Verga and the Realist Cinema

Abstract

VERGA AND THE REALIST CINEMA ROBERT ALAN SPIEGHI In Against Interpretation Susan Sontag writes that Style is the principle of decision in a work of art, the signature of the artist's will. And as the human will is capable of an indefinite number of stances, there are an indefinite number of possible styles for works of art.' Verga 's writing had both the period his film a direct and indirect effect on the films of we cali Neorealist. When Visconti adapted l Malavoglia for to La Terra Trema, he was able change in plot or location between the story do so with practically no wdtten in 1881 and the life in film of 1948 because of the static nature of Aci Trezza. The film stands as a critique of the lack of solidarity among the exploited fishermen and an exposition of the way individuai pride leads to disaster. Verga had frequently attempted to little teli his stories from the point of view of his characters, with as intervention as possible on the part of the narrative ticity, voice. Visconti attempts a parallel authen- using the fishermen themselves and their tells own Sicilian dialect, is because, as he us in the prologue to the film, Italian not the language of the poor. Six years earlier Visconti had proposed Verga's L'Amante di Gra- but it migna to the fascist censors as the basis for the film Ossessione, was rejected by the authorities who were unwilling to accept a story based on the presence of bandits in Fascist Italy.^ Visconti then turned to James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice as the back- ground for his film, but the theme remains the same, the effect of