Fifty years of Italian cinema (1955)

23 made use of by the Americans. The narrative had unity, the shots were original and boldly visualized, and the captions were not a substitute for action. It was Quo Vadis ?, as much as any other film by Guazzoni, which caused some malicious critics to declare that the historical film was born of Guazzoni's taste for painting, a an unfortunate vocation. » Color, they would have you believe, was his downfall. Having failed as a painter, he tried, via the screen, to capture the public with his « animated frescoes. » Let us evaluate this complaint. That certain painters who failed to exhibit their work successfully then turned to the cinema is undeniable. But this much at least should be conceded. The influence of Guazzoni, who may have failed at or renounced painting, was, in fact, a notable event for the cinema. In a pictorial art such as the cinema, the painter's influence had much to offer, such as theories of composition, lighting, grouping, balance and design. One has only to recall Wolkoff's Casanova, produced in Venice in 1927, or Figaro e la sua gran giomata (Figaro's Great Day) by Mario Camerini, in our own time, or Blasetti's i860, not to mention the marvelous evocation of the Flemish masters in Jacques Feyder's magnificent La Kermesse Heroique (Carnival in Flanders). Battle-scenes, from La presa di Roma (The Fall of Rome) to Cabiria, were the rage. War — e.g., the actual sight of war in progress — ■ was the cinema's « trump card. » There were Golden Wedding, La lampada della nonna (Grandmother's Lamp), Giulio Cesar e (Julius Caesar) and The Napoleonic Epic, among others. After the success of Quo Vadis ? another infallible drawing-card was noted : wild beasts. Real wild beasts, no fakes ! Film battles, one knows, are without actual bloodshed, but wild beasts are no joke. The single timid lion, probably more frightened than were his spectators, who appeared in Pasquali's Spartacus, was a far cry indeed from the ferocious beasts in Quo Vadis ? It was the moment of shivers and goosepimples in the cinema. But the background was always historical or classical, as in Anthony and Cleopatra and Julius Caesar, both produced by the indefatigable Guazzoni in 1918, The Last Days of Pompeii, etc. And all the while, silently, but monumentally, the great Cabiria was in production. Some of the minor spectacles of this period, when viewed recently, have elicited praise even today. Anthony and Cleopatra, for instance, was marked, we read, by « its good taste, its pacing and for the intelligent interpretation of Roman character ». The Last Days of Pompeii, that hardy perennial, which has almost defied criticism through the years, appeared in four different versions before 1930, two by Ambrosio (the first in 1911), and others by Pasquali and Caserini. Eventually it was to be done a fifth time in Italy by L'Herbier. The actors were now the masters. Male and female tragedians, with plastered forelocks and heroic or seductive gestures, called out from their lurid posters to the man in the street. Film companies raided other film companies for wanted stars; producers battled with stars and viceversa. Lawyers, the stars' patrons and journalists were jubilant. This was a field day for them. Law courts meant money within reach. « The supreme cult of the stars », wrote Emilio Ghione, « is the first crack in the structure of our cinema. » This did not prevent players of the rank of Francesca Bertini, L'Hesperia and Pina Menichelli, sure of their value to the producers, from increasing their demand. And if today we smile at these once famous stars, now of such dim renown, actors with the obvious masks of enchanters or seducers, and actresses with