I read an article about the Italian Neorealism time period by Roger Hillman. "The Penumbra of Neorealism" is an article about a series of opera's and films that are can be compared and contrasted in light of Italian Cinema. Verdi is a national icon and a political alibi. He was a 19th century writer of national unification because of eviction of foreigners. The main issue was the Nazism as the "irrational myth" variant of Italian Fascism and the cultural war of Neorealism against Hollywood. There are 6 points that the author makes about this topic and how these specific opera's influenced this time in Italian Cinema.
1. Rossellini's ionic film Rome, Open City is a neorealism seminal for New Iranian Cinema and was made in 1987. It was an object of homage in Malle's "Au revoir les enfants". Carmine Gallone's "Before him all Rome Trembled" (1946) featured a Tusca production staged during the German occupation of Rome and premiered in Rome in 1900. This production brought unity to the opera stage! Gallone and Tosca's dramatic effectiveness fades at the end of Gallone's film. He implemented fascism, so he was banned for six months from production.
2. Before the Revolution is the next opera examined. It features Verdi's Macbeth where Fabrizio and Clelia are aurally experienced. His eternal fiance represents the bourgeois which he must leave. Clelia sleepwalks to show unreality, and they eventually marry. Death in the bosom of Clelia and the bourgeois shows that opera is the ultimate bourgeois institution. Macbeth was Verdi's last opera premiered to Italian audiences before the revolution of 1848.
3. La Stragegia del Ragno was written in 1970. An advanced stage of Fascism in Mussolini's Italy occurred in 1936 and was viewed through the prism of the watershed year for Europe of 1968. Draifa was the character that was the traitor to the Resistance cause recuperated by postwar mythology. His actions led to the postwar survival of Fascism. This movie taught the audience, through Cinema, that Fascism will never end. This was a very strong political message to be taught through a movie, but was common during this time. Cinematography of this film establishes a continuity between Athos Sr. and Jr. Anti-Fascist postwar Italy which proclaimed that there was no positive program but evoked negation.
4. Tonetti is featured in this section, and he establishes a balance between humorously ironic transfiguration of history into a timeless and a "serene northern Italian countryside". This Opera is well known for the positive view that it sheds on Italian landscape, and cinema.
5. Hollywood: Borge's film about the assassination of Lincoln is an interesting take on this historical event. The viewer does not witness the killing, but experiences the after-effects and psychology of the killing. He tries to keep the myths about these important events out of the story. Bertolucci's film seals the deal of the Italian nation. There is a total assimilation of Hollywood into popular culture announcing a dubbed film. Neorealism equals opera, and opera equals neorealism in this situation.
6. The Tavianis' valediction is the summation of historical and cultural memory of the 50's, 60's, and 70's, with reconciliation sought between feuding historical factions and competing myths of identity. When Verdi passed away, he took with him a particular stage of Italian cinematic national identity. He had such an influence on the Italian and world Cinema, that he left an impact.
Roger Hillman, "The Penumbra of Neorealism"
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