application/pdf
2036-461X
19373
16-17
en
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Cinéma & Cie. Film and Media Studies Journal
Popular Tradition, American Madness and Some Opera. Music and Songs in Italian Neo-Realist Cinema
Text.Serial.Journal
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie
11
New Studies
2011-10-01
2022-12-11
2011-10-01
2024-02-14
Cinéma & Cie
Francesco Pitassio
2011/10/01
Università degli Studi di Udine
2036-461X
16-17
en
Popular Tradition, American Madness and Some Opera. Music and Songs in Italian Neo-Realist Cinema
https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/cinemaetcie/article/download/19373/17243
11
POPULAR TRADITION, AMERICAN MADNESS AND SOME OPERA.
MUSIC AND SONGS IN ITALIAN NEO-REALIST CINEMA1
Francesco Pitassio, Università degli Studi di Udine




                                                                      “Non sono molto originale”
                                                                                    “Meglio così”
                                                           Marcello and Luisa in Gioventù perduta


   After decades of ideological appropriations, in the past thirty years Italian neo-realism has been
thoroughly and refreshingly scrutinized. Among the recently contested features were its popular
success and mode of address. As is now well known, the circulation of postwar critical narratives
about Italy was mostly limited to urban areas, particularly those of major cities.2 Moreover, one
should consider, ideology aside, the indisputable market setback. Few films among the acknowl-
edged masterpieces of Italian neo-realism met the interest of mainstream audiences.3
   What emerges from a closer look is a discrepancy between neo-realist aims and practices:
between a production discourse addressed to the nation and its people at large, and a reception
and consumption mostly identified with a social and political minority, in search of a native, yet
still missing, art cinema. In this respect, neo-realism can be associated with a typical trope of post-
war European cinema, that of the auteur film, taking up the highbrow segment on the market, and
introducing a redeemed Italian culture abroad.4
   As many recent scholars, I would rather like to work with a more inclusive research perspec-
tive, not merely based on ideology.5 I would thus like to consider also films contaminated by a
number of all too popular genre narratives and iconography, and perpetuated throughout a series
of different media supports. As a matter of fact, I assume that in terms of narrative and ideologi-
cal role of musical scores one may detect only some small differences between Rossellini’s and
De Sica’s masterpieces on the one hand and much more formulaic products on the other.
Actually, this latter group of films registers with greater clarity and cogency Italy’s postwar cul-
tural life. In what concerns the scores of neo-realism, I agree with Richard Dyer who writes:
“There is a contradiction within the neo-realist project between making films about ordinary peo-
ple and a tendency to view with suspicion what ordinary people liked, a contradiction sharply reg-
istered in music.”6 This suspicion was expressed through old-fashioned extradiegetic musical
scores, and through popular diegetic music, that narratives associated with negative characters or
situations. Here I would like to develop my argument through the notion of mediascape, as pro-
posed by Arjun Appadurai,7 understood both as a set of technological media aimed at distribut-
ing information and as the world images generated by such media. In my opinion, the role music
played in neo-realist era should be considered within a postwar Italian mediascape defined in its
relationships with media and culture under Fascism; the widely imported American culture;
domestic production efforts to establish a national musical tradition through films; popular music
consumption within live entertainments and media.

CINÉMA & CIE, vol. XI, no. 16-17, Spring-Fall 2011                                                 141
FRANCESCO PITASSIO

  In the preceding decade, the Italian cultural industry underwent a significant acceleration.8 Two
major musical and medial phenomena define the era: first the popularization of American swing
and jazz rhythms, mediated and vernacularized by former immigrants to the US,9 and large bands
and their lead singers, such as Alberto Rabagliati;10 secondly the intermedial ubiquity of songs,
as featured in radio broadcastings, film accompaniments, and stage shows (i.e. live revue).11 In
the 1930s, a song used in a film can easily be traced back to a variety show, listened to in radio
programmes, and from commercial records. Still, what is largely missing is a specific film music
culture, as Sergio Miceli recently explained:

  With a few exceptions, [in the 1930s] the attitude behind the approach of cultivated compo-
  sers to film music highlights the difficulties – or the refusal – to understand the importance
  and potential of the film language […]; it reflects an aesthetic inclination, strongly influen-
  ced by Croce’s idealism, that corners music into a kind of chastity, thereby excluding any
  application or contamination outside the music realm.12

   In the postwar era several films exhibited traits that were quite different from those seen in the
previous decade. If in the 1930s a theatrical model overdetermined the mode of representation in
terms of framing, acting, and dramatic structure, the postwar culture privileged an authorial per-
spective: the film-makers had to be in charge of the film’s aesthetic register. In addition: if the
film music of the 1930s often resulted in a fragmented sequence of vaguely diegetically motivat-
ed songs, which expressed a lack of communication between the film’s director and its compos-
er, postwar scores were definitely different. Here are some features of this new era: firstly, the
definite rise of both melodramatic and symphonic models for extradiegetic music; secondly, an
enhancement of the role of diegetic music as stated by Enzo Masetti, one of the most important
figures of the postwar era, in his role as both composer and teacher:

  The film music can be true to the musical reality in its absolute, photographic reality; [film
  music] can be […] 100% realistic: whatever is within the frame might be a realistic source
  of music, and the director might use it as he does with the furniture, a noise, a light, all the
  realities that affect the audience’s senses.13

  Thirdly, this appreciation for diegetic musical sources elicited a new understanding of popular
music consumption. The new attention given to folk music expressed an answer to the dominant
attitude during Fascism, which had deplored indigenous forms of expressions and practically
reduced their occurrence to formulaic manifestations.14 Finally, film composers searched for a
closer collaboration with directors as the case of musicians like Masetti or Goffredo Petrassi.15
Consider also the remarkable work of Carlo Rustichelli with Pietro Germi.16
  Postwar film scores certainly perpetuated traditional forms of highbrow musical culture.
Nonetheless, this process is a reaction to preceding musical scores. Moreover, such a process is
somehow similar to what happens with the establishment of directors’ culture, i.e. the promotion
of an artistic identity for cinema itself.

  The way in which postwar Italian films adopted American music and dances highlights a depar-
ture from 1930s film culture and signalled the emergence of a new imaginary, reflecting post-
1945 social, cultural and ethnic preoccupations. As stated above, the American rhythms had made
their way into 1930s culture, at a local level – as in Naples – or in national radio broadcastings.
Up until the late 1930s, early 1940s, radio programmes consisted of a diet of theatre adaptations,

142
                                         POPULAR TRADITION, AMERICAN MADNESS AND SOME OPERA

but also featured pop music and dance music for, respectively, 28% and 6% of their schedule.17
In the 1943-45 period, the radio stations under the control of the allied forces in Italy proposed a
musical selection based on the new American rhythms. As Franco Monteleone describes:

  In the late fall [of 1943] the Radio Bari programmes were much more wide-ranging: the
  broadcasting hours increased, the technique improved, offerings included pop music jazz and
  boogie-woogie. The image of the liberating armies was pervading all the media, through
  posters, dance music broadcast on the radio or played in dance halls, the first American films
  screened in movie theatres.18

   The impact of this sudden cultural presence in Italy is still to be assessed in its multifarious
effects. For sure, it provoked a conservative reaction. This was obviously an ideological effect.
As Stephen Gundle explained, the postwar ideological attitude of the Italian Communist Party
(PCI) was split between a deep fascination for mass culture, and anxieties over its capitalistic
nature.19 A film as Bitter Rice (Riso amaro, Giuseppe De Santis, 1949), blatantly affiliated with
Marxist ideology, associated the most erotic display of Silvana Mangano star’s body with boogie
woogie, just to punish her soon after through the narrative. But more generally, the sudden rever-
sal of gender roles and body culture caused a widespread worry. It should be noted that in 1940
American music was forbidden, and public dances as well; in the preceding years beauty contests
too were shut down.20 Postwar culture imported dances and forms of beauty display from the US;
Italian neo-realist films often worked through narratives the difficult acceptance of what was
experienced as superficial euphoria, compared to deep national pain. Maybe this is the reason
why in The Bandit (Il bandito, Alberto Lattuada, 1946) the protagonist Ernesto discovers the ruins
of his home and family, while we hear a merry boogie-woogie tune coming from a nightclub out
of frame. Or in Revenge (Un uomo ritorna, Max Neufeld, 1946), Sergio looks so upset with his
younger sister, dancing in a rather unbecoming way to the sound of American music.
   American culture could be easily identified with film genre codes which had been inaccessible
during the preceding decade, i.e. gangster movie. Thus, vernacular crime films suddenly pervad-
ed postwar Italy, depicting a suffocating underworld; in these Italian films American icons
appeared in ambiguous nightclubs where a surrogated American jazz was played. The scenery
exudated social anomy. It is the case of many films, as Behind Closed Shutters (Persiane chiuse,
Luigi Comencini, 1951), Four Ways Out (La città si difende, Pietro Germi, 1951), The Bandit and
most of all, of the first censored film in postwar Italy: Lost Youth (Gioventù perduta, Pietro
Germi, 1948). The music score expresses some form of revenge against the villain, and when he
is finally shot and moral values again established, the jazzy song of the diegesis is perverted into
extradiegetic parody.
   Music was also registering another social fear, spread all over the nation: the irretrievable loss
of traditional differences, whether social, gender or racial. This clearly lies beneath such suc-
cessful songs as Neapolitan Munasterio e’ Santa Chiara (Saint Chiara Monastery, Galdieri-
Barberis, 1945), or Vecchia Roma (Old Rome, Ruccione-Martelli, 1947) and especially Roma
forestiera (Rome Foreign to Us, Libianchi-Granozio, 1947), describing the loss of the beloved
woman due to the American music. But behind such an image hides another more troubling one:
miscegenation, a result of the presence of black soldiers in Italy. It pops up in such songs as
Tammurriata nera (Nicolardi-Mario, 1944), and in several films, such as Senza pietà (Without
Pity, Alberto Lattuada, 1948), Campane a martello (Luigi Zampa, 1949), Tombolo (Tombolo,
paradiso nero, Giorgio Ferroni, 1947). In Angelo (Il mulatto, Francesco De Robertis, 1950), the
problematic outcome of interracial encounters can finally be expelled outside the Italian society

                                                                                                 143
FRANCESCO PITASSIO

thanks to a musical confrontation: the black spiritual song enables the child to acknowledge his
real race and nation, and finally to allow his putative father build his own family.
  American music in neo-realist films embodied the disjuncture within the mediascape, between
the access to mass culture, and the fears of losing a national one. And the disjuncture between a
problematic mediascape, and an ideoscape glorifying democracy and universal suffrage.

   Postwar Italian music featured two other processes: the return of melody, which, consistently
favoured by the growing media industry,21 consolidated the notion of a national singing tradition;
the discovery of a folk music, collected with the support of the reborn state radio.22 The traditional
song was often glorified as the expression of local identities, and as such it was depicted in films
as It’s Forever Springtime (È primavera, Renato Castellani, 1950), Down with Misery (Abbasso
la miseria!, Gennaro Righelli, 1945) and in its clearest form in Christmas at Camp 119 (Natale
al Campo 119, Pietro Francisci, 1947). The film displays several renowned actors from variety
shows, cinema and the musical scene. They play the role of war prisoners in an American camp,
each of them coming from a different city; thanks to a gramophone that plays local songs, each
of the actors tells a different story set in a pre-war past. It is not surprising that the author of this
film’s script, building a national popular identity through record listening, i.e. medial consump-
tion, was none other than Michele Galdieri: one of the most successful song writers and play-
wrights of variety theatre.
   Parallel to this conservative use of national musical tradition was the attempt to recover the folk
heritage, and thus to compose musical scores that were allegedly close to the diegetic characters.
Two major contradictions seem obvious: this process amounted to a gentrification, as described
by Gans: a revaluation by the upper classes of a cultural phenomenon abandoned by its original
producers, the Italian rural classes.23 Moreover, it could be applied both to Resistance or con-
temporary society, as to non-realistic films, as was the case of the score signed by Enzo Masetti
for Outlaw Girl (Il brigante Musolino, Mario Camerini, 1950); or to narratives set in a remote
past, as was the case of the score by Goffredo Petrassi for La pattuglia sperduta (Piero Nelli,
1952), resembling the work done for Bitter Rice or Under the Olive Tree (Non c’è pace tra gli
ulivi, Giuseppe De Santis, 1950), but set in the 19th century. On the other hand, this attempt to
rework a folk tradition defined an alternative musical tradition, based upon Resistance and folk
songs, one that was ideologically connoted. A heritage belonging to the Italian Left, but unfortu-
nately far from its intended target. Probably, the only way to reach it, was to counterfeit a popu-
lar origin and thus build it through medial practices: which is precisely what happens with the
recurring theme of Vitti ‘na crozza in Path of Hope (Il cammino della speranza, Pietro Germi,
1950): still believed to be a Sicilian folk song, it was on the contrary specifically written for the
film by Franco Li Causi.

  The sole stable national value, before and after WWII, was opera. Italian melodrama constitut-
ed a national identity abroad, since the end of the 18th century;24 it played an important political
role in the national uprising, in 19th century; and since the end of that century it circulated among
the popular classes, through small town musical bands, mechanical reproduction systems, and
radio programmes.25 Since the fascist era, this tradition was identified as the most apt to be adapt-
ed for the screen and represent Italy.26 The most prolific director in this genre, Carmine Gallone,
during a conference on film and music held in 1950 in Florence, declared: “It was almost a duty,
or a duty without any almost, for us to dare. […] Without any doubt, bringing the masses closer
to the work of our geniuses we made possible a better national understanding and unity.”27
Secondly, opera together with pop music was the type of music that was mostly broadcast in the

144
                                           POPULAR TRADITION, AMERICAN MADNESS AND SOME OPERA

postwar era, thus permeating the national mediascape. Finally, it was this tradition that was most-
ly present in the training of the composers that worked for neo-realism. And whether or not they
were aware of this, they perpetuated a national musical heritage through the decades. As declared
in a late interview Cicognini, the composer for Bicycle Thieves (Ladri di biciclette, Vittorio De
Sica, 1948) and Umberto D. (Vittorio De Sica, 1952): “We have somehow perpetuated a tradition
that changed according to the films. […] What is sure is that in a bulk of films […] there is a score
that, even if not deeply linked to the image, still preserved some values that are above all nation-
al.”28
   It is not surprising that soon after Carlo Rustichelli or Renzo Rossellini wrote the scores of film-
operas as Puccini (Carmine Gallone, 1953), or House of Ricordi (Casa Ricordi, Carmine Gallone,
1954).
   The national and popular identity sought in neo-realist movies emerged in a musical tradition,
acknowledged both within and without the nation. Therefore, in Before Him All Rome Trembled
(Avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma, Carmine Gallone, 1946), one of the biggest postwar hits, a nar-
rative of partisan battles frames and doubles none other than the story of Tosca and all the typi-
cal features of Italian identity abroad – Roman ruins, opera and passion – mark the film.
   In conclusion, the most advanced figures of neo-realism ended up overlooking the emergence
of that broad media environment we identified as mediascape. Nevertheless, radio,29 popular the-
atre and musical traditions shaped both neo-realism cinematic imaginary and popular media con-
sumption. In the end, the wildest poetic dreams filled only the stage of an imaginary theatre,
something that was first and also most brilliantly understood by Luchino Visconti.



1  The present contribution owes much to the many suggestions that generously my colleagues Roberto
   Calabretto and Saverio Lamacchia gave me. I am also grateful to Paolo Noto, for soliciting my attention
   upon the article of Carmine Gallone later mentioned.
2 Paolo Lughi, Il neorealismo in sala. Anteprime di gala e teniture di massa, in Alberto Farassino (ed.),
   Neorealismo. Cinema italiano 1945-1949, EDT, Torino 1989, pp. 53-60.
3 Lino Micciché, Per una verifica del neorealismo, in Id. (ed.), Il neorealismo cinematografico italiano,
   Marsilio, Venezia 19992, pp. 7-28.
4 Alberto Farassino, “Neorealismo. Storia e geografia,” in Id. (ed.), Neorealismo. Cinema italiano 1945-
   1949, cit., pp. 21-36.
5 Leonardo Quaresima, Neorealismo senza, in Mariella Furno, Renzo Renzi (eds.), Il neorealismo nel
   fascismo. Giuseppe De Santis e la critica cinematografica, Edizioni della Tipografia Compositori,
   Bologna 1985, pp. 66-72.
6 Richard Dyer, “Music, People and Reality. The Case of Italian Neo-realism,” in Miguel Mera, David
   Burnand (eds.), European Film Music, Ashgate, Aldershot 2006, pp. 28-40.
7 Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, University of Minnesota,
   Minneapolis-London 1996 (ed. it.: Modernità in polvere. Dimensioni culturali della globalizzazione,
   Meltemi, Palermo 2001).
8 See David Forgacs, Italian Culture in the Industrial Era (1880-1990). Cultural Industries, Politics and
   the Public, Manchester University Press, Manchester 1990 (ed. it. L’industrializzazione della cultura
   italiana (1880-1990), Il Mulino, Bologna 1992); Fausto Colombo, La cultura sottile. Media e industria
   culturale in Italia dall’Ottocento agli anni Novanta, Bompiani, Milano 1998.
9 Simona Frasca, “The American Big Invasion: i ritmi americani a Napoli (1900-1935),” in Musica/Realtà,
   no. 80, 2006, pp. 21-41.
10 Gianni Borgna, Storia della canzone italiana, Laterza, Roma-Bari 1985; Felice Liperi, Storia della can-
   zone italiana, RAI-ERI, Roma 1999.

                                                                                                      145
FRANCESCO PITASSIO

11 Paola Valentini, La scena rubata. Il cinema italiano e lo spettacolo popolare (1924-1954), Vita &
   Pensiero, Milano 2002.
12 Sergio Miceli, Musica per film. Storia, estetica, analisi, tipologia, Universal Music MGB-LIM, San
   Giuliano Milanese (MI) 2009, p. 305 (my translation).
13 Enzo Masetti, “Il realismo musicale nel film,” Bianco e Nero, vol. XI, no. 3, 1950, pp. 32-33 (my tran-
   slation).
14 Giorgio Nataletti, La musica folklorica italiana e il cinema, in Sergio G. Biamonte (ed.), Musica e film,
   Edizioni dell’Ateneo, Roma 1959, pp. 105-111.
15 Enzo Masetti, Introduzione ai problemi della musica nel film, in Id. (ed.), La musica nel film, Bianco e
   Nero, Roma 1950, pp. 7-29; Goffredo Petrassi, Dichiarazione, in Idem, pp. 83-85.
16 Susanna Buffa, Un musicista per il cinema. Carlo Rustichelli: un profilo artistico, Carocci, Roma 2004.
17 Felice Liperi, Storia della canzone italiana, cit., p. 116.
18 Franco Monteleone, Storia della radio e della televisione in Italia. Società, politica, strategie e pro-
   grammi 1922-1992, Marsilio, Venezia 1992, p. 172 (my translation).
19 Stephen Gundle, Between Hollywood and Moscow. The Italian Communists and the Challenge of Mass
   Culture, Duke University, Durham (NC) 2000.
20 Stephen Gundle, Bellissima. Feminine Beauty and the Idea of Italy, Yale University, New Haven-London
   2007 (ed. it. Figure del desiderio. Storia della bellezza femminile italiana, Laterza, Roma-Bari 2007).
21 Gianni Borgna, Storia della canzone italiana, cit.; Felice Liperi, Storia della canzone italiana, cit.;
   Mario De Luigi, Storia dell’industria fonografica in Italia, M&D, Milano 2008.
22 Giorgio Nataletti, Diego Carpitella (eds.), Centro Nazionale di Studi di Musica Popolare. Studi e ricer-
   che 1948-1960, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia/RAI, Roma 1960; Diego Carpitella, Musica e tra-
   dizione orale, Flaccovio, Palermo 1973; Diego Carpitella (ed.), L’etnomusicologia in Italia. Primo con-
   vegno sugli studi etnomusicologici in Italia, Flaccovio, Palermo 1975; Roberto Leydi, L’altra musica.
   Etnomusicologia. Come abbiamo incontrato e creduto di conoscere le musiche delle tradizioni popola-
   ri ed etniche, Giunti-Ricordi, Firenze 1991.
23 Herbert J. Gans, New Introduction. The Popular Culture-High Culture Distinction: Still Relevant?, in
   Id., Popular Culture & High Culture. An Analysis and Evaluation of Taste, Basic Books, New York
   1999 (ed. it. Cultura popolare e cultura elevata, in Emanuela Mora (ed.), Gli attrezzi per vivere. Forme
   della produzione culturale tra industria e vita quotidiana, Vita & Pensiero, Milano 2006, pp. 115-136).
24 Marcello Sorce Keller, “L’Italia in musica: ricostruzione ad ampi squarci (e un po’ temeraria) di un’i-
   dentità problematica,” in Musica/Realtà, no. 89, 2009, pp. 115-130.
25 Roberto Leydi, Diffusione e volgarizzazione, in Lorenzo Bianconi, Giorgio Pestelli (eds.), Storia dell’o-
   pera italiana, vol. VI, Teorie e tecniche. Immagini e fantasmi, EDT, Torino 1988, pp. 301-392.
26 Ettore Maria Margadonna, “Rinascita del melodramma,” in Comoedia, no. 8, 15 August 1933), p. 21.
27 Carmine Gallone, Il valore della musica nel film e l’evoluzione dello spettacolo lirico sullo schermo, in
   Sergio G. Biamonte (ed.), Musica e film, cit., pp. 205-206 (my translation).
28 Alessandro Cicognini, Intervento, in Glauco Pellegrini, Mario Verdone (eds.), Colonna sonora, Bianco
   e Nero, Roma 1967, p. 36 (my translation).
29 Cinegramma (Francesco Casetti, Alberto Farassino, Aldo Grasso, Tatti Sanguineti), Neorealismo e cinema
   italiano degli anni ’30, in Lino Micciché (ed.), Il neorealismo cinematografico italiano, cit., pp. 331-385.




146
