FATTO DI SANGUE FRA DUE UOMINI PER CAUSA DI UNA VEDOVA – SI SOSPETTANO MOVENTI POLITICI

Italy, 1978, 124 minutes, Colour.
Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni, Giancarlo Giannini.
Directed by Lina Wertmuller.

Lina Wertmuller made a number of significant films in the 1970s, focusing on Italian society, social and political issues. They include Swept Away, Love and Anarchy, Seven Beauties. She also specialises in long titles for films.

This film is set in southern Italy, in Sicily and captures the grandeur as well as the desolation of the landscapes. It also draws on the long classical history of Sicily, from the time of the Greeks, to other invaders, to the present. It also highlights the passion and turbulence of people and their lives in Sicily, especially love and hatred – as indicated in the title of the film.

The focus is on a blood feud, the consequences, violence and death. Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni had worked together in the 1960s in a number of films including Marriage Italian Style and Yesterday, Today and Forever. This is an interesting film for those who want to try to understand something of the extravagance of Sicilian emotions as they flow over into action (and are constantly in people’s understanding because of the Mafia films).

1. How interesting a film, entertaining? Impact for Italians, for non-Italians? Audience involvement in the allegory, an understanding of Italy, its experience of Fascist rule, the feel for the times of Fascism? How well observed was the atmosphere of the twenties, the paralleling of the allegorical characters and situations with history?

2. The work of Lena Wertmuller, her reputation in the seventies? Expectations of her social slant on Italian history? Her understanding of Italian men and women, their interaction? The importance of the stars and their place in Italian cinema, as symbolizing the attitudes Lena Wertmuller wanted to illustrate?

3. The complexity of the title? The emphasis on blood and violence? The highlighting of the two men? The highlighting of the woman as a widow? The accent on political motivations? The tone of the title and its implications?

4. The presentation of Sicily, visual beauty, use of colour, the highlighting of Sicilian antiquities? The atmosphere of the twenties, decor, dress, manners, cars, buildings? A portrait of the early 20th century in Italy and showing that it was ripe for Fascism?

5. The symbolism of Sicily for Italy? The fact that the island was more remote, ignorant, steeped in its past? Its history, politics? The importance If so much dialect being spoken? Phe relationship of Sicily with Rome and its remoteness? The ironies of the relationship of Sicily to the migrants in the United States and the influence of things American - incongruous within the situation of Sicily?

6. How effective was the film as an allegory? The importance of the statue of the mother with the two sons, the widow and her nourishing her children, male children? The statue as an icon and symbol - at the start, at the end? The importance of the dialogue for the allegorical meaning? The film as talkative? The philosophic tone of the screen play? The dramatising of the issues? The didactic tone and didactic presentation?

7. The atmosphere and drama of the pre-credits scenes? The shooting, the atmosphere of mystery, the relationship of the woman and her husband, the pain, her being widowed? The juxtaposing of death and birth? The importance of Sophia Loren's presence, appearance, manner? her being presented as Mother Italy? how effective was the collage of her grief? The background of the ruins and the past? The significance of the young girl fleeing and the evocation of themes - oppression, male-women relationships, the comfort of the older women? The girl fleeing through the oppressed countryside? Survival? The personality of the widow, her earthiness, her capacity for love, relationships, vulnerability, toughness, grief?

8. The portrait of the Socialist and the choice of Marcello Mastroianni as the Socialist? His appearance, manner? his Italian eye for women, his pursuit of the widow, the gentility of his presence, the encounters? The explanation of his beliefs? Questions of parliament and representation? Yet his seeming remote? His relationship with his mother and the importance of the scenes between them? The cards and his being taken in? His old-fashioned presence on the island and the contrast with the coming Fascists? The violence and his involvement, being drawn into the violence and its destruction? His courting of the widow and the inevitability of failure? The build-up to the climax, the bond between himself and the widow? The importance of the contrast to the young man back from America, his attitude and disdain towards him, the irony of the bond between the two in death with the widow?

9. The portrait of the Americanised Italian and his return? Giancarlo Giannini, his presence in Lena Wertmuller's films, his appearance, showiness? The Italian transport to the United States and transformed by American values? Superficiality, smartness, surface and show? His use of English and its humour? A boaster, his brashness, his place in the town? The cards? His relationship with the widow? The sensual and aggressive man in contrast with the man of history and genteel encounters? Ilia attacking the widow, his raping? The presumption and yet his loving the widow? The contrast of her response to the Socialists? her response to the earthy sensuality of the showy young man?

10. The Fascist background of Sicily, the killing of the widow's husband? The importance of the Fascist violence to each of the men? The fact that they could not see what was happening or understand it?

11. The portrait of the actual Fascists, their personalities, their presence, politics, violence, the shootings and the repercussions?

12. The hopes for a new world? The way that each of the characters embodied the hopes, the enthusiasm of setting out, the fact that they were doomed to failure, victims?

13. The build-up to the final shoot-out, its significance? The reasons for it? The Italian manner of the deaths? The grief of the widow, the icon pose with the evocation of the Pieta? The two men united in death? The significance for the history of Italy in the twenties? Did it throw light on forthcoming Italian history?

14. The historical and political insights via a cinematic allegory?