Depicting War; Pavese & Rossellini on Italy’s WWII

Nothing feeds forgetfulness better than war. However, every age remains in the memory of those who lived through it and in the memory of those generations that follow. It is through the media of their time that these later generations are reminded of the events that took place before theirs.

However, every generation has its own internal logic, its own structure of feeling. Therefore, to truly understand what happened during a certain time period, one must look at the works contemporary of that time. It is through the films and literature of that place and period that we are reminded of stories and perspective of a war that would otherwise have been forgotten.

Two classic works that deal with Italy during World War II, a story often ignored in modern works today, are the neo-realist film Paisa by Roberto Rossellini and the novel La Luna e i Falo or The Moon and the Bonfires by Cesare Pavese. Both works, though different in their chosen portrayal of the war, both deal with the importance of time passing and memory. With this essay I shall look at both these works and show the different ways in which both of them show the importance of time passing and memory in the representation of war.

The 1940s were the formative years for conflicting memories in post-war Italy. During the second half of this decade different sets of memories where linked to different political choices and translated into the exclusive heritage of various political forces. (Poggiolini 2002)

Shortly after the war ended, images remembering Italy at war began to circulate. Some of these films not only represented examples of the historical debate which occurred in the immediate aftermath of the events, but also became models of representation (Monticelli 2000). One of these films was Rossellini’s Paisa. What is interesting of the quick emergence of these films was that it showed the speedy acceptance of the Italians of the anti-fascist resistance.

In Italy the liberation did not signify a return to the old and recent freedom; it meant political revolution, Allied occupation, economic and social upheaval. The liberation came slow and had a profound effect on the economic, social and moral life of the country. Thus in Italy, resistance and liberation are not just words with a historical connotation. When Rossellini made Paisa and Pavese wrote La Luná e i Fálo they were dealing with things actually happening at that time. (Bazin 2000)

What is interesting about this is; that unlike many of the other European cinemas and literary works of the time the Italian cinema and literature did not seem to agree with each other on a shared national memory of the war, creating conflictive representations of different fractions, memories and events. Two of these conflicting works are Paisa and La Luna e i Falo who, though both dealing with the same subject view it from different perspectives. And where one seems to favour the partisan’s, Paisa, the other seems to not favour anyone and puts both fractions in a same negative light.

The film Paisa was partly written by Fellini, who in Italian cinema was known for twisting memory, history and fantasy into a cinematic story. In Paisa Rossellini tries to depict the Italian war through a neo-realistic approach and uses the fresh memory of its viewers to do so. The film itself starts of with an actual news reel to create its realistic atmosphere.

Paisa works with 6 different and juxtaposed episodes only connected with each other through their representation of the Italian war. However, by doing this Rossellini was able to tell stories from different periods of the war and show the progression of war and the effect that the passing of time has on it.

Through the use of different storylines this neo-realistic portrayal of Italy during the Second World War Rossellini achieves a complicated but complete portrayal of the Italian war. In trend with the neo-realism the movie is shot on location, on the places where the events take place (all except for the monastery episode). However, the reality of this film is not just because of the landscape and location. In Paisa, it seems to be carried additionally by faces, bodies and gestures of the actors. (Spring 1983)  This is because, peculiar to neo-realist films, uses real people instead of professional actors.

The passing of time is clear in this movie as between episodes we are informed where they take place and at what time in the war. Through this Paisa shows us the effect of long time war and of time passing has on a country and the people in it, be they local or foreign.

Through this transgression of time, we are shown how internal dynamics change over the course of time. This is made most clear when comparing the first scenes of the film to the last. The first scenes of the film are above all about miss-communication between the Italians and the Allied Forces. The first episode ends with the death of the allied soldiers and the Italian woman Carmella because of this failure to understand each other. However, as the movie progresses and moves forward in time it shows both parties interacting more and more until in the final episode both parties are fighting together and eventually die together.

The movie also shows that through the passing of time acceptance of other cultures and backgrounds become clear. How the war created an understanding, acceptance or just indifference of other cultures. Clearest example of this is the second episode of the movie where a young boy “boys” buys a drunk, black American soldier. As the episode progresses the boy and the soldier seem to come to an understanding of each other. The episode that defines the effect of time and war on this acceptance even more clearly is the episode that takes place in monastery. There, monks who have spend the entire war inside the monastery, cut of from the war and seem to have been stuck in time. Take in three American chaplains. As they discover that one is a Protestant and the other a Jew they try and convert these “lost souls”. This episode shows that by remaining stuck in time and away from the war these monks seem to lack the ability to understand or accept other peoples believes and try to convert them instead of accepting them.

A last theme in the film, which also features greatly in Cesare Pavese’s La Luna e i Fálo, is that of memory and how war and time can taint or destroy a beautiful memory. This theme is contemplated in the third episode. There a drunken G.I is taken to the room of a prostitute. Here the G.I recounts the story of his first entry into the city of Rome and the lovely innocent girl Francesca he had met but had been unable to find again. The prostitute turns out to be that girl and arranges for her old address to be given to him. The episode ends with her waiting anxiously outside while he is seen at the very end throwing away the slip of paper with the remark that it only “the address of a whore.” (Spring 1983)

Published in 1950 post-war Italy, Cesare Pavese’s The Moon and the Bonfires can be considered a pseudo-autobiographical neo-realistic work of fiction. The book’s main story line takes place at the agrarian country side of the Santo Stefano Belbo valley.

The main theme of this book is memory, nostalgia and the passing of time. Throughout the book the reader is taken back in time and into the memories of the narrator and his friend Nuto. The Narrator is a man trapped in the past – a past that never held any interest or possibility for him. He gets away for twenty years and returns hoping to find someone who can give him a template for a viable existence in his native land. (Rudman 2002) The book works with four different storylines set in different times and told from two different perspectives. The first is the present storyline taking place at the return of the protagonist to his native region. The second is the memory of that same protagonist of his youth and up bringing. The third storyline is that of the protagonist’s time abroad and travelling, mostly in America. All three of these storylines are told through the eyes of the narrator and protagonists as he reminisces. The fourth and last story line within this book is told by the narrator’s friend Nuto. It is this part of the book that deals with Italy during the war. Though the book does not directly deal with the war directly through the subtle and suggestive way of writing by Pavese we are shown the effects the war had on village. It shows the effect of war and how war effects time passing and taints beautiful memories with reminders of the horrors that took place during it.

Through different storylines the writer displays the effect of leaving and time passing. To the protagonist, upon his return, he feels that nothing has changed in his home village and actually states; “[…] in the end only seasons matter, and the seasons are what have made our bones, what you fed on when you were a boy. Canelli is the whole world – Canelli and the Belbo valley – and on the hills only time doesn’t pass” (Pavese 1950)

However, even though he finds an air of sameness in everything, especially in the terrain and the way of life of its people, and yet, in every individual detail, whether of people or of places, virtually everything has changed. (Thompson 1994)

This realisation comes from memories triggered by scenes that have certain nostalgic feel. Throughout the book the past and present are intertwined. Through the intricate writing style of Pavese the reader at times loses awareness of the time period of which the narrator is speaking. It is through this, especially when reminiscing of his childhood, that Pavese shows us the similarity of the past and present. As Pavese writes “only seasons change” and in a way this is true. He find that on the outside nothing has changed as if his childhood was a summer which had returned years later in the form of the boy Chinto who reminds him of himself.

However, throughout the book, Anguilla discovers that things have changed while he was away and it is through Nuto that the readers and Anguilla discover what happened while he was gone and why, though everything is the same, it is also different.

Because the protagonist, Anguilla, was away for the duration of the war in Italy, and for some time after, the memory of the Belbo valley remained the same in his mind as it was when he was a child. Because of his return we are shown the importance of time passing and the effects of war. It is through Nuto that we learn the importance of the war and its effect on the village and surrounding area. This, however, only happens in the last chapters of the book in which Nuto fills Anguilla and the reader in on the events of the war. Before that Anguilla and the reader are left in the dark about the reason behind al the small changes.

The book shows us that when a person leaves, the memory of the place he left remains the same within him but the place itself changes its internal structure and logic and upon returning thing may appear the same but the difference are there.

Through the subject of the war this is made even more transparent. The war which, in retrospect only lasted a few years, had a dramatic effect on the area and created new grudges, destroyed old lives and created new. The war speeded up the changes to the area and its people that would otherwise have taken many more years. (Thompson 1994)

La Luna e i Faló also deals with the effect of a war on a more personal level. This is done through Nuto, who in the course of the war acquired a political awareness and a communistic ideology of how the world should be. It also shows the horrors of war and the changes it creates to the relationships of the people of that time. An example of this is the story of Nuto and Santina. Throughout the book we are told about her but never what happened to her. Throughout the book we see her through the eyes of Anguilla as a young girl and create sympathy towards her. It is not until the end that we learn what happened to her and how much she had changed throughout the war.

If nothing else the book is a tale about memory and nostalgia, about leaving and returning and the way war or even time passing effects normal lives. How war can turn a return home into an arrival to a place that looks like the place you left but has changed bellow the surface search for the past. How war can change a search for a future to a search for the past. Perhaps the most powerful reminder of how war changes times and pollutes memory is in the last sentence of the book; “The mark was still there last year, like the bed of a bonfire”. This single line shows us that the beautiful memories and ideas of the bonfires have forever been tainted by the horror of war. It shows us how war can turn even the most beautiful memories into a Janus like memory, infecting it with the horrors of war.

Both of these two works are of historical importance for Italy. Next to both works representing change of towards a new revolutionary literary style and cinematic styles for Italy, it also shows us the importance of war memorial and how the passing of time affects the collective memory of a country at war. Today, Italy, like Germany, still struggles to create a unified and collective memory of the problematic period of the 1940s. Through both these works we are shown how, back then, Italy was struggling with the war and how only through the passing of time they are able to come to a definitive collective memory.

Bibliography and Reference:

• BAZIN, A (2000) An Aesthetic of Reality; Neoeralism (Cinematic Realism and the Italian School of the Liberation). In; ORR , E & TAXIDOU (2000) Post-war Cinema and Modenity: A Film Reader Edinburgh University Press Ltd: Edinburgh

• COOK, D (1981) A History of Narrative Film. Norton & Company Inc: New York

• MONTICELLI, S (2000) Modern Italy. National Identity and the Representation of Italy at War: the Case of Combat Film.< http://www.informaworld.com&gt;

• PAVESE, C (1950) The Moon and the Bonfires. New York Review Book: New York

• POGGIOLINI, I (2002) Translating Memories of War and Co-Belligerency into Politics: The Italian Past-War Experience. In: MÜLLER, J (ed.) (2002) Memory & Power in Post-War Europe. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge

• RUDMAN, M (2002) in: PAVESE, C (1950) The Moon and the Bonfires. New York Review Book: New York 

• SPRING (1983) Studies in the Literary Imagination.

• THOMPSON, D (1994) In:  PAVESE, C (1950) La Luná e i Fálo. Manchester University Press: Manchester