the fatalist
by
Douglas Messerli
Antonio
Pietrangeli and Luchino Visconti (writers, based on the novel by Giovanni
Verga, I Malavoglia), Luchino Visconti
(director) La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) / 1948, USA 1957
It’s hard to comprehend at times what director Luchino Visconti was truly trying to say in his 1948 film, La Terra Trema, loosely based on Giovanni Verga’s 1881 novel, I Malavoglia. It, at first, seems to want to make a case for the poor, often starving fishermen of Aci Trezza, Sicily, concentrating on the Valastro family, who like so many others are tired of being, through intense bidding wars, cheated by the merchants, and left with little money for their intensely difficult labors, which often end in death; the father of the Valastro family has been killed in a fishing incident when ‘Ntoni (Antonio Arcidiacono) and his brothers were younger.
Yet suddenly, ‘Ntoni and the family are
struck down with more bad luck than God had planned for Job. In a storm, their
vessel is destroyed; their grandfather suddenly becomes ill and dies; they are
forced to leave their home; two of “Ntoni’s brothers are persuaded to escape
Sicily to work on the mainland; ‘Ntoni is jailed; and the family is forced to
sell its fish for practically nothing. After becoming alcoholic and leading a dissipate
life, his sister Lucia giving into the sexual demands of the local military
leader, the formerly charming elder brother is forced to return, with his
brothers Vanni and Alessio, to work as day laborers, living a life of hard work
and near starvation simply in order to survive. End of story. And, did I mention
this is all presented as a kind of neo-realist docudrama, using the real
villagers as many of the major characters as if to underline the entire reality
of this neo-realist piece.
Visconti, as always, presents us with
many scenes of beautiful film-making, particularly when the ships return en masse at early morning, their lights
that have drawn the fish to them ablaze. There are wonderful vistas of the Sicilian
village, women in dark scarves peering down upon the action. The actor who
plays ‘Ntoni is handsome and strong, despite all of his personal trials. The
eldest daughter, Mara, is forceful presence.
But the movie overall is not only a bleak
presentation of life in Sicily, but a testament to the status quo, to a world
that will never allow the peasants to become, generation to generation, be anything
but passive sufferants. If this movie helps us to sympathize with them, it
proffers no hope, and any tears we may shed over their plight seems quite
meaningless, since they, themselves—with the exception of ‘Ntoni—seem unwilling
to join together to change their conditions. In short, La Terra Trema seems to be a lesson in frustration. Mussolini’s
promise to “Go with determination toward people,” which we see scrawled upon a
wall in one of the film’s last scenes, has ended in utter disaster. Despite
Visconti’s title, it appears the earth has not only failed to tremble but to
have even shuddered in slight disgust. I love many of Visconti’s works, but
this seems to simply reveal him as a fatalist.
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