Lo squadrone bianco | |
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Directed by | Augusto Genina |
Written by | Augusto Genina |
Starring |
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Cinematography | |
Music by | Antonio Veretti |
Distributed by | Roma Film |
Release date |
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Running time | 97 min |
Country | Italy |
Language | Italian |
Lo squadrone bianco (Italian for "The White Squadron") is a 1936 Italian film directed by Augusto Genina. The plot features a cavalry lieutenant, unlucky in love, who redeems himself by battling the "rebels" of Tripolitania (modern Libya). The film won the Mussolini Cup at the Venice Film Festival, during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.
Cristiana (Fulvia Lanzi) is seen enjoying herself, dancing and drinking with other men. Lieutenant Mario Ludovici (Antonio Centa) races down a dark road and calls Cristiana from a payphone with a sense of urgency. When she does not answer, he proceeds to her apartment and angrily pounds on the door and rings the bell. He demands a traditional relationship, and leaves when she refuses but tries to seduce him.
Mario transfers to a desert fort in Tripolitania, where he replaces a heroic lieutenant who has recently perished in combat against the rebellious natives. Captain Santelia (Fosco Giachetti) distrusts Mario at first as a cowardly playboy. However, after the rebels steal some animals, the two pursue them with a squadron of camel-riding native troops allied to the Italians on a long and panoramic desert trek. Mario becomes ill, but eventually the two officers come to a mutual understanding and Mario disposes of a cigarette case from Cristiana and stops reminiscing of their luxurious memories.
Having caught up to the rebels at an oasis, a battle ensues; the rebels are defeated but the captain is killed. Meanwhile, Cristiana and a group of other tourists have arrived at the fort. A reconnaissance plane brings news to the fort of the battle and a dead officer, without knowing which officer has perished. This causes Cristiana an anxious night of waiting. The following day Lieutenant Ludovici returns, now in command of the squadron, and elects to remain in Tripolitania. As Cristiana prepares to leave with the tourist group, Mario bids her a final goodbye.
The film is based on the novel L'Escadron blanc by French writer Joseph Peyré, who had a hand in the adaptation of the script to the screen. [1] It was shot at the Cines Studios in Rome.
Genina's noted shots of the Tripolitanian desert were all done on location. [2] For its use of foreign technologies, it has been called the "first sample of the Americanised technical powers of Italy's huge new cinema city." [3]
Writing for Night and Day in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a good review, characterizing it as "odd and refreshing" for a "superficially melodramatic film". Greene claims that the film is "a very slow picture", but that in time the audience comes to recognize that "slowness is a value", and he describes the photography as "unsensational and memorable". Greene also praises the acting of Fulviá Lanzi. [4]
A reviewer from the British Union of Fascists raved that the film "has all the enduring greatness of simplicity. There is no affection, only a plain recounting of Man's eternal battle with Nature." [5]
Traditionally, the film is divided into three narrative segments in the theme of the Fascist male conversion: [6] "the bourgeois prologue, the colonialist segment, and the epilogue." [7]
Lo squadrone bianco has been interpreted as an "exemplary film" of the Fascism reinterpretation of pre-Fascist historical narratives for contemporary purposes, [8] i.e. "expansionist propaganda." [9] Others consider it first and foremost an Italian neorealist film, only indirectly nationalistic through its use of patriotic themes. [10]
As in other Fascist colonial films like Il cammino degli eroi, the native "rebels" are portrayed as well-armed with European weapons. [11] The film plays down the overwhelming disparities between the Italian and Tripolitanian forces, omitting for example the offensive use of aircraft (in addition to reconnaissance) and the use of gas warfare by the Italians. [12]
Other analyses of the film draw on Gustave Le Bon's theory of crowds (i.e. the native Tripolitanians) and space (i.e. the desert) as "two interconnected phenomena," [13] noting that the natives themselves are "virtually absent from the screen." [7]
Genina was temporarily banned from Italian studios for his work on such imperialist war films, but continued to find work after 1945, in a climate where nearly all Italian filmmakers had collaborated to some degree with the regime. [14]
Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino, was an Italian general during both World Wars and the first viceroy of Italian East Africa. With the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, he became Prime Minister of Italy.
Mario Alberto Ettore Monicelli was an Italian film director and screenwriter and one of the masters of the Commedia all'Italiana. He was nominated six times for an Oscar, and was awarded the Golden Lion for his career.
Savari was the designation given to the regular Libyan cavalry regiments of the Italian colonial army in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. The word "savari" was derived from a Persian term for "horsemen" (Savārān).
The Italian colonizationof Libya began in 1911 and it lasted until 1943. The country, which was previously an Ottoman possession, was occupied by Italy in 1911 after the Italo-Turkish War, which resulted in the establishment of two colonies: Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica. In 1934, the two colonies were merged into one colony which was named the colony of Italian Libya. In 1937, this colony was divided into four provinces, and in 1939, the coastal provinces became a part of metropolitan Italy. The colonization lasted until Libya's occupation by Allied forces in 1943, but it was not until the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty that Italy officially renounced all of its claims to Libya's territory.
Augusto Genina was an Italian film pioneer. He was a movie producer and director.
John Troglita was a 6th-century Byzantine general. He participated in the Vandalic War and served in North Africa as a regional military governor during the years 533–538, before being sent east to the wars with the Sassanid Persians. As dux Mesopotamiae, Troglita distinguished himself in several battles, and was noticed by agents of the Byzantine emperor, Justinian I. In summer 546, Justinian chose John Troglita to assume overall command of Byzantine forces in Africa, where a succession of revolts by the indigenous Moorish tribes and within the imperial army itself had seriously reduced the Byzantine position. Troglita quickly secured an initial victory in the winter of 546/547 against the Moors of Byzacena, but was defeated in summer 547 by the tribes of Tripolitania, and Africa was once again laid open to destructive raids. Troglita reorganized his army and secured the assistance of some tribal leaders, and confronted and decisively defeated the tribal coalition at the Fields of Cato in summer 548. This victory spelled the end of the Moorish revolt and heralded an era of peace for Africa. Troglita was also involved in the Gothic War, twice sending some of his troops to Italy to assist against the Ostrogoths.
Italian Libya was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911.
Fosco Giachetti was an Italian actor.
Italian Tripolitania was an Italian colony, located in present-day western Libya, that existed from 1911 to 1934. It was part of the territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire after the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. Italian Tripolitania included the western northern half of Libya, with Tripoli as its main city. In 1934, it was unified with Italian Cyrenaica in the colony of Italian Libya.
Guido Celano was an Italian actor, voice actor and film director. He appeared in 120 films between 1931 and 1988. He also directed two Spaghetti Westerns: Cold Killer and Gun Shy Piluk. He was born in Francavilla al Mare, Italy and died in Rome, Italy.
The 4th annual Venice International Film Festival was held between 10 and 31 August 1936. This year saw an international jury nominated for the first time.
The 1945 Anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania was the most violent rioting against Jews in North Africa in modern times. From November 5 to November 7, 1945, more than 140 Jews were killed and many more injured in a pogrom in British-military-controlled Tripolitania. 38 Jews were killed in Tripoli from where the riots spread. 40 were killed in Amrus, 34 in Zanzur, 7 in Tajura, 13 in Zawia and 3 in Qusabat.
The Second Italo-Senussi War, also referred to as the Pacification of Libya, was a conflict that occurred during the Italian colonization of Libya between Italian military forces and indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order. The war lasted from 1923 until 1932, when the principal Senussi leader, Omar al-Mukhtar, was captured and executed.
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Antonio Veretti was an Italian composer.