游击队

意大利，导演：罗伯托罗西里尼。1946年。

完这部电影以后更觉得战争他就太可恶了。他虽然也有一些进步的力量，但是它摧毁了太多东西了。又感慨我们现在生活在和平时期是真的很幸运。

这部电影我看到后面都快睡着了，虽然不能说他难看，但是他的故事性比较低。主要的是塑造当时的环境跟氛围，还有一些战时的生活。他没有太多刺激点儿，在每个故事结束的时候，你会发现每段故事都有它的凄惨，凄凉之处，都每个人都挺可怜的，受战争的困扰。

本片一共六个故事，第一段故事讲述的是美军找了一个意大利女的来带路。到了一个塔上之后遇到了敌军，带路的意大利女人为了帮一个美军报仇被敌军残忍杀害。

第二段故事讲述的是一个黑人的美军当地警察与没有了父母的一个意大利小孩儿的感情故事。

第三个故事又遇到了罗马不设防城市里的那个白痴女人，在本片当中在第三段故事演的是一个妓女形象。一个美军和一个站街女的爱情故事。

第四个故事挺黑色幽默的。一男一女为了找到各自的爱人穿越了战火中的城市。但是女的在马上抵达终点的时候，得知道自己的爱人已经死了。

第五个故事主要讲了宗教矛盾上的问题。三个美国兵来到了意大利的教堂之后，其中有两个美国人分别信仰犹太教和天主教，当基督教的教中听到这个消息的时候，突然一下气氛就变了。

第六故事是以游击队与德国军队之间矛盾展开的一个故事。这个游击队是以美国，英国还有意大利本土人组成的一个小的游击队。他们吃不饱，穿不暖为的是人民能够生存下去的信念而战斗着。但是最后这个小队被德国人全部歼灭。

新现实主义和纪录片，新闻报道的日常生活有什么区别？作为一个业余影迷，个人的感受和理解。

纪录片或我们的日常生活其实是没有焦点的，正如此刻在地铁上的我放眼望去看到的就是现实，而新现实主义电影则在这个现实背景下把镜头对准其中具有时代或主题特色的人物和事件，让观众的注意力跟随镜头的走向，跟随故事主角的走向来一步步了解现实。所以说新现实主义电影并非单纯的对现实的重放。而是对大量现实的观察理解以后，抽离出其中的典型人物和事例并对其进行文学戏剧化处理，比如对立角色或对立立场的建立，剧情的设计性也会显而易见。同时根据戏剧性的现实再创作，让观众的观影体验拥有强烈的现实感和参与度，由于故事和人物脱胎于现实，并且基本运用实景和非职业演员，从而使得观众不自觉间就带入自己日常生活的感受，随着剧情的发展做出相应的现实中可能出现的情绪波动，以此达到让观众更好的感受生活，思考生活的目的。

在这个理解下去看罗西里尼的战争三部曲，会发现他的伟大之处。

罗马不设防的城市拍摄于1945年，战火拍摄于1946，德意志零年拍摄于1948年。在二战刚结束的时间里，罗西里尼并没有鼓吹战争胜利的荣耀和伟大，而是反思战争不同阶段对所有处于战争下的人民造成了怎样无法挽回的伤害。在我看来这是得冒风险的，政府向来可不喜欢宣扬人民的悲惨。

其次，三部电影之间的连续性，思考观察的角度的丰富性也极大的提升了电影的质量。罗马不设防的城市讲述的是1944年德国占领罗马后，罗马各阶层职业的人民对抗德国侵略者的事迹，这是还处于被侵略统治时的意大利。战火通过六个几乎没有联系的短片故事串联出在德国节节败退的背景下，意大利不同地区不同阶层人民的困苦。而德意志零年则是立足于战败后的德国，在柏林废墟上刻画了一个战败国孩子怎样一步步经历无奈绝望到最后弑父自杀的故事。战争对人性的摧残一步步加深，战争的荒诞在故事的凸显下更显得可笑又让人无助。

罗马不设防的城市剧情跌宕起伏，对现实的把握和对故事走向的控制精确且细腻。主角看似是英勇就义共产党人和违背了教义却信守正义的神父，可在我看来那群父母被杀害，抱有对侵略者的无尽仇恨却仍不失孩童的质朴善良的孩子们才是影片真正的主角，因为他们代表着终将到来的善良和正义，因为他们是未来。只是如此的剧情设计过于刻意化，不是不好只是没有最好。所以有了更好的两部。

战火由六个基本不相关的短片组成，通过六个看似不相关的短片让我们看到了尽管战争即将结束，战斗节节胜利可战争的后遗症却永远的留在了经历战火的人民身上。每个短片之间的转折都很迅速，当我还在感动于语言不通的美国大兵和意大利女孩之间的友情和思乡之情时，他们就死于德国军人枪下，然后第二个故事开始了。前一秒在意大利当警察的美国黑人还在醉酒唱歌，下一秒他就被意大利贫民窟的破财凄惨惊慌到夺路而逃。镜头由此一转，罗马被解放了。可是解放后的罗马人生活也并没有很好。曾经热情可爱的意大利女孩也成了和大多数人一样的站街小姐，而对她恋恋不忘的美国大兵把他魂牵梦绕的姑娘当作妓女的地址随手扔了。之后下一个故事开始了，一个想去找当了游击队队长的美国护士和想去找家人的意大利男人经历战火的过程，而导演没有告诉我们结果只是让一个掩护他们的游击队员死在护士面前。第五个故事就在节节胜利的盟军脚步下开始了，三个借宿修道院的美国大兵和院士之间的矛盾，因为有一个人是犹太教一个不信教，而这个短片在军队神父对信仰自由支持的演讲下结束。最后一个故事发生于德国投降的前几个月，而一群游击队员和盟军飞行员终究没能等来最后的几个月，陪同援助他们的村民一起被残忍屠杀。

相对于罗马不设防的城市，战火每个短片之间甚至没有关联，戏剧性也因此减弱但同时由于导演对于每个结尾戛然而止的把握十分精确，让人在感受到战火对人性摧残以后并没有给观众过多感伤的时间，这正暗符现实的仓促。所以这部电影的现实性更浓烈，但也由于戏剧性的减弱，故事间的低逻辑关联性所以观看难度不低。

而最后一部德意志零年简直有些令人绝望。虽说感受到了绝望我们才会珍惜美好，才能克服绝望。只是这样现实的绝望和压抑还是有些难受的。

战后的柏林，一个12岁男孩撑起一个家庭的重担。可就算如此，社会还不给他撑起重担的权利，懦弱的大哥害怕曾当过兵的经历被处罚整日躲在家里，患有重病的父亲每天卧床不起，而姐姐则无奈每天晚上出去出卖身体补贴家用。在如此情景下，小男孩被曾经的老师诱骗去卖希特勒的演讲，而他反而从中获得了生存的动力和意义，着实有些讽刺。而最后老师不经意的诱导和指示，把男孩推向了弑父的深渊，而当他弑父之后却受到了老师的指责。家庭，社会，信仰所有都崩塌了，而他只是一个想踢球，跳格子的12岁男孩，他又如何去承受这一切崩塌后的结果。结尾，在他最后一次玩了滑滑梯后，捂脸流泪看着自己曾经生活的地方，自己弑父的地方，没有一丝犹豫跳楼自杀了。

开头是男孩挖坟墓期望获得工作机会养活家人，结尾是男孩跳楼自杀结束生命。战争到底对他，对我们，对人类做了些什么呀。

现实原来才是最好的素材，可现实素材有时候太绝望。

这个不太知道怎么评分，妓女和教堂那两段挺有意思的。这电影属于战争全景？？现在这部电影不能写短评了？？？不清楚为什么，感觉也没有政治不正确的地方啊？？？写那么多就是为了凑字数发长评。好害怕标记的电影被删，特别是那些不怎么有印象的电影，豆瓣就属于唯一的凭据了，如果被删了，可能就永远记不起这一部电影了，删除，很可怕。

影片主要按照时间顺序，用6个小故事，讲解了二战期间，意大利被解放的进程。

第一个故事：西西里岛

1943 年7月：英美军队登陆西西里岛，开始征服该岛。一个美国小分队到达了一座教堂。教堂里有数十名逃难的意大利居民；其中，一个名叫卡梅拉的女孩主动提出给他们带队，避开雷区，到达河岸。行动中，他们发现了一座无人看守的城堡。

为了安全起见，小分队决定留下女孩，并派士兵乔陪伴女孩，其他人出发探路。乔和女孩言语不通。为了减轻女孩的不安，乔拿出自己家里人的照片，打着打火机，想让女孩看清楚，然而，打火机的亮光引起了德国人的注意，乔被打死了；德国士兵随后过来，发现了女孩卡梅拉。女孩拿起乔的步枪开始向德国人射击；德国人杀了她并将尸体扔下悬崖。当美国士兵返回时，他们发现了乔的尸体，但误以为是女孩卡梅拉干的。

第二个故事：那不勒斯

街头男孩遇到醉酒的美国黑人宪兵，乘着黑人士兵睡着了，男孩趁机偷了他的鞋子。

几天后，黑人士兵在巡逻时，抓到了一个偷东西的小男孩。经过盘查，黑人士兵发现这个小男孩就是前几偷走自己鞋子的那个男孩。黑人士兵要求男孩带他回家，归还自己被偷走的鞋子。

俩人开车来到男孩的居住地，却发现是一个废弃的凝灰岩采石场，里面住着一群无家可归的人。黑人士兵被这里的贫困生活环境所震惊，得知小男孩的父母都在战争中被炸死了。于是，不再要男孩归还鞋子，独自开车离开了。

第三个故事：罗马

1944 年 6 月，盟军进入罗马。受到市民热烈欢迎。

六个月后，在罗马街头，一名妓女遇到了一个叫弗雷德的醉酒美国士兵，并将他带到自己的房间。美国士兵不愿意跟这个妓女上床，而是给她讲了盟军抵达罗马的那天，自己与意大利女孩弗朗西斯卡的会面的故事，且诉说了自己对女孩的相思之情。

妓女听完故事，意识到她就是那个女孩弗朗西斯卡，但现在为生活所迫，自己已经当了妓女。妓女给美国士兵留下了自己的地址，第二天在自家门口等待美国士兵的归来。但美国士兵弗雷德没有出现。他第二天酒醒后，跟士兵们开玩笑的讲了头天晚上妓女给自己留纸条的故事，然后把纸条扔进了风中。。

第四个故事： 佛罗伦萨

盟军解放了亚诺河以南的佛罗伦萨部分。意大利游击队员在进行艰苦的巷战；年轻英国护士哈丽特在拼命打听她的恋人——游击队领袖卢波——的消息。

但传来的消息很不乐观——有人说卢波受伤了。为了寻找爱人，哈丽特和朋友马西莫结伴，进入了被围困的佛罗伦萨城区。哈丽特的冒险以最痛苦的方式结束，她从一个濒临死亡的游击队员口中得知卢波已经牺牲了。

第五个故事：教堂信仰【哥特防线（Emilian Apennines）】

英美的推进越不过哥特路线。在艾米利亚亚平宁山脉的一个小修道院里，一群方济会修士过着世外桃源的生活。这个修道院并没有受到战火的摧残。一天，来了三位美国随军牧师。修士们很高兴接待同行。并准备好好招待这三个人。

但在交往中，他们发现：三个美国人中，只有一个是天主教牧师，另外两人，一个是新教徒，一个是犹太教教徒。

教师们从来么有遇到过这种情况。天主教堂里居然来了两个异教徒！最后，他们打算教化这两个异教徒。但被美国随军的天主教牧师阻止。

第六个故事: 波河三角洲（托莱港 Porto Tolle）

1944 年冬天：越过哥特线，沿着波河三角洲，游击队与美国人和英国人一起战斗。

在沼泽地的艰苦战斗中，纳粹-法西斯分子对游击队和当地的无辜平民进行了暴力统治。游击队员和英国战俘被德国人抓捕。最后全部被杀死。

总结：

总体来说，这部影片胜在时间点上。因为拍摄于1946年，二战刚刚过去一年。里面反映了几个问题：

1、美国人对意大利是解放者。

2、德国人给意大利人带来了战争伤害。

3、意大利虽然是轴心国成员，但也有游击队员，意大利人民也有反对德国人的。

据说，这部影片在美国大获成功。这是可以想见的。如果朝鲜拍摄一部中国志愿军解放朝鲜的电影，估计在中国也会大获成功的。

据说，这部电影在意大利播出一波三折。这也是可以理解的。整个影片里，没有意大利政府的影子，更没有意大利士兵的影子，只有意大利平民游击队的牺牲和付出。因为意大利作为轴心国成员，导演实在没法拍出意大利政府和士兵的反战的情况。战后的意大利政府显然不希望看到这样的影片。

4、影片里，显示意大利老百姓是战争的受害者。比如妓女、平民窟、孤儿。但请记住，因为意大利是轴心国之一。二战初期，意大利的老百姓可不是这样子的。跟德国人搞的火热，到处出击，老百姓不要多高兴。另外，妓女也不是战争带来的。战前意大利就没有妓女了吗？德国人在意大利，估计也是一堆妓女围着转的哈。

5、这电影，没有对意大利发动战争的反思，只是单纯的反映了战争对老百姓带来的苦难。但也只是意大利老百姓的苦难，意大利开战初期，对其他国家的老百姓带来的苦难呢？导演只字未提。当然，这是可以理解的。毕竟这是一部电影，要有取舍。不可能在有限的时间里，面面俱到。

但总感觉有点缺憾。这电影，感谢了盟军的解放，指责了德国人的残忍，以及战争带给意大利老百姓的苦难。但没有反思意大利政府在二战中的所作所为。

这再次让我想起了日本的很多二战电影，大量反映被美军轰炸下的日本老百姓的苦难，但对日本政府的责任，轻描淡写。有人说，日本是“反战败”而不是“反战”，多少有些道理。

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Roberto Rossellini’s Paisan [Italy 1946] surpasses his Open City [Italy 1945] in breadth of vision and significance. Open City was still a drama; Paisan is an epic, comparable only to [The Battleship] Potemkin [USSR 1925, dir. Sergei Eisenstein], though profoundly different from it.

This new Italian film consists of six real-life episodes which take place during the Italian Campaign. They seem entirely unconnected, except for the fact that their succession corresponds to the advance of the Allied armies. The first episode records the adventures of an American patrol immediately after the landing in Sicily. Led by an Italian peasant girl, the Americans explore a ruined castle—a nocturnal reconnaissance which culminates in a magnificent conversation between the girl and one of the soldiers. But this bilingual idyll does not last long. A few Germans emerg- ing from nowhere shoot the soldier and then kill the girl for having fired at them. When, alarmed by the shooting, the rest of the Americans return, they take it for granted that the girl has lured them into a trap, and her simple-hearted sacrifice passes unnoticed.

The second episode, in Naples, features a street urchin and a Military Policeman—an American Negro who is thoroughly drunk. The boy, set on stealing the Negro’s shoes, guides him to a rubble heap among the ruins, where his prospective victim raves about the hero reception prepared for him in New York and his home town. But the word “home” provokes a sudden shift of moods in him. He says he will not go home; and in a state of despondency he falls asleep, an easy prey for the boy. Shortly later, the Negro captures the thief and makes him return the shoes. The boy is a war orphan living in a cave crammed with ragged women and children. Overwhelmed by pity, the Negro leaves the shoes behind in the cave. Colorful street incidents round out the brilliant thumbnail sketches of these two stray creatures. The scene in the marionette theatre in which the frantic Negro climbs the miniature stage to defend a Moor is a veritable gem sparkling with Quixotic spirit.

The subsequent Roman episode is a somewhat literary love story, with a touch of Maupassant. Six months after the fall of Rome a drunken Ameri- can soldier follows a prostitute to her room. He is no drunkard but a sensi- tive boy appalled by the ever-increasing corruption around him. Instead of simply sleeping with the girl, he tells her about Francesca, the first girl he met on entering Rome on the day of liberation. A flashback, rich in charming details, renders their innocent flirtation and its premature end. Why did you never go back, asks the prostitute. He mutters that he could not find the house. The prostitute, trembling, describes it. He dozes off, vaguely realizing her identity. Next day, she despairingly waits for him, while he himself, on the point of leaving, tears up the slip of paper with her address. He mounts a truck, and the armies move on.

The fourth episode shows the Allies in the outskirts of Florence, pre- paring the last assault on the city, in which the Partisans are already at grips with the Germans and Fascists. An American nurse, eager to join her Florentine lover of prewar days, learns that he is “Lupo,” the legendary Partisan leader. The whole is a pictorial report on what happens to her and an Italian friend as they slip through the front lines into the Partisan-held sector of Florence. They walk past two British officers, portrayed in all their languid fastidiousness; they pass along the corridors of the abandoned Uffizi, catching a glimpse of three German soldiers who slowly advance deep down on the street. When they finally reach a bullet-swept street corner, one of the few Partisans defending this position is fatally wounded. His comrades liquidate two Fascists on the spot. Before dying in the arms of the nurse, the wounded Partisan says that Lupo has been killed that very morning. “God,” says the nurse.

In the fifth episode three American chaplains in search of shelter enter a remote Franciscan monastery in the Apennines and are accommodated there for the night. The naive unworldliness of the monks is characterized in scenes born out of respect and highlighted by an imperceptible smile. No sooner do the monks find out that one of their guests is a Protestant and the other a Jew than they involve the Catholic chaplain in a sort of religious disputation. Thesis stands against thesis: the worried monks insist that those two lost souls must be saved, while their urbane coreligionist believes them able to attain a state of grace outside the Church. This duel in pious dialectics is the more exquisite since battles are raging in the neighborhood. The end comes as a surprise. The zealous monks impose a fast on themselves for the sake of the Jew and the Protestant, and the Catholic chaplain praises their humility, instead of reaffirming his stand on tolerance. It is a strange conclusion, somewhat reminiscent of the spiritual note in Silone’s novels.1

The last episode is a terrible nightmare unfolding in the marshes of the Po Valley, where flat land and sky fuse into a monotonous universe. A small group of Italian Partisans, British flyers, and American O.S.S. agents engage in a hopeless combat action behind the enemy lines. You do not see the Germans at first; you see only the corpse of a Partisan floating across the water. The reeds are filled with threats; unknown dangers lurk around the lonely house which in its isolation deepens the impression of monotony. Then, after an eternity of unbearable suspense, the massacre takes its course. The people in the house are killed indiscriminately, except for a little child who, outside the house, screams and screams, deserted by the dead on the ground. The Partisans, bound hand and foot, are thrown into the water. The horrified English and American prisoners see them, one by one, disappear, unable to stop the clockwork process. Another witness is left: the Partisan leader hanging behind the prisoners.

“This happened in the winter of 1944,” a commentator says at the very end. “A few weeks later, spring came to Italy and the war in Europe was declared over.”

All these episodes relate the experiences of ordinary people in a world which tends to thwart their noblest efforts. The dead Sicilian girl is cal- lously slandered by those who should have honored her; Francesca, the fresh Roman girl, turns prostitute, and her decent lover sinks into emo- tional inertia. It is the war which dooms them. Yet it is not always the war: in the case of the Negro, his fate results from circumstances entirely unconnected with events in Italy.

What endears these people to us is their inborn dignity. They have dignity in the same way that they breathe or eat. Throughout the film, humanity appears as a quality of man’s nature, as something that exists in him independently of his ideals and creeds. Rossellini’s Partisans never refer to their political convictions; rather, they fight and die in a matter-of- fact way, because they are as they are. And the Negro is simply a humane creature, filled with compassion, love of music, and Quixotic reveries.

This emphasis on the reality of good nature is coupled with a marked indifference to ideas. Of course, the Nazis appear as hateful, but it seems they are hated only for their acts of savagery and their vulgar conduct. All judgments are concerned with human dignity, and what goes beyond it is completely omitted. There is in the whole film not a single verbal statement against Fascist rule, nor any message in favor of democracy, let alone a social revolution. And the surface impression, that Paisan advo- cates pacifism, must be dismissed also, for it is scarcely compatible with the experience of the Catholic chaplain, to whom the war has been a great lesson in tolerance. This deliberate disregard of all “causes,” including that of humanity, can be explained only by a profound skepticism about their effects. Even the most praiseworthy cause, Paisan implies, is bound to entail fanaticism, corruption, and misery, thus interfering with the free flow of a good and meaningful life. Significantly, the Sicilian peasants are suspicious of American liberators and German invaders alike; and the Roman episode bears out their suspicions by highlighting the demoraliza- tion wrought upon the liberated in less than six months.

The attitude behind Paisan is in keeping with the film’s episodic struc- ture. In stringing together six separate episodes, Rossellini manifests his belief in the independence of human dignity from any overarching idea. If humanity materialized only under the guidance of an idea, then a single, well-composed story might suggest itself to express the latter’s significance (viz. Potemkin). But humanity is here part and parcel of reality and there- fore must be traced in various places. The six isolated episodes indicate that streaks of it are found everywhere.

Since Paisan confines itself to real-life experiences, its documentary style is most adequate. The style, cultivated by D.W. Griffith, Flaherty, and the Russian film directors, is genuinely cinematic, for it grows out of the urge, inherent in the camera, to explore the world of facts. Like Eisenstein or Flaherty, Rossellini goes the limit in capturing reality. He shoots on location and prefers laymen to professional actors. And instead of working from an elaborate script, with each detail thought out in advance, he lets himself be inspired by the unforeseeable situations that arise in the process of filming.

These techniques become virtues because of Rossellini’s infatuation with reality and his gift for translating its every manifestation into cin- ematic terms. He masters horror scenes no less expertly than moments of tenderness, and the confused street crowd is as near to him as is the abandoned individual in it. His camera angles and twists of action owe their existence to sparks of intuition ignited by the closest touch with the given material. And directed by him, most people play themselves without seeming to play at all. To be sure, Paisan has its weak spots: parts of the Sicilian episode are shot in slapdash fashion; the Roman love story is too much of a story; the nurse and her companion in the Florentine episode are strangely flat; and the Catholic chaplain is not entirely true to type. But these occasional lapses amount to little within a film which sets a new pattern in documentary treatment. Its wonderful freshness results from Rossellini’s unflinching directness in formulating his particular notion of humanity. He knows what he wants to say and says it as simply as possible.

Are examples needed? Far from capitalizing, after the manner of The Last Chance [USA 1945, dir. Leopold Lindtberg], on bilingual dialogue to sell the idea of international solidarity, Paisan presents the mingling of lan- guages in wartime Italy without any purpose. In the opening episode, the conversation between the Sicilian girl and the American soldier in charge of her is a linguistic dabbling which, born out of the latter’s boredom and loneliness, does not lead up to anything. Yet precisely by recording their pointless attempts at mutual understanding with infinite care, Rossellini manages to move and fascinate us. For in the process these two people, left speechless by their mother tongues, increasingly reveal what as a rule is buried under conventional phrases.

Each episode abounds in examples. When the drunken G.I. tells the Roman prostitute about his yearning for Francesca, he is seen lying on the couch, with his legs apart in the foreground—a shot which renders his physical disgust and moral disillusionment to perfection. Though long shots are ordinarily less communicative than close shots, Rossellini draws heavily on them in the last episode to picture the marshes. He does so on purpose, for these shots not only convey the impression of desolate monotony, but, through their very flatness, they make the ensuing mas- sacre seem more dreadful. A model of artistic intelligence are the street scenes in the Neapolitan episode. First it is as if these loosely connected shots of performing jugglers, ragged natives, blackmarketing children, and idling G.I.’s were inserted only in the interest of local color. Shortly, however, it becomes evident that they also serve to characterize the Negro. As he reemerges from the marionette theatre, his companion, the wily boy who does not want to lose him, begins to play a harmonica; and, enticed by these heavenly sounds, the Negro follows the little Pied Piper through streets teeming with the crowds and diversions that have already been impressed upon us. So we are all the more struck by the impact of the trickling harmonica music on the Negro.

This last example well illustrates the way Rossellini organizes his mate- rial. There is a veritable gulf between his editing style and the “montage” methods used in Potemkin and other early Soviet films. For Rossellini deliberately turns his back on ideas, while the Russian film directors aim exclusively at driving home a message. Paisan deals with the human assets of ordinary people; Eisenstein’s Potemkin shows ordinary people wedded to the cause of revolution. All editing devices in the Eisenstein film are calculated not only to render a historic uprising, but to render it in the light of Marxist doctrine. In Potemkin, the priest’s face, besides being his face, stands for Tsarist oppression, and the sailors are made to appear as the vanguard of the proletariat. Nothing of that kind occurs in the Italian film. On the contrary, Rossellini so composes his narrative that we never feel challenged to seek symbolic meanings in it. Such instances of oppres- sion or humanity as Paisan offers are strictly individual facts which do not admit of generalization. Rossellini patiently observes where Eisen- stein ardently constructs. This accounts for the thrill of a few shots which represent border cases. I am thinking in particular of the documentary shot of the three German soldiers in the Florentine episode. Reminiscent, perhaps deliberately so, of similar shots in official Nazi documentaries, it is inserted in such a manner that it affects us as a true revelation of German militarism. The allusiveness of this shot is sufficiently strong to drive us beyond the bounds of immediate reality, and yet too unobtrusive to make us lose contact with it.

Paisan is all the more amazing as it defies the traditional patterns of film making in Italy. The Italian prewar screen was crowded with historical extravaganzas and beautifully photographed dramas that displayed inflated passions before decorative settings—a long progression of glossy products, led by d’Annunzio’s world-famous Cabiria, of 1914. Taking advantage of their audience’s love for theatrics, these films reflected both the glitter and the hollowness of the regime under which they flourished. . . . It is a far cry from d’Annunzio to Rossellini, from the spectacular to the real. The sudden emergence of such a film as Paisan indicates that many Italians actually loathe the grand-style manner of the past and all that it implied in allegiances and sham beliefs. They have come to realize the futility of Mussolini’s conquests and they seem now determined to do without any messages and missions—at least for the moment.

And this moment is a precarious one for the Italians. Fascist rule has ended, the new government is weak, and the country resounds with inter- nal strife. During this interregnum the Italians might feel completely lost, were it not for a compact cultural heritage which protects them from dis- integration. Theirs is an articulate sense of art and a tested way of putting up with the tragedies common to mortals. And under the undiminishing spell of custom they knowingly enjoy the rites of love making and the gratifications of family life. No doubt, the Church has played its part in shaping and civilizing these people throughout the ages. That they are aware of it perhaps accounts for the surprise ending of the Monastery episode in Paisan—that scene in which the American chaplain bows to the religious ardor of the Italian monks, thus disavowing what he has said about the inclusiveness of true tolerance shortly before. His deliber- ate inconsistency can be considered a tribute to Italian Catholicism and its humanizing effects.

Italian everyday life, then, is rich in meaningful outlets for all imagin- able needs and desires. So the Italians do not sink into a vacuum when they refuse, as they are now doing, to let themselves be possessed with ideas. Even without ideas they still have much to rely upon. And since their kind of existence, mellow and sweet as it is, has long since become second nature to them—something that seems to them as natural as the blue sky or the air they breathe—they may well believe that their repudiation of ideas relieves their lives of excess baggage. What remains, in their opinion, is humanity, pure and simple. And in their case, as Paisan demonstrates, humanity assumes all the traits of self-sufficient reality.

This is a mirage, though, which may appear as more than a mirage only at a very particular moment, such as the Italians are now going through. Paisan is delusive in that it virtually makes the triumph of humanity dependent on a world released from the strain of ideas, or “causes.” We cannot feel this way. As matters stand, we know humanity would be irre- trievably bogged down if it were unsustained by the ideas mankind breeds in desperate attempts to improve its lot. Whatever their consequences, they hold out a promise to us. Rossellini’s film dismisses the audience without any such promise. But this does not invalidate its peculiar greatness. And precisely in these postwar years with their tangle of oblique slogans and propaganda artifices, Paisan comes to us as a revelation of the steady flow of humanity beneath the turmoil of sheer ideology. So, if Paisan does not kindle hopes, yet it reassures us of the omnipresence of their sources.

原文出处：Siegfried Kracauer's American Writings Essays on Film and Popular Culture

Paisan (1948) P156