the film was written by a well-known fascist journalist and editor, Asvero Gravelli. 12. The title is translated into English as Paisan—clearly not by a native speaker of Italian. The English title is misleading: in an Italian context, the word paesano (of which paisà is a dialect version, evidently in Romanaccio, the popular dialect of Rossellini’s native city) usually refers to someone from your paese, your home village or small region, and therefore underlines the regional loyalties of Italians and works against a formulation of national unity that the film ostensibly espouses. Italian Americans tend to use the word much more broadly, referring to other Italian Americans: it is ironic that an Italian film title is translated into an idiom that is only comprehensible once the language has “emigrated.” Marcus, in her very illuminating chapter on Paisà, also points out this contradiction relating the fragmentation it suggests to the episodic structure of the film and its effect of montage (AF 14–19). 13. See Bondanella RR 65–67. Bondanella points out that Paisà does, in some areas, come closer to fulfilling some of the conditions associated with neorealism than Rossellini’s previous film, Roma, città aperta, especially in the use of nonprofessional actors in some key roles and shooting some of the exteriors in the “real” locations depicted. However, he also points out that Rossellini deliberately muddied this issue and in fact “fooled” critics by his flawless fakery. 14. The relationship between neorealism and “the real” has engaged many critics. Rossellini’s contemporaries, most notably André Bazin, champion Rossellini’s films for their attainment of a “higher” or “truer reality,” a concept that is not notes / 167 questioned as such. More recent critics, including Brunette and Bondanella, tend to see the question of “realism” in terms of Rossellini’s relation to tra- ditional Hollywood coding. What Bazin saw as a radical new way of approach- ing “truth,” later writers see as the substitution of a new set of cinematic conventions—the hallmarks of neorealism that, to Bazin, Zavattini, and the like, indicated “truth”—for the familiar Hollywood techniques. See Brunette RR 105, which argues: “this film, like all films, cannot offer an unproblem- atic, transparent window onto a direct experience of reality, but remains for- ever a constructed, and thus ‘unnatural’ artifact.” 15. The question of whether the episodic structure of Paisà is a failing or strength has been discussed at length by various critics. See Bazin 34. Bazin makes an interesting argument that the film resembles a collection of short stories— reminiscent, to him, of authors as diverse as Saroyan, Hemingway, and Faulkner. See Brunette RR 70 for an alternate view. He argues the unconven- tional narrative structure of the film, which insists on fragmentation, works against any attempt to show Italy as unified, and a positive connection between Italians and Americans. 16. The animated maps appeared only in versions of Paisà intended for English and American release—there were several different versions of the film. I am working here from the version that played in American theaters. On the dif- ferences between the Italian and foreign releases, see Wagstaff 191–192. 17. Tom Conley, in Cartographic Cinema 2, discusses this paradoxical quality of maps in the context of film: “a map in a film is an element at once foreign to the film but also, paradoxically, of the same essence as film. A map underlines what a film is and what it does, but it also opens a rift or brings into view a site where a critical and productively interpretive relation to the film can begin” (2). Also see Conley 65–82, an extensive and illuminating discussion of Roma, città aperta. 18. For a discussion of the use of documentary footage, see Brunette, RR 71. Brunette argues that, although it has frequently been read as making the film’s “reality” more “believable,” the documentary footage in fact undercuts that very claim. This, according to Brunette, is due to the fact that these sections present themselves as “past” rather than in “present, individually dramatic terms.” This creates a tension that, ultimately, forces the viewer to confront the con- structedness of the film. Brunette posits the maps as having a contradictory function—ostensibly they are not only a unifying device, but they also insist on the regionality and geographic separateness of the landscapes of the film, under- cutting claims of unity, whether aesthetic or ideological. Also see Bondanella, RR 65. He accepts the documentary footage as creating “actuality” and “imme- diacy.” In an interesting aside, Dalle Vacche points out that the moving arrows representing military maneuvers on the maps accompanying the voice-overs can be seen as violating the surface of Italy, represented as a passive surface. Dalle Vacche argues that the map of Italy serves the same function as the dead body of Carmela at the end of the first segment: they both represent Italy as battle- ground, passively acted on by outside forces (Body 199). 19. See Gallagher 180–182. 20. Again, many critics are in agreement about the importance of communication—failed or successful—as a theme throughout Paisà. See 168 / notes Bondanella, RR 77, Brunette, RR 65, and Marcus, AF 19. The initial moments of dialogue in the film underline this. What we have at the beginning is a total failure of communication between the Italians and Americans. 21. See Wagstaff 202. He tells us that most of the segment was in fact shot near Vesuvius and in Amalfi, with the final shot of Carmella’s body lying on the rocks filmed in Anzio, near Rome, not in Sicily.

Load more