Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

DOCUMENTARY FILM NEWS Realist Tradition in Italian Films by R. £. WHITEHALL the spectacular rise of the Italian film industry since the end of the war has been much commented upon, but it has recently been suggested by some writers that the flood of vital films from Italy is in danger of drying up. This suggestion is probably due to the financial difficulties of the Rossellini films, and the commercial failure in Italy of Vittorio de Sica's bitter Shoes/line, coupled with the box-office success of some ponderous costume dramas and arid comedies, from which it has been deducted that the realism of so many Italian films is not popular. This, however, is not entirely a true picture; il overlooks the success of a number of realistic films; it does not take into account the talents of such directors as Rossellini, Luigi Zampa, or that group of Italian directors practically unknown in Britain — Ltichino Visconti, Pietro Germi, Guiseppe de Santis, Duilo Coletti — who work in a semi-documentary style; it forgets the naturalistic talents of Aldo Fabrizi or Anna Magnani; and it overlooks the production programme of Lux Films. This company. Lux, has been in the forefront in the use of factual backgrounds or semidocumentary themes. Between 1945 and 1947 they produced To Live in Peace, Angelina MP and An American on Leave, directed by Luigi Zampa; Two Anonymous Letters by Mario Camerini; Anna Magnani's two working-class comedies, Down with Misery and Down with Poverty, either of which might have come from Chaplin; Alberto Lattauda's The Crime of Giovanni Episcopo, wtih Aldo Fabrizi in the leading role. Within the last year Lux have produced most of the significant films of the period. Luigi Zampa's Difficult Years is a human comedy adapted from a short story by the playwrightnovelist Vitaliano Brancati, looking back over twenty years of Fascist rule and the dangers of compromise, treated in the manner of To Live in Peace. Mario Soldati's Flight into France is this director's most successful film since Signor Travet in 1946. Forgetting the heavy un-cinematic nature of the novels of Balzac and Fogazzaro which have furnished him with the basis of his last few films, culminating in the unbelievably static Daniele Corn's, Soldati took a theme which is part and parcel of post-war Europe — the search for war criminals. The subject matter is described by the production company thus: 'Many men and women have been tempted by the mirage of a new life beyond the frontiers of their warravaged countries to risk the dangers of an illegal crossing of the Alps, discounting the risks of tempest, cold, and death. This is the background of reality to Fuga in Francia, the story of a condemned war criminal who, escaping from prison, takes a false name and joins a little band of clandestine emigrants. Cold, calculating, without compassion or mercy, the fugitive is deterred by no scruples when he finds himself discovered . . . .' The claim that Flight to France has a background to reality is no idle one. The main action was shot in the valleys and high passes of the Graian Alps and the unit of 32 people, technicians and players, often worked in a temperature below zero. The approach is pure documentary — only two actors appeared in the film. Folco Lulli and Pietro Germi (this was the latter's first appearance, he is actually an extremely fine director). The other parts in the film were cast on the spot. The heroine was discovered by Soldati in the Fiat works at Mirafiore, and returned there when the film was completed. Other parts were played by a builder, a journalist, and by the director and the producer of the film. The smaller roles were filled by their reallife counterparts. Pietro Germi. who played the emigrant who is instrumental in the ultimate death of the war criminal, is a young Genoese graduate of the Centro Sperimentale, the Italian film school, who has made three films, all of which have their roots deep in the real life of the Italian people, and the problems of our time. He is interested in economic conditions as they affect individuals. The Witness, while drawing its inspiration from everyday life does so in a traditional way, with its story of a young servant girl trying to save her condemned fiance; but Lost Youth and In the Name of the Law go beyond the basic 'thriller' ingredients in their approach. The former deals with a new generation of Italian youth, freed not only from the Fascists but from law and order and all moral standards, while the latter deals with the notorious secret society, the 'Mafia'. Lost Youth deals, specifically, with a group of university students and with Stefano, the degenerate leader of a gang of youthful criminals. It is a hard, tough film which, as Shoeshine did, harks back in many ways to the prewar social films made by Warner Brothers. It is a study in circumstances and environment shot against actual backgrounds, and so realistic in its approach it proved too strong for the stomachs of the authorities, who banned it — ■ an act creating such a storm of criticism in the film industry the authorities quickly reversed their decision and allowed it to be screened. In the Name of the Law was again filmed almost entirely on location. It deals with the secret society which supplied America with some of its most notorious gangsters (and Hollywood with some of its best films), stressing the tie-up between these racketeers administering their own brand of justice on the peasants, and the rich landowners who are guaranteed tranquillity on their estates. In the last reel of the film the message underlying the whole work is given in plain words by the honest judge — the delinquents, the murderers, are no less guilty than those who stand by and dc nothing. Were it only for these films to represent the total achievement of the recent Italian cinema it would constitute a remarkable record, enriching society with the force of their emotional outlook, but the honesty and consistency of the new films by Luchino Visconti and Guiseppe de Santis testifies to the strength of the younger directors who do not seek refuge in escape, and who are not so tired they cannot see the future for the past. Visconti, known over here by the glowing reports of his Obsession — an adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice, which cannot be shown because it was produced during the war, and the producers omitted to acquire the screen rights — has recently completed The Earth Trembles, made on location in Sicily and dealing with the harsh struggle for existence by a community of fishermen. It was made with a cast of non-professional players. Just as the quality and force in the work of Pietro Germi was apparent in his first film, so the directorial debut of Guiseppe de Santis. formerly a script-writer, has been hailed by the critics during 1948. Tragic Chase, made for the ANPI (National Association of Italian Partisans), is set against a peasant background, dealing with Fascists and collaborationists, who prey on the peasants until the latter rise up and destroy them. The second film from this director, Bitter Rice, filmed in the rice-fields of nothern Italy with Vittorio Gassmann. a very fine actor who was seen in London during the Italian Stage Festival at the Cambridge Theatre. This has only recently been completed, as have Castellani's In the Sunlight of Rome, which is supposed to surpass Shoeshine in its realism, and Duilio Coletti's Exodus. treating on the flight of European Jews to Palestine, with the British-born actress Marina Berti in the lead. This film is made somewhat on the lines of Rossellini's moving piece of reportage from the flaking ruins of Berlin. Germany Year Zero. Dealing, like Exodus, with the plight of European Jewry is Geoffredi Alessandrini's Wandering Jew, somewhat spoiled by the artificiality of its prologue set in ancient Jerusalem, but gripping and vivid when it touches upon the fate of the Jewish people during the war. It deals with a wealthy French Jew (Vittorio Gassmann) who chooses to hide his race and collaborate with the Germans when they reach Paris. He finally chooses to stand by his people, and goes to his death in order to save hostages in a concentration camp from being murdered in retaliation for his resistance. Alessandrini is less sure of himself than most of the other directors, and although moments of The Wandering Jew achieve a perfect fusion continued on page 12