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PARTISAN REVIEW
public. Everybody in Italy knows that whatever intelligent movies have
been made since 1945 were possible only because the Government could
not, and would not, interfere.
In Italy, however, censorship like protectionism, is a real threat.
The new trend in movie-making, usually labelled "neo-realistic," and of
which the pictures that have already been shown in New York are good
examples, is utterly unpopular with officialdom as well as with certain
powerful sections of public opinion. After
Shoe-Shine,
De Sica's name
became anathema within the walls of the Ministry of Justice, and more
especially among the officials of the Department of Correction. De Sica
had dared to show life inside a prison. The officials didn't say that what
he had shown was false. They said it was "a smear on Italy's honor."
No person connected with the movies is now allowed to walk across
the gates of an Italian penitentiary. Even such a goodnatured and mildly
humorous work as
Bicycle Thieves
has aroused the wrath of no less an
organ than the Vatican paper, the
OsseT'vatore Romano,
because of a
scene where some gentle fun is poked at the way charity is administered
by certain Catholic organizations. Here too, the argument was that
De Sica besmirches his country by showing "only the dingy side of
things."
If
restrained, well-mannered De Sica can irritate hidebound
conservatives, less cautious "neo-realistic" directors like Luigi Zampa,
the author of a rather pitiless film about the Fascist period,
Anni Ditficili
(Difficult Years), have seen their work denounced in Parliament as "an
attempt to exploit the misfortunes of the Fatherland." The Government
did not directly heed the wishes of those who asked for the outright
suppression of Zampci.'s film, but the fact is that, after a short run at
Rome's swankiest movie theater,
Anni Ditficili
has disappeared from
circulation.
Caught as they are between the Scylla of financial difficulties and
the Charybdis of State protection, the career of Italian independent
movie producers is more precarious than it would seem at first sight.
One of the few reasons for remaining optimistic about it lies in the fact
that people have not forgotten the absurdity of a nationalism which dis–
couraged indigenous talent while claiming constantly that it did nothing
but protect national resources and prestige. This was particularly ap–
parent in the field of motion pictures. Thanks to a skillful combination
of censorship, protection, and squandering, the Fascist regime succeeded
in scaring the public away from Italian movies. Mussolini's censorship
was particularly obnoxious since it refused to put down any set of rules,
and acted under the inspiration of the moment. Everybody knew that
