- Compare these stories to the stories from the beginning of the collection. How are they similar? Different?
- Compare the tones of the stories w/ that of Rome, Open City? Which is more hopeful? Which is darker?
- How do these tales and this film dramatize violence and death?
- There is an absurd humor to some of the Calvino stories. What do you make of that? There's a dreamlike quality to "Going to Headquarters." How come?
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
War and Neorealism
This second week of post-WWII fiction and film is all about war. Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City (1945) and Calvino's "Wartime Stories" both capture in different ways what it was like to live in Italy during the war. Rossellini's film can be melodramatic at times, but it is also suspenseful and you can still see why it was a worldwide success. Rossellini started work on the film even as the Nazis were abandoning Rome at the end of the war. Like many neorealistic films, a lot of the actors are untrained, just regular people. Much of the camera work is handheld and almost all of it is on location, filming in the dust of the city and the aftermath of the fighting. Remember, Calvino fought in the Italian resistance (which is dramatized in Rossellini's film) and these are the darkest, most violent stories of the collection. That scene in "One of the Three Is Still Alive" where the naked man in the hole grips his wrist and can't feel it and then realizes he's gripping the wrist of a dead man (105) captures the darkness of these stories. Some questions:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The stories from the book is more darker because in the movie, we see the a group is working to liberate the country. This is hope. Though we see the leader is torture and killed, there is still chance that members of that group could fight back. In the book, all stories shadow the people who are either getting killed or fleeing from the war scenario. We saw hunger, confusion, hopelessness, etc. in the book.
ReplyDelete"headquarter" refers to the end of life for the people of the village who were captured by the Germans. They could have just killed those people in front of everyone. Rather they chose to give them hope of taking them to a place from where they can be free and living their life. I don't understand this ideology of their action where they are dramatizing the death of this people. At some point, I felt like the guy who was taken to the headquarter became aware that something bad might happen to him. He was giving himself hope by thinking that they believe that he is not a spy which is an irony.
In one of the stories, a guy was behind a German soldier and was trying to shot him. This was absurd. Because that guy was the worst shooter in his village and in the middle of a war, when people are worried of their lives this guy was trying to kill the Germans so that he can get back his cow. And also the German leaving one animal when another approach was also weird. All those people coming and telling him to save their animal is also abnormal. I feel like the whole incident is an imagination of that guy. It was not real.
I think you're talking about "Animal Woods," correct? (You should reference the story titles.). The story is "abnormal" or maybe you mean absurd? There are a lot of absurdities in these stories. Also in "Going to Headquarters." It's almost dream-like the way they seem to be walking together and not together until the man w/ the gun kills the prisoner.
DeleteThe stories from the beginning of the collection kept my interest but they always left me wanting more. there was no serious threats in them, if there was, the stories always ended happily or without a major occurrence. That wasn't the case for me with the "Wartime" stories. The stories talked about, dealt with, involved or ended with death. In the "Riviera" stories, the main characters are all children, while they are into kids' stuff, they also think and understand things in a way that is beyond their age. there are also kids and young adults in the "Wartime" stories. The boy in "The Crow Comes Last" stood out to me because of his total immaturity. It seems like he doesn't understand what it means to be in a war. It seems like he doesn't grasp the reality of the situation. It doesn't seem he grasps the fact that he can die at any moment. He doesn't take the fact that he is in a war seriously. He wastes bullets on animals, He doesn't listen to his superiors. It seemed to be all a game to him. A gun is just a toy to him. Taking a life is just part of the game. I found Rome, Open City to be pretty dark. Some of the stories of "Wartime Stories" are more hopeful, some are as dark. Stories like "Fear on the Footpath" is tense but at the end everything is well for the main character. "Hunger at Bevera" ends tragically for the main character and there is no hope in sight for the other characters and their predicament.
ReplyDeleteChris, just referring to the beginning when you brought up the differences between the book and the movie and the fact that the second set of readings is always involved with death. My contribution is that o believe at this point in writing the story's he's representing the car and death around him. The first is in reference to the "calm before the storm" meaning everyone being so nonchalant about their impending doom. In the film, when on the stairs, the soon-to-be married couple are reminiscing about the time before the war and they stated "Remember said the war would be nothing and over so soon" yet it was 2 years later so thus proving their predictions and thoughts false.
DeleteGreat reading of the stories, Christopher. And I'm glad you mentioned Rome, Open City, Denis, esp. that scene. And then what follows? The fiancee is shot down in the street by the nazis in the next scene.
DeleteFor one, the Clavino stories often end abruptly with no major climax or resolution. Even for a collection of short stories, each individual story feels more like scenes from something larger and don't really stand on their own. Also, I feel almost cheated out of a full story due to the fact they never really seem to end; they just stop. With Rome, Open City there is an ending. Granted, its a different medium that requires to tell a story from beginning to end, but Rossellini still seems to create a more realized story and deliver it effectively. However, Rossellini's film and Clavino's story both have a very dark tone that is unforgettable. The scenes provide an unforgettable feeling of the absurdity of war. For example, the scene in "One of the Three Is Still Alive" reminds me of the scene in which the queer woman takes the coat off the collapsed woman with no required for human life. There's an absurdity in both of the scenes: one paints this image of dead bodies littering a landscape and being so close to death. The Rossellini scene depicts a disregard for death and a dismissive attitude towards the dead.
ReplyDeleteIn examining the Riviera stories and the Wartime stories there are very obvious differences. For one, the Riviera stories seemed to have a more youthful and lighthearted tone, yet there was still an undercurrent of something sinister (which is clearly expressed in the anxiety detailed in the first two stories). With Wartime stories, the sinister tone is more direct and blunt. Death is more prominent and the anxiety shown through the characters is more clear; we know why the characters are anxious. Personally, the Wartime stories felt more like complete stories that had endings and were fully realized. In Riviera stories, there was confusion in regards to a stories purpose and direction. I believe there is more dramatization of violence and death in the film. This is most likely due to the medium, since it is a visual way of storytelling, the violence is more in your face. For example, towards the end with the scenes of torture, and even earlier with the ambush of the buses. Death isn't shown as much in the film as it is in the novel; however, the film does discuss a careless attitude towards it. With this, I believe the film is darker than the stories.
ReplyDeleteThe stories in the beginning were peaceful, some what strange and a little unusual for instance "Adam, One Afternoon. The toads, snakes,and all the other creatures ;unusual. However "Hunger at Bevera"there is death,pain, hunger. The old man Bisma was brave and kind hearted. He was deaf but that did not stop him from going to get bread for the people.He and his mule were old but thy did not deserve to die the way they did. This is sad and the hungry people eating the old mule.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed the "Rivera" stories more than the "Wartime" stories. The times during that period were more pleasant, even though they felt like daydreams and illusions to take the children away from a tormented times in their lives. One of the stories in Wartime was dingy and dark to me. The story "One is still Alive" describes his living hell life. Missing out on a fired shot gun only because he jumped in the cave hole before hand. Imagining that scenery was agonizing. Truly a hell of a life on earth.
ReplyDelete