CHRIST STOPPED AT EBOLI

Italy, 1979, 161 minutes, Colour.
Gian Maria Volonte, Irene Papas, Paolo Buonacelli, Alain Cuny. Lea Massari.
Directed by Francesco Rosi.

Christ Stopped at Eboli is an Italian literary classic by Carlo Levi. Director Francesco Rosi has a reputation for making perceptive hard-hitting political films (Hands Over the City, Lucky Luciano, Context). He does this here, slowly, at great pains to set a desolate scene and to make impact by immersing his audience in a remote Southern village, its poverty and ignorance, superstition, lack of interest in government and the daily struggle to survive. Levi, the political internee from Turin, observes and gradually becomes involved. Gian Maria Volonte gives a sombre performance. The time is 1935, the atmosphere Fascist, the tension the war in Abyssinia. The film informs by feeling and questions the Italian way of life in the early 20th century.

1. The work of the director and his socialist background? His interpretation of Italy during the 20th. century? Abuses? The ignorance of the Italian public? Their manipulation? The value of this kind of film as a portrait, a memoir, an interpretation, a breaking through attitudes? The reputation of Carlo Levi's novel? Its classic status in Italy? The value of a cinema presentation of it? For Italians, for world-wide audiences?

2. The value of the location photography, its flavour and atmosphere? The focus on Southern Italy? The train ride into Lucania? Eboli station? The drive to Gagliano? The town itself, its antiquity, the hills, the fields? The many overhead shots to give an atmosphere of the landscape? The hardness of nature, the town, the people? A re-creation of 1935?

3. The importance of the people of Gagliano - outsiders' comments on them as being hard? The portrait of them - close-ups, groups, the details of their day-to-dag life? Their struggle with the land? Survival? Attitudes towards government? Sense of isolation? Their being pressurised to support the fascist state, the war in Ethiopia? The significance of the title - Christ and God not wanting to be with these people? The irony of the religious overtones of the title?

4. The significance of the initial paintings? The close-up of Carlo Levi himself? His memoirs? The 1935 way of life through his interpretation and memory? How authentic his memory? How real? The outsider looking at the society and interpreting it? His experiencing it as fellow Italian yet as strange?

5. The importance of the audience entering Gagliano with Levi? The train, Eboli, the 1935 car ride? The voice-over comments - did the audience agree with them at the end or not?

6. How well did the structure of the film work for audience involvement and the interpretation of the people? The atmosphere of the time, the passing of the twelve months of Levi’s internment, the cumulative effect of episodes. the highlighting of a group of characters, the interplay from one episode to another not stressed, the length of the film? The lack of a dynamic and dramatic momentum? The effectiveness of the cumulative experience of what Carlo Levi himself experienced?

7. The background of Italy in 1935 - prosperity in the north, Mussolini as a man from the north, the fascists and the imposition of rule? The mayor of the town and his fascist loyalty? His hangers-on and administrators? The police and their loyalty but their interest in the people of the town? The fascist rallies, the lack of support, the few men going off to the war? The radio broadcasts? The communists and their imprisonment - and their not being released at amnesties? Gagliano being used as a prison town for northerners? The build-up to World War Two? The motives of Mussolini, the need for land in Africa, the expansion of empire? The irrelevance of involvement in Ethiopia for the peasants of Gagliano? Their reaction to day by-day work, hard work? Legal impositions from Rome - and the destruction of their goats? The harshness of nature? The possibilities of migrating to America - and so many of them doing it, yet returning because of homesickness? The place of the church in this atmosphere - the stoning of the priest by the boys, the Christmas Mass and the accusations of his being drunk, his attack on the war in Ethiopia, the walkout of the mayor and his associates? The irrelevance of religion? The predominance of superstition?
8. The ironies of this enclosed and isolated world yet so many of the men having been to the United States of the '20s and '30s? Their talk about America? The irony of talk about skyscrapers and crowds in Gagliano? The comparisons of the barbers' shops in New York and Gagliano? The insight this gives into Italian migration?

9. The portrait of Carlo Levi? The film's lack of clarity about his political stances except that they were anti-fascist? A cultured and educated man from the north? His medical background? His being interned in isolation? His observation of the town, people, its way of life? The audience sharing his point of view, surprise and shock, sympathies? The initial interviews, the arrangements for accommodation? His beginning to talk with the local people - the old man with his musical instrument and playing? The attitudes of the police? The mayor and his self-importance yet deferential to the outsider? The encounter with the priest and his being stoned by the boys? The ironic interview with the Count - his religion, superstition, aristocracy? His staying the night in the house? His emphasis on relics? His emphases on making money? The importance of Levi's sister and her visit? Somebody from the outside world, appearing as normal to him, talking about causes, family, interests? The enjoyment of her visit, the loneliness of her departure? The encounters with the various men in the town - their talk about America, their work in the town? Julia and her son? Her work, the peasant woman and hard labour, her superstitious practices? Levi's wanting to paint her and her not wanting this? The discovery that he has a doctor and people pouring out their needs, asking for his medicines? His attempts to meet their needs? His visit to the sick man - and the pressures put on the mayor and the police to let him go? Their not wanting to take responsibility? The irony of the mayor's daughter being sick and Levi being able to get permissions for working in the town and the help from the pressure of the mayor's wife? The changing of the seasons, the observations of the kinds of work? The achievement of Levi by the end of his time in prison? The build-up of the amnesty? His being released? The homage that the people paid him on his departure? How persuasive was the film in presenting Levi as an important and admirable character?

10. The portrait of the mayor, his pomposity, his censoring of Levi's letters, his advice and diplomacy about the sending of letters? The importance of his accusations of drunkenness towards the priest at Midnight Mass, his walking out during the sermon? His anxiety about his daughter? His observation that he was authority and he was above the law? The place of the police in Gagliano - supervising the imprisonment, yet sympathetic especially in the needs for Lev! to visit the sick?

11. The sketch of the priest - old, isolated, embittered, being stoned, calling the people a profane common herd, his condition at Christmas, his celebration of the Mass, his sermon - and the trick of pretending that his sermon was not there and then finding it? His observations on the war, on Italy and its place in the world?

12. The Count and his highlighting religious attitudes in southern Italy - and superstition?

13. The counterbalance of the ideology of Levi's sister, political causes, social action?

14. The interest of the peasants and the people of the town - their talk, isolation, sitting around at meals, the meal with the men singing the songs and exchanging their memories?

15. The insight into the town through Julia and her son, the bath sequence, the superstitions, her refusal to be painted?

16. The sequences of the peasants in the fields, the storms and thunder and lightning superstition, the eclipse of the sun, the killing of the goats, the pig veterinarian and his brutality, the presence of the people at Mass, their sons going to the war or not?

17. The portrait of Italy in the 1930s? Ideology, survival? The attitudes of the south? The hostility towards Rome? Survivors? The blend of nostalgia about the past, critique, hopes for the future?