La Terra trema
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| La Terra trema | |
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 Italian Theatrical Poster |
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| Directed by | Luchino Visconti |
| Produced by | Salvo D'Angelo |
| Written by | Story: Giovanni Verga Antonio Pietrangeli Luchino Visconti |
| Narrated by | Luchino Visconti |
| Starring | Antonio Arcidiacono Giuseppe Arcidiacono |
| Music by | Willy Ferrero |
| Cinematography | Aldo Graziati |
| Editing by | Mario Serandrei |
| Release date(s) | September 2, 1948 |
| Running time | 165 minutes |
| Country |  Italy |
| Language | Sicilian Italian |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
La Terra trema (English: The Earth Trembles) is a black-and-white 1948 dramatic film directed by Luchino Visconti.[1]
The movie is adapted from Giovanni Verga's novel I Malavoglia (1881)(The House by the Medlar Tree) for the screen.
The picture stars, as non-credited non-professional actors, Antonio Arcidiacono, Giuseppe Arcidiacono, and many others.
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[edit] Plot
[edit] Summary
The story takes place in Aci Trezza, a small fishing village in the south of Sicily, Italy.
It tells about the exploitation of working-class fishermen, specifically that of the eldest son of a very traditional village family, the Valastros.
Ntoni convinces his family to mortgage their house in order to catch and sell fish themselves and make more money than they were already receiving from the wholesalers who had controlled the market with their low prices for a long time.
Everything goes well until a storm ruins the family's boat, leaving them with nothing to keep the new business going. Following this disaster, the family experiences several awful events such as having to leave the house, the death of the grandfather, and Ntoni and his brothers being obliged to return to fish for the wholesalers.
[edit] Details
The film can be divided by its prologue, three main phases and an epilogue.
Its first part tells us about the fishermens' attempt to improve their economic circumstances. They demand a better price for their fish, and it is symbolized by Ntoni, the eldest son of Valastros family, throwing a pair of scales into the ocean, and the fishermen end up in prison. The wholesalers realize is more profitable to have him and his friends fishing and release them. Ntoni, who has lived on the mainland, had brought some new open mind ideas with him and he tries to form a cooperative, but no one joins him. In deciding to do it by his own, he convinces his family mortgage their house to buy a boat and starts his new life. A festive mood is present in this sequence, with all the village joining Valastro's family salting the fish in laughter and joy.
The second part, is dedicated to show Valastro's vulnerability. They realize that the price for being owners is high; they not only have to buy the salt but also work hard and not stop even in the hardest storm, risking their lives to be able to feed so many mouths at home. At this point in the film, we see the other fishermen and the wholesalers mocking them already, convinced of the immutability of the prevailing social order.
The third phase of the film just affirms this already noticed vulnerability. The social and psychological consequences of the Valastros' attempt to change things are gradually revealed. They go out of work, no one wants to give them any opportunities, and the wholesalers are able to set the price for their fish. In the scene showing the wholesalers increasing the prices yet again, we can see the face of the children registering amazement at the cruelty of the adults. This was quite a common feature in neorealist films, and one almost see this as an awakening of consciousness.
The family unit, so strong in the beginning of the film, breaks down. Now they have no family, no house, the grandfather dies, Ntoni's brother Cola leaves for the mainland to seek new opportunities, their sister Lucia loses her reputation yielding to the temptations of Marshal Don Salvatore, and Ntoni starts drinking. Only the elder sister Mara remains strong, although she loses all hope of ever getting married because of not being rich.
In the epilogue, Ntoni finally overcomes his pride, recognizing the true cause of the problems of his kind and his class, and see the need for collective action by going back with his two young brothers, Vanni and Alessio, to work for the wholesalers as a day laborer, who have bought new boats.
The entire mood of the film becomes oppressive since the camera never leaves Aci Trezza, except in the scenes at sea at the beginning and end of the film. The outside world appears only indirectly when Ntoni goes to prison, when the family goes to sign a contract with the bank, when a stranger offering American cigarettes appears to tempt the youngsters to move to the mainland, and when the old baroness honors the inauguration of the new wholesalers boats with her presence. Some allusions to modern Italian history are also there. On the wall of the restaurant we can see an image of a hammer and sickle. One of the wholesalers suddenly says: "The country is full of communism!", and his colleague answers: "Raimondo is always right," in a parody of the Fascist slogan, "Il Duce is always right." At the end of the film, a faded text can be seen behind Raimondo: "Go with determination toward people.Mussolini".
[edit] Introduction
During the Second World War, Lucino Visconti felt the need to express his feelings about it by means of fiction in creating an illusion of the fictional world by combining a firm narrative structure with deep humanism. He wrote novels and plays, but ended up deciding to channel his creative energies into theatrical productions. In the middle of this experience with the stage, the Communist Party commissioned him to make a documentary about fishermen that was to be used as propaganda in the 1948 election campaign. Visconti took this opportunity to accomplish an old desire: adapting Giovanni Verga's I Malavoglia (the 1881 The house by the Medlar Tree) for the screen since he had acquired the film rights in 1941.
He travelled to Aci Trezza in Sicily, where Verga's novel takes place and found that it had hardly changed since the 1880s. Considering this, Visconti in neorealist fashion, decided to shoot the film in actual Sicilian locations and also to use local people as actors. By taking these "ordinary people," or even these "actors taken from the street" as some critics have called them[citation needed], Visconti believed they could portray the truth about themselves as opposed to assuming roles. He believed that the peoples' acting would emerge from their pattern of life, and that nature and society controls the way people live their lives.[citation needed]
The film ended up far beyond either the idea of a documentary about fishermen or the adaptation of the novel I Malavoglia. Actually, Visconti planned to shoot a trilogy, where the first part would tell about the fishermen and would have ended in defeat. The second part would tell about peasants and would have ended in a stalemate between exploiters and the exploited. Finally, the third part would be about the miners ending up in a triumph of solidarity of the oppressed. The decision to shoot only the first part came about as the importance of the so-called "episode of the sea" increased in its association with Verga. Having realized this, Visconti decided to conclude it on a note of resigned defeat and not in a miraculous victory.
[edit] Film style
The use of fades and dissolves creates an almost solemn effect of time passing while people are engaged in their various tasks. The everyday theme, even the love, is shown by long takes. The sunrise and the boats coming back from fishing, the first scene at the market where the city is still quiet and peaceful, everything is working like it should be. On the other hand, fight scenes, are shot in medium short takes. We can easily notice this difference by comparing the first and the second scene at the market. While at first the camera is close inside of the market, later shots show at a distance the fights and crowds that were forming in the middle of the fishermen and sellers. The length of the takes help to convey the feeling of tranquility. It is present until the family's economic downfall. From then on, long takes are used to reveal lonely figures in desolate environments or people in confrontation with one another. Visconti keeps the spectator at a slight distance from the characters and events, and it is both an aesthetic and ethical choice, a gesture of respect for the life of the people of Aci Trezza.
[edit] Music
Since 1941, Visconti already knew that the most important aspect of his Verga adaptation would be his ideal of "internal and musical rhythm". With Willy Ferrero's help, he used some of Sicilian folk music, but it shoulds be noted that music is quite sparse in the film, until we move towards the ending where it does increase, emphasizing the fate of the Valastros. Don Salvatore whistling tunes from operas, the poignant melodies played by uncle Nunzio, the sounds of the wind and the sea, of ships returning to the harbor, cries from the streets, and the musicality of the Sicilian dialect create their own archaic atmosphere.
[edit] Narration
After the film was completed, a voice-over commentary written by Antonio Pietrangeli had to be added, since no Italian was spoken by the participants. At the beginning of the film he states that "...Italian is not a language of the poor." Also, the commentary takes an important narrative and thematic function. The poetic quality of the voice and the words are a part of the classical unity of the film, being a crucial part of its structure. Some examples include:
- ...It is just a matter of time, as the worm said to the stone, I'll bore a hole through you yet.
- One by one, the tree's branches wither and fall.
- If there's any relief, a moment's happiness, it's the thought of one's girl. And for her, one can do without sleep. Because a man's made to be caught by a girl, just as the fishes of the sea are made for those who catch them.
[edit] Reactions at the Venice Film Festival
Although he had won a major prize, Visconti was very poorly received when the film was given its premiere at Venice Film Festival in 1948. Some protesters called it an artistic failure, and opposition came from many quarters.
On the one hand, the Christian Democratic government had just launched an attack against the entire neorealistic movement, and on the other, the bourgeois audience at the festival was probably strongly prejudiced against the homosexual communist aristocrat who, on top of everything, dared to direct films.
Some other critics of the Left accused Visconti of formalism and of indulging in aestheticism. The film only began to be appreciated after the premieres in Paris, London and New York.
[edit] Uncredited cast
- Antonio Arcidiacono as Ntoni
- Giuseppe Arcidiacono as Coca
- Venera Bonaccorso as La vecchia che ride
- Nicola Castorino as Nicola
- Rosa Catalano as Rosa
- Rosa Costanzo as Nedda
- Alfio Fichera as Michele
- Carmela Fichera as La baronessa
[edit] Awards
Nominations
- Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion, Luchino Visconti; 1948.
[edit] Bibliography
- Almond, Mark, The Revolution's Golden Book Ediouro Press, Brazil, 2003.
- Bacon, Henry, Visconti: Explorations of Beauty and Decay, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
- Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, The Oxford History of World Cinema, Oxford University Press, 1996.
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ La Terra trema at the Internet Movie Database.
[edit] Enternal links
 Cinema of Italy |
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