The Oxford History of World Cinema (52 page)

decline of the documentary and the comic short, which from this moment on became

mere programme-fillers. Conversely, there was a sharp increase in grandiose productions,

which aimed to develop what were held to be the highest of ideals, such as the promotion

of the nationalist spirit or of religious values. In the wake of the success of Quo vadis?,

Enrico Guazzoni emerged as a specialist in historical reconstruction through a series of

monumental dramas set in Ancient Rome, such as Antony and Cleopatra ( Marcantonio e

Cleopatra, Cines, 1913), Julius Caesar ( Cajus Julius Caesar, Cines, 1914), and Fabiola

(Palatino Film, 1918), or in the Middle Ages (a new version of La Gerusalemme liberata,

Guazzoni Film, 1918), or in the period of the Napoleonic Wars ( Scuola d'eroi, Cines,

1914; UK title How Heroes are Made; US title For Napoleon and France). The same

direction was followed by Luigi Maggi, Mario Caserini, Ugo Falena ( Giuliano l'apostata

('Julian the Apostate'), Bernini Film, 1919), and Nino Oxilia. Some of the most significant

expressions of Catholic orthodoxy in this context were Christus (Cines, 1916) by Giulio

Antamoro, Frate Sole ('Brother Sun', Tespi Film, 1918) by Ugo Falena, and Redenzione

('Redemption', Medusa Film, 1919) by Carmine Gallone.

Ancient Rome as grand spectacle: Enrico Guazzoni's Quo vadis? ( 1913)

REALISM: THE FIRST WAVE

Alongside the trend towards a cinema aimed at highbrow audiences, the more popular

forms, out of which cinema ramas which had begun with Tigris found its greatest

exponent in the eccentric, and, given the gossip surrounding his private life, also

somewhat romantic figure of Emilio Ghione. In Nelly la gigolette (Caesar Film, 1914)

Ghione created the character of Za la Mort -- a Frenchlooking scoundrel living among

apache gangsters -- who starred in serials such as La banda delle cifre ('The numbers

gang', Tiber-Film, 1915), Il triangolo giallo ('The yellow triangle', Tiber-Film, 1917), and

above all I topi grigi ('The grey rats', Tiber-Film, 1918), which all exploited the

restrictions imposed by a low-cost production to produce a tight, nervous narrative pace

while making full use of the visual resources provided by the landscapes of the Roman

countryside.

The stamp of realism which is clearly identifiable in I topi grigi is also evident in another

undoubtedly significant, although marginal, trend towards realism which runs through

Italian cinema of the 1910s. The most accomplished exemplar of this trend was Sperduti

nel buio ('Lost in the dark', Morgana Films, 1914), by Nino Martoglio and Roberto

Danesi, which has acquired an air of legend owing to the mysterious circumstances

surrounding its disappearance. Many other works made between 1912 and 1916 bear

witness to a marked taste for the observation of everyday life, often intertwined with

elements of melodrama -- as in L'emigrante ('The emigrant', Itala Film, 1915), by Febo

Mari, which was Ermete Zacconi's second film, or light comedies such as Addio

giovinezza! ('Farewell youth!', Itala Film, 1913), directed by Nino Oxilia and remade

twice by Augusto Genina in 1918 and 1927. Other films present examples of

straightforward naturalism: such as Assunta Spina (Caesar Film, 1915) by Gustavo Serena

and Francesca Bertini-adapted from a play by Salvatore Di Giacomoand Cenere (Ash',

Ambrosio, 1916) by Febo Mari and Arturo Ambrosio, Jr., from a book by Sardinian

novelist Grazia Deledda. The latter was the only film made by the great theatre actress

Eleonora Duse.

FROM DECADENTISM TO DECADENCE

The outbreak of the First World War and the growing power of American cinema in the

European market put an abrupt end to dreams of expansion of the Italian industry. The

heavy commitment to the war effort required of the weak national economy diverted

energies from other activities, and this draining of resources would only get worse in the

aftermath of the disastrous defeat by the Austrians at Caporetto in 1917. A substantial part

of the films which were made were dedicated to the theme of war, thus producing a brief

resurgence of the documentary genre. Propaganda efforts even extended into omedy, as

evinced in André Deed's La paura degli aeromobili nemici ('The fear of enemy flying-

machines', Itala Film, 1915) and Segundo de Chomón's children's animation La guerra e il

sogno di Momi ('The war and Momi's dream', Itala Film, 1917). Unlike in France,

however, Italian cinema was wholly unprepared for the demands thrown up by this new

situation. The geographical and financial dispersal of production centres, the lack of any

co-ordinated exhibition circuit, and the endemic disorganization of much of the

production system meant that, at the first signs of difficulty, the industry was brought to

its knees.

After the end of the war, in 1919, one late and doomed salvage attempt was made when a

group of bankers and producers, with the support of two powerful financial institutions,

set up the Unione Cinematografica Italiana (UCI), a trust under whose aegis were

gathered the eleven largest production companies in the country. But the initiative did

more harm than good. The poorly improvised attempt to create a production monopoly to

control the market destroyed all competition. The number of films made annually grew

initially from 280 in 1919 to more than 400 in 1921, but on the whole the films were

mediocre, worryingly similar to each other in their constant reprise of well-worn ideas

and, worst of all, hopelessly inadequate in the face of the American onslaught, whether at

home or abroad. Already by December 1921, the failure of one of the major backers of

the scheme -the Banca Italiana di Sconto -- had seriously wounded the consortium, and

from 1923 its constituent companies plunged one by one into a fatal crisis. From that

moment onwards, rates of output decreased rapidly, and Italian cinema sank into a mire

from which it was not to reemerge until after the end of the silent period.

A studio portrait of the Italian 'diva' Pina Minichelli

One of the genres which may be seen as partly responsible for the decline had been born

in the period before the war. Its protagonists were a set of actresses whose personalities

and acting style gave rise to the cult of the diva, which permeated all social classes and

for a certain time even spread to other European countries and to the United States (with

the short-lived meteoric career of exaggerated appropriation of symbolism and

decadentism. In the following decade, its influence was felt throughout Italian society.

Lyda Borelli, the diva par excellence, set the standard of a style based more on the

charismatic presence of the actress than on any technical or aesthetic qualities of the

production. In her films the expressivity of the body was assigned a determining role. The

characters played by Borelli-and by other divas such as Maria Carmi, Rina De Liguoro,

Maria Jacobini, Soava Gallone, Helena Makowska, Hesperia, Italia Almirante Manzini --

are sensual, tormented figures, caught between frail melancholia and anxiety, expressed

through mannered poses. They live in luxuriant and at times oppressively opulent

surroundings, where excited glances and sharp movements mirror the excess of the

costumes and scenery.

The perverse, sometimes evil nature of the divas was reinforced by the screenplays, which

were tailor-made for each actress, thereby diminishing the power and significance of the

director. Rapsodía satanica ('Satanic rhapsody') by Nino Oxilia (with an orchestral score

composed for the film by Pietro Mascagni) and Malombra by Carmine Gallone -- both

made by Cines in 1917 -- are the most striking examples of the aesthetic of 'borellismo',

the cinematic equivalent of the Italian taste for neo-classical and Pre-Raphaelite academic

imagery. Some performers, however, did manage to create distinctive styles. Francesca

Bertini, who starred in Sangue blu ('Blue blood') by Nino Oxilia (Celio Film, 1914), had a

somewhat more sober, and at times even naturalistic, acting style; and Pina Menichelli

achieved a 'D'Annunzian' morbid dramatic intensity in two Giovanni Pastrone films, Il

fuoco ('The flame', Itala Film, 1915) and Tigre reale ('Royal tiger', Itala Film, 1916, from

the story by Giovanni Verga).

The narrative world built up around the divas amounted to a compendium of love and

intrigue in upper bourgeois and aristocratic circles, a world marked by rigid social

conventions and uncontainable passions, so detached from any sense of reality as to

constitute a closed universe, dominated by sex and death. A remarkable exception to this

rule seems to have been the work of Lucio d'Ambra ( 1879-1939), whose films such as

L'illustre attrice cicala formica ('The famous actress cicada ant', 1920) and La tragedia su

tre carte ('Tragedy on three cards', 1922) were characterized by an eccentric but rich

figurative elegance. Unfortunately most of them appear to be lost.

Exceptions apart, in the 1920s melodrama of this kind became the staple fare of Italian

cinema. Both quality and quantity suffered and the industry turned in on itself, confusing

the ruins of its former glories with potential new directions. The last vestiges of the

aspiration to artistic grandeur were stamped out by a series of yet more historical genre

films: another Quo vadis?, directed by Gab riellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby (UCI,

1924); another Last Days of Pompeii (Società Anonima Grandi Film, 1926), directed by

Amleto Palermi and Carmine Gallone; a suggestive, perturbing return to (Gabriele)

D'Annunzio in La nave ('The ship', Ambrosio/Zanotta, 1921) by Gabriellino D'Annunzio

and Mario Roncoroni. The avant-garde futurist movement dabbled in film, but had little

impact. The most significant evidence of their involvement to have survived is Thaïs

(Novissima Film/Enrico De Medio, 1917) by Anton Giulio Bragaglia and Riccardo

Cassano, a pale shadow of the aggressive declarations of futurist theoreticians.

TWILIGHT: STRONG MEN AND NEAPOLITANS

Of course, some of these relics were also notable commercial successes. The exceptional

demand for Cabiria had led to its being rereleased several times after 1914. Pastrone even

made a synchronized version in 1931, which was the version best known to audiences

until a restored version of the original appeared in 1995. The success of Cabiria was due

to the character of the slave Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano), whose athletic prowess made

him a favourite with audiences and spawned a long series of films devoted to him, from

Maciste (Itala Film, 1915), by Vincenzo C. Dénizot and Romano L. Borgnetto, to the war

propaganda film Maciste alpino ('Maciste in the Alpine Regiment', Itala Film, 1916), by

Luigi Maggi and Romano L. Borgnetto, to the apotheosis of kitsch in Maciste all'inferno

(Fert-Pittaluga, 1926) by Guido Brignone. These were the first in the tradition of 'strong-

man' films, an athletic variant on the adventure film, whose protagonists are endowed

with extraordinary physical strength and untarnished simplicity of emotion. Pagano's lead

was followed in the first half of the 1920s by several other champions of the athlete-cum-

acrobat-cum-actor: Sansone (Luciano Albertini), Saetta (Domenico Gambino), Galaor

(Domenico Boccolini) and the Graeco-Roman wrestling champion Giovanni Raicevich.

Elsewhere, the fading fortunes of cinema on a national scale contributed to a spontaneous

renaissance in a formerly minor area of film-making, the Neapolitan dialect melodrama.