De Crápula a Herói

Though I've only seen this film once, when I was actually young, it has remained one of my lifetime 'greatest' films. It deals with how each of us has a self image, and how that self image, and the lives we lead, may be influenced by how others view us. This is, I think, one of the great common themes of our lives - and this movie examines it beautifully. Though I saw it so long ago, I still remember it each time I see an example of its theme played out in today's events. Most notably, in the U.S., it has been shown in the direction that many (but not all) of our Supreme Court justices take once they receive their lifetime posts. Their thoughts, no matter how narrow they had been, become wider and wiser once that mantle of office settles onto their personalities. This great movie prepared me to see and understand this miraculous process - and others like it.

Filmed in thirty-three days and edited in ten, this is the first of Rossellini's films post 'Rome, Open City' to be both critically and commercially successful on its release which irked the director no end. Although it lacks the immediacy of the earlier film and its location shooting has been replaced by studio sets whilst being sluggishly directed at times, it remains both gripping and exciting due to the splendid performances by Vittorio de Sica as charlatan Bardone and Hannes Messemer as SS Colonel Mueller whose relationship provides the linchpin of the piece.

Unlike Rossellini, de Sica had no qualms regarding commercialism and as a director excelled in neo-realism and when that genre went out of fashion, Commedia all'Italiana, at the same time creating an artiste from the raw material that was Sophia Loren. He actually logged more time as a actor, mainly to pay off his gambling debts. Had he not been a first class director/actor he would undoubtedly have been a magnificent snake-oil salesman and this, combined with his compulsive gambling, makes his casting here a masterstroke. Hannes Messemer is called upon to be cruel and calculating but is able to imbue his character with a certain nobility and is probably best known to English speaking viewers as the 'decent' German in 'The Great Escape'. As a self-sacrificing partisan Aristide Belchelli gives a fine performance whilst on the distaff side there are touching turns by Sandra Milo and Anne Vernon with Giovanna Ralli looking incredibly edible.

It has been adapted from the story by Indro Montanelli who himself served time in San Vittore and based Bardone on a fellow inmate named Bertone who was killed by firing squad. Upon the film's release Bertone's family filed a defamation suit against the director.

From being out of favour, Rossellini has regained some of his prestige by returning to his origins of war and resistance. Although he felt that by making this film he had 'sold out', this more conventional piece remains by far his most accessible and one of his most powerful.

The story of the film concerns "Colonelo" Bertone a self-appointed community intercessor and thief in World War II Italy, passing on bribes from families to the Germans in order to help their sons (or gambling away the bribes and eating their food parcels). It's definitely a film of two halves, the first half of the movie to me feeling decidedly Pasolinian. Bertone, though undoubtedly a scoundrel does his best to keep people happy, is a character that spreads a certain amount of charm in the world. For some people who have never known love or had anyone to look up to, he provides a show, his charisma is like ambrosia. Having been brought up with Protestant vales it has been a revelation to me in life how people value charm as most precious, a Veblen good, more prized when it is most demanding, how a charming person is valued above all others even when they live in a moral vacuum.

The second half of the movie is, in structure, a more conventional prison movie where Bertone, working for the Germans in order to save his skin, becomes an impostor pretending to be Generale della Rovere. Whilst pretending to be the general he begins to assume many of the general's characteristics. This part of the film is very patriotic, and contains a beautiful fresco of Italian cities on the prison wall. The ideology of this part of the movie is all about recognising the efforts of the largely Communist, Partito d'Azione and Socialist partisan resistance, bodies who were largely excluded from the post-fascist Italian government, which was dominated by the Christian Democrats, who many felt to have been tainted by association with fascism.

Pontecorvo's movie Kapò was released contemporaneously, and features a similarly caricatured version of the Teutonic gaoler and slightly ebullient view of World War II, that would become refined in future decades. That said, Il Generale della Rovere, is undoubtedly a masterpiece.

An understated masterpiece, this film charts the moral growth in nearly the worst of times of Victorio Grimaldi played by Vittorio De Sica. Other comments set out the main lines of the plot and note the excellence of de Sica as the not-good, but not all-bad, Grimaldi who is just trying to survive, like everyone else. But it evolves in a story of one man trying to live up to the expectations of others, who have had it even harder than he has. Planted in the prison to impersonate the heroic General della Rovere, Grimaldi slowly begins to act like the leader that Rovere was. In one touching scene, while under a terrifying bombardment, he cowers in his cell only to stiffen himself to shout out encouragement to the others, before collapsing in prayer and mortal dread. In this two or three minute episode we learn more about courage than from a score of action movies and thrillers. And of course Grimaldi learns something about himself, too, in a way, and also something about General della Rovere. Toward the end Grimaldi takes on the role of the now dead general so completely that he writes a letter to the general's wife encouraging her to persevere, while he willingly faces execution by the Germans to set an example to other Italians to resist. It is a powerful story of growth, self-realization, and redemption in terrible conditions, though there is also a hint of Italian patriotism, too. The film is hard to get but I managed it a few years ago on VHS, so seekers, persist! It is worth the effort.

Roberto Rossellini, as a filmmaker, cannot be compared to anyone else. Not because of any camera technique but because his mind, to tell a story, took shortcuts through truly dangerous territories. The nervous center of the Italian human nature is dissected with fierceness, compassion and even a touch of admiration. Redemption coming in the most unexpected form as a last, final test. Who am I, really? Could I at the last moment of my life become the man I always wanted to be? Beautiful, poignant, terrifying. Vittorio De Sica gives one the best performances of his eclectic and extraordinary career. The traveling of his thoughts seem to come out of the screen with the same intensity as his real smallness, his fear, his painful self awareness. Truth, with all is uncomfortable connotations 24 frames a second.