2— La Nave Bianca (1941)
1. Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 58. One difference between Rossellini and De Robertis that Bava does not mention is, that while the extent of the former's Fascist sympathies may be debated, most evidence indicates that he was neither more nor less Fascist than any other average apolitical citizen. De Robertis, on the other hand, was a firmly committed member of the party who joined Mussolini and the Nazis in the north of Italy when the Republic of Salò was formed in 1943, after the Duce had been jailed by the king and freed by the Nazis. De Robertis, in fact, maintained that his third feature-length film, Uomini sul cielo , was meant to demonstrate that "fighting exercised a beneficial effect on the minds of those who have not withdrawn from the supreme experience which life destines fatally to each man." (Quoted in Roy Armes, Patterns of Realism [South Brunswick and New York: A. S. Barnes, 1971], p. 42). It is utterly impossible to imagine Rossellini ever making a similar statement.
2. Savio, Cinecittà anni trenta , vol. 3, p. 963.
3. Faldini and Fofi, L'avventurosa storia , p. 59.
4. "A Panorama of History," 96.
5. "Je profite des choses," interview with Jacques Grant in Cinéma [Paris], no. 206 (February 1976), 67.
6. Quoted in Roberto Rossellini: Il cinema, la televisione, la storia, la critica , ed. Edoardo Bruno. (Città di Sanremo, Assessorato per il turismo e le manifestazioni, 1980), p. 13.
7. Interview, Cahiers du cinéma , no. 37 (July 1954), 3-4.
8. "A Discussion of Neo-Realism," 72. (The word corale is misleadingly rendered as "human warmth" in the Screen translation.)
9. It should also be pointed out that the "rhetoric" of the love story is somewhat attenuated by the equally rhetorical, but excellent, musical score by Rossellini's brother, Renzo, which often substitutes for the less subtle dialogue. Similarly, one of the earliest critics of the film, Enrico Fulchignoni, writing in 1941, was impressed that at the high point of emotion at the end of the film, looks take the place of dialogue. ( Bianco e nero , 5, no. 10 [October 1941], 4.)
10. In a generally negative article that appeared just after the director's death in 1977, Jacques Demeure mentions seeing the Fascist insignia on the nurse's blouse, next to the Red Cross. ("Un débutant méconnu: Roberto Rossellini," Positif , no. 198 [Octo- soft
ber 1977], 37.) It is difficult to contest a personal observation, but the print of the film that I saw at the Museum of Modern Art in New York showed only the Red Cross. Roy Armes, in Patterns of Realism , also says, "The film ends with a close-up of a red cross" (p. 44). It is easy to imagine that Rossellini might have wanted to cut certain compromising shots, but impossible to believe that he could go into a close-up showing two insignia and remove one of them. The source of Demeure's error seems to be an article written some twenty years earlier by Marcel Oms, the most vicious attack ever directed against Rossellini, in which he says, "The film, finally, ends on a camera movement which frames the Fascist insignia pinned to the blouse of the nurse." ("Rossellini: Du fascisme à la démocratie chrétienne," Positif , no. 28 [April 1958], 10.) No other critic has ever mentioned the Fascist insignia.
11. Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi, Les Femmes et leurs maîtres (Paris: Christian Bourgois Editeur, 1978), p. 81.
12. Maria-Antonietta Macciocchi, La donna "nera" (Milan: Feltrinelli, 1976), p. 156.
13. Pietro Bianchi, L'occhio di vetro: Il cinema degli anni 1940-43 (Milan: Il Formichiere, 1978), p. 95. The article originally appeared October 31, 1941.
14. Adolfo Franci, "Diorama della Mostra di Venezia," Primi piani (October 1941).