Broken Time, Fragmented Space: A Cultural Map for Postwar Italy by Anna Maria Torriglia (review)

Abstract

MLR, 99.3, 2004 805 of language, and the core thematic strands of each work. In the case of Gli esami non finiscono mai, for example, the themes are the social constraints, the family as a bour? geois environment, and the constant 'examinations' to which the main character is subjected. Towards the end ofthe book, Esposito lays out the core themes ofthe plays in a series of tables which contain their differentaspects. For instance, under 'death', we have 'death as a final solution to solve conflict', 'irrational fear', or 'simulation of death'. The last chapter contains a more extensive summary of what the critic has identified as the overall main themes: the social environment, the family,and so on. These are defined as 'elements porteurs de sens', as they are the elements through which meaning is convey ed. Esposito undoubtedly identifies some of the main features of De Filippo's plays, but such a schematic analysis is not without its drawbacks. It risks becoming an oversimplified reading which proceeds along the old-fashioned critical lines of dissecting a play by 'themes', which appear unrelated to each other or even independent of each other. Today we no longer talk about 'themes', but about 'discourses', 'concepts', and 'ideologies'. These merge, clash, and intertwine, and in so doing bring to the surface the depth of a text. Esposito's book has stripped down De Filippo's plays to a number of thematic strands and, in the process, we have lost much ofthe richness of his plays. University of Strathclyde Donatella Fischer Broken Time, Fragmented Space: A Cultural Map for Postwar Italy. By Anna Maria Torriglia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. 2002. xxii +239 pp. ?28. ISBN 0-8020-3604-x. Anna Maria Torriglia's book presents the reader with a consideration of key themes in post-war ltalian cinema and narrative. There is innovation in Torriglia's work in that hers is an interdisciplinary approach where the differentsections (of which there are four, subdivided into individual chapters) investigate the treatment of a theme in filmand narrative, rather than the more traditional approach of standard anthologies that discuss, separately, post-war ltalian cinema and post-war ltalian narrative. The result is stimulating, inviting the reader to make interesting cross-cultural connec? tions. Such an approach is particularly successful in Section 2, 'From Mother to Daughter', where representation of female identity is examined in the writings of Anna Banti and Alba De Cespedes and then convincingly linked to the emergence of a sensitivity to feminist issues as evidenced in the cinema of Antonio Pietrangeli and in Visconti's Bellissima (1951). However, the system of selecting topic and represen? tative texts does not always produce a satisfactory outcome, and it is legitimate to ask why this should be. In Section 1, 'Time Has Changed', the aim is to show responses to war by studying aspects of the recurring father-son relationship. It is noted that, in Rossellini's Germany Year Zero (1947), the despairing son, located in the streets of a ruined Berlin, kills his fatherand then commits suicide; this is offeredas key evidence forthe author's conclusion that texts of the immediate post-war period are character? ized by a sense that 'there is no hope ofa future forthe younger generations surviving the end of Fascism' (p. 38). One might well ask how accurately such an argument properly reflectsthe overall tenor of Rossellini's work. Could such a conclusion have been drawn ifevidence from Rome Open City (1945) had been cited? The other maj or weakness ofthe book is its failure to take account ofthe full range of available critical material on a particular topic. Section 4, 'The Country at Hand', pro? poses to deal with 'the 'discovery' ofthe South' (p. 119). The argument is presented in such a way as to suggest this is purely a post-war phenomenon: there is no mention either within the section or the concluding, and lengthy,bibliography of the excellent 806 Reviews work of writers such as Gabriella Gribaudi, John Dickie, and Jane Schneider, who have investigated the emergence of particular constructs of Southern identity in the nineteenth century during and after the period of unification. In many...