Post-War Literature & Culture: Post-War Literature & Culture Roberta Piazza


1. Americanization: 1. Americanization American historical-political and economic interventions. Some facts. GIs during WW2 (see Rossellini’s 1946 Paisà)


Paisan: Paisan


Slide4: Also Zampa (1946) Un americano in vacanza. Italian women are easily seduced by the Americans


Europe & US: Europe & US Marshall Plan or European Recovery Plan after Secretary of State George Marshall (hope to repel communism). From 1947 for 4 years ca USD 13 billion were devoted to the economic and technical support of European countries. Same help offered to the Soviet Union MP as the earliest form of Euro integration


Marshall plan: Marshall plan Beneficiaries of the MP accepted the free circulation of information about the plan. Consequence: effective international propaganda. There were ERP concerts, ERP trains, ERP writing and art competitions… (Ellwood, 2003)


Europe and the US: Europe and the US Cold War – US-USSR polarity – resulting in reinforced nationalism. Additional hard facts: imposing presence of Hollywood, the spreading of American consumption ethics through e.g. McDonald’s or EuroDisney (recently), but also or the Fulbright Programme, the American Embassies in Europe, or the USIA (United States Information Agency).


France and the US: France and the US Long tradition of independence yet American modes of life have thrived in this country (EuroDisney) Kuisel, 1993 and others explore the issue of whether it was Americanization or modernization


Slide9: Tourism was used as a site of Americanization 3 million tourists visited France in early 1950s, cheap aviation fares were introduced However, Americans were not really welcome in France and tourism was not that successful in promoting the idea of the US in France


The US and the working class: The US and the working class The Labor Information Division of the Marshall Plan bureaucracy did its best to inform/convince workers that American modes of production were better than any other. Failure: because of the efforts of the Communist workers’ unions ad because there was not much belief that workers’ salaries could be improved


The seduction of America in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. : The seduction of America in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Curiosity for American culture infiltrated in these two countries. American contradictory attraction


Slide12: The US as freedom from oppression: under Fascism ‘America supplied distressed intellectuals with a myth, a place to escape’ (Sorlin, 1996: 58). The US as intl v. Italy’s parochial nationalist culture: Americana by Pavese and Vittorini amongst others. America as the land of the new: poor peasants in Southern Italy spoke of pounds and inches rather than kilograms and centimetres (Sorlin, 1996: 58)


Slide13: The rhetoric of newness: US as a new and young nation: American youth (Marlon Brando and James Dean in 1950s) American rich iconography: Hollywood films, clothing, music etc.


Negative US: Negative US Capitalism and compulsive consumerism America as the country of corrupting values (De Santis’s Bitter Rice, working class values v. the America capitalist illusion)


Still from Bitter Rice: Still from Bitter Rice


Slide16: Hefty presence of American cinema in Europe and Italy. During Fascism and in the 1930s and early 1940s. Italian Neorealism Italy 1946-50: 178 films exported to the US, but 1,662 Hollywood films from the US to Italy (Bondanella, 1998: 36) Similar situation in France. US marketing strategies


Slide17: In 1950s Italy & Europe become critical of the US and the Hollywood dream (Visconti, 1951’s Bellissima) Steno’s 1954 Un americano a Roma: Irony and sarcasm. The Americans eat ‘mustard, jam and milk’!


Still from Un americano…: Still from Un americano…


Slide19: Similar irony in the lyrics of Carosone ‘Tu vo’ fa’ l’americano’ (You want to be American) ‘You want to look American but your money comes from your mother and when you drink whiskey you get heartburn’


Slide20: Americanization and exclusion of Communism from European political life


US fascination: US fascination McKay (ed.), 1997. Yankees Go Home (& Take Me with U). Cultural Imperialism or Hegemonic Culture? ‘Domination by cultural influence’ (myth of US cultural infiltration as a subsequence of the Cold War mystique) Perception of the US as a homogeneous nation in spite of the American ‘melting pot’


Conclusion: Conclusion Reasons of American fascination? An objectively inescapable influence but also a pacifier of national anxieties. For Forgacs and Wim Wenders, Italy and Germany have problems of identity (loss of war) and are uncertain of how to deal with their past. America is an escape (once more)


2. Neorealism: 2. Neorealism a. Movement in post-war Italy: need for a new relationship between culture and the people, and a new interpretation of the artist as a politically and socially committed operator. b. Anti-fascist thrust


NR: NR Disrupted structures in liberated post-war Italy. Committed culture, manifestations in several fields


Visual arts: Visual arts The Roman & Milan schools Aligi Sassu’s Fucilazione nelle Asturie and Renato Guttuso’s Fucilazione in campagna, both echoing Garcia Lorca’s shooting by Francoist forces.


Sassu: Sassu


Literature: Literature Populism and humanitarism in writing (Vittorini, Silone Bernari, Cassola, Calvino) Politecnico (1943) journal founded by Vittorini with the objective of reaching an ideological mediation with the masses.


Cinema: Cinema Social and political commitment. In search of a new aesthetics, although the antecedents of NR can be identified in the left-wing fringes of Fascism. For some, NR cinema was a ‘bourgeois avant-garde artistic movement’ (Wagstaff, 1989: 72)


Slide29: NR as the rebirth of Italian cinema Cinema as cheap entertainment Opening of very many picture houses


Principles of NR cinema: Principles of NR cinema Naturalness v. artificiality: NR as the triumph of anti-formalist theories of film Realist critics, Bazin and Kracauer: cinema as the human eye Bazin: NR as ‘reconstituted reportage’.


Visual authenticity: Visual authenticity Documentarism (newsreel quality, grainy quality of films) On-site shooting as opposed to studio-shooting. Use of non-professional actors: De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves (1948) Maggiorani v. Cary Grant.


Bicycle Thieves: Bicycle Thieves


NR: NR Political content: Resistance stories, workers’ stories… In conclusion, NR as the expression of a left-wing and democratic culture.


Some films: Some films Rossellini’s Paisan, Germany Year Zero and Rome Open City De Sica’s Bicycle Thieves and Sciuscià


Bicycle Thieves: Bicycle Thieves


Shoeshine: Shoeshine


Magnani in Open City: Magnani in Open City


3. Nouvelle Vague/New Wave: 3. Nouvelle Vague/New Wave 1956-58 till 1964 Social term firstly referred to French youth by journalist Françoise Giroud 1958’s book, The New Wave: Portrait of Today’s Youth. New France = New Cinema Cinematic canons are questioned and new structures proposed (see also the cinema of the ‘Angry Young Men’ in Britain)


Slide39: New Wave as the result of the post-war enthusiasm Two groups of NW directors: 1. André Bazin, Éric Rohmer, Alain Resnais; 2. Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, François Truffaut, Jacques Rivette (also Agnés Varda and Louis Malle).


Slide40: Journal Cahiers du Cinéma (film criticism) NW as the new cinema against consumeristic and banal Hollywood.


Slide41: 1950s: funds from De Gaulle. Film critics become directors or AUTEURS Authors and Directors are the same person. An author writes with his camera like a writer does. Priority of the mise en scène over the writing of the script


Truffaut’s theses about NV: Truffaut’s theses about NV Published in Cahiers du cinéma in his review of a film by Becker Ali Babà et les quarante voleurs, 1954: There is only one film author, the director or ‘metteur en scène’ while the screen/script writer only provides the director with useful materials (film-making no longer has a collective character) There are no works, there are only authors


In praise of Italian NR: In praise of Italian NR Shooting on location (in the streets of Paris) Use of light, hand-held cameras to follow actors around and portray real life Films made cheaply and quickly Experimentation and improvisation (see Rossellini’s film aesthetics) Real sound and real light


More: More Long takes and reduces editing (cinema as the real eye) Real time (2 hrs of film = 2 hrs of plot) Non professional or new-unknown actors No distinction between professional and amateur cinema & fiction and documentary


Slide45: Editing includes irrelevant bits (also for humour and irony) No post-synchronization (sound recorded while shooting)


Differences: Differences Differently from NR, NW reminds the spectators that what they are watching is NOT reality but a representation of reality (see Pirandello’s theatre e.g. Six Characters in Search of an Author or Brecht’s alienation effect) Meta-reflection on cinema. Intellectualisation of the cinematic experience Truffaut: What’s more important cinema or life?


NV films: NV films Godard’s A Bout de Souffle (Breathless) La Mépris (Contempt), Truffaut’s (1959) Les quatre cents coups and Roger Vadim’s …Et Dieu créa la femme (1956) with BB as the symbol of the emancipated woman, set the pace of NW


Belmondo in Breathless: Belmondo in Breathless


Godard: Godard


BB in La Mépris: BB in La Mépris


Behind the NW: Behind the NW NW influenced by Existentialism (Philosophical school of thought) (Olson, 1962) Sartre Precursors Unamuno (Spain), Leopardi (Italy)


Core notions: Core notions No complete satisfaction can exist Humans’ aspiration to totality (desire) is continuously frustrated Objective political, social and cultural circumstances have no bearing on existence nor can they bring happiness. Unhappiness inherent to human existence


Existentialism: Existentialism The commanding value in life is intensity as manifested through free will, choice and self-assertion (but Sartre stresses how this act causes anguish because of the responsibility it puts on the subject) Aspiration to full consciousness although this is associated with suffering


Existentialism and the NW: Existentialism and the NW Refusal of rational understanding of reality life as absurdity focus on the individual political cynicism (France’s presence in Algeria and Indo-China) preference for anti-heroes and solitary, marginalised individuals non-adherence to rules, search for spontaneity and authenticity (individualism)


Additional references: Additional references Forgacs, D. 1989. The making and unmaking of neorealism in postwar Italy. In Hewitt, N. (ed.) The Culture of Reconstruction. European Literature, Thought and Film, 1945-50. Hay, J. 1987. Popular Film Culture in Fascist Italy. The Passing of the Rex. Olson, R. 1962. An Introduction to Existentialism. Nottingham, S. 2006. The French New Wave (ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Stephen_Nottingham/cintxt2.htm) Douchet, J. 1999. French New Wave.


Slide56: Marie, M. 1998. La nouvelle vague Campari, R. 1996. La presenza dell’America e i rapporti con il cinema americano. In Brunetta G.P. (ed.) Identità italiana e identità europea nel cinema italiano dal 1945 al miracolo economico. Sorlin, P. 1996. Italian National Cinema 1896-1996. McKay (ed.), 1997. Yankees Go Home (& Take Me with U). Ellwood, The Propaganda of the Marshall Plan in Italy in a Cold War Context, 2003


Slide57: Kuisel, 1993 Seducing the French: The Dilemma of Americanization