Movies - La Terra trema

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	Movies - La Terra trema

La Terra trema is a 1948 drama film directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Maria Micale and Sebastiano Valastro.

LA TERRA TREMA (THE EARTH TREMBLES) 1948

..." an actor is above all a human being.He has the key human qualities. On these I seek to base my work, to grade these in constructing a character: up to the point where the human-actor and the human-character become in a certain sense one... The most humble gesture of a human being, his steps, his hesitations, and his impulses alone give poetry and vibrations to the things that surround them and within which they are confined. Any other solution to this problem appears to me like an attempt to destroy reality as it opens to our eyes: made by men and continually modified by them." Visconti, Luchino (Anthropomorphic Cinema, an article published in the Cinema Magazine, 1943.)

SYNOPSIS The story takes place in Aci Trezza, a small fishermen village in the south of Sicily, Italy. It is about the exploitation of the working-class fishermen, specifically about the eldest son of a very traditional family from the village, the Valastros. Ntoni convinces his family to mortgage their house so that they could sell the fish themselves, thus making more money than what they were getting from the conspired low prices from the wholesalers, who were controlling the market for long already. Everything goes well until a storm ruins their boat and they have nothing left to proceed with their new business. After this, the family passes through some awful events as having to leave the house behind, their grandfather dies, they become miserable and Ntoni and his brothers have to give up by going back to fish for the wholesalers.

INTRODUCTION La Terra Trema (The Earth Trembles) is a 1948 neorealist italian movie directed by Luchino Visconti and starring Maria Micale and Sebastiano Valastro. It won the Special Prize, in the Venice Film Festival of 1948. Like many other thirsty artists after the World War II was over, Visconti felt the need to express his feelings about the war in fiction, creating an illusion of the fictional world combining a firm narrative structure to deep humanism. He wrote some novels and plays, but ended up deciding to channel his creative energies into theatrical productions. In the middle of this experience on stage, the Communist Party commissioned him to make a documentary about fishermen that was to be used as propaganda in the 1948 election campaign. Visconti took this opportunity to accomplish an old desire: adapting Giovanni Verga's I Malavoglia (The house by the medlar tree,1881) for the screen, and he had even acquired its rights in 1941. He travelled to Aci Trezza, in Sicily, where the Verga's novel takes place and found out it had merely changed from that time. Considering this, Visconti decided shooting the film on actual Sicilian locations and also using real people from there as actors. By taking this "ordinary people", or even these "actors taken from the street" as some critics liked to point, Visconti believed they could bring into play the truth about themselves as opposed to assuming roles.He truly believed that the acting emerges from the very pattern of life of the human beings, and that nature and society control the people live their lives. The film ended up far beyond either the idea of a documentary, about fishermen or the adaption of I Malavoglia. Actually, Visconti planned to shoot a trilogy, where the first part would tell about the fishermen and would have ended in defeat. The second part would tell about peasants and would have ended in a stalemate between exploiters and the exploited and finally the third part would be about the miners ending up in a triumph of solidarity of the oppressed. The decision of shooting only the first part came out as the weight of the so called "episode of the sea" increased in its association with Verga. Having realized this, Visconti decided to conclude it on a note of resigned defeat and not in a miraculous victory.

THE EXPLANATION The movie can be divided by its prologue, three main phases and an epilogue. It's first part, tells us about the fishermen's attempt to improve their economic circumstances. They demand a better price for their fish, and it is symbolized by Ntoni, the eldest son of Valastros family, throwing a pair of scales into the ocean, and the fishermen end up in prison. The wholesalers realize is more profitable to have him and his friends fishing and release them. Ntoni, who has lived in the continen and brought some new open mind ideas with him, tries to form a cooperative but no one joins him. He decides to do it by his own, he convinces his family mortgage their house to buy a boat and starts his new life. We can notice a festive mood on this sequence, all the village join Valastro's family salting the fish, with laughter and joy. The second part, is dedicated to show Valastro's vulnerability. They realize that the price for being owners is high, they not only have to buy the salt but also work hard and not stop even in the hardest storm, risking their lives to be able to feed so many mouths at home. At this time of the film, we see the other fishermen and the wholesalers mocking them already, convinced of the immutability of the prevailing social order. The third phase of the film just affirms this already noticed vulnerability. The social and psychological consequences of the Valastro's attempt to change things are gradually revealed. They go out of work, no one wants to give them any opportunity, and the wholesalers are able to set the price for their fish. On the scene which shows the wholesalers setting up the prices again we can see the face of the children registering amazement at the cruelty of the adults, really common on neorealist movies, and what can almost be seen as an awakening of consciousness. The family's unit, so strong in the beginning of the film, breaks down. Now they have no family, no house, the grandfather dies, Ntoni's brother Cola leaves for the continent seeking new opportunities, their sister Lucia loses her reputation yielding to the temptations of Marshal Don Salvatore, and Ntoni starts drinking. Only the elder sister Mara remains strong, although she loses all hope of ever getting married for not being rich. In the epilogue, Ntoni finally overcomes his pride, recognizing the true cause of the problems of his kind and his class and see the need for COLLECTIVE action, and go back with his two young brothers, Vanni and Alessio, to work for the wholesalers as a day laborer, who have bought new boats. An oppressive condition is felt in the whole film because the camera never leaves Aci Trezza, except in the scenes at sea at the beginning and end of the film. The outside world appears only indirectly when Ntoni goes to prison, when the family goes to sign a contract with the bank, when a strange man offering american cigarettes appears to tempt the youngsters to move to the continent, and when the old baroness honors the inauguration of the new wholesalers boats with her presence. Some allusions to modern Italian history are also there. On the wall of the restaurant we can see an image of a hammer and sickle. One of the wholesalers suddenly says: "The country is full of communism!", and his colleague answers: "Raimondo is always right," in a parody of the Fascist slogan, "Il Duce is always right." At the end of the film, a faded text can be seen behind Raimondo: "Go with determination toward people.Mussolini".

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