Lo squadrone bianco

Lo squadrone bianco
Lo squadrone bianco
Directed by	Augusto Genina
Written by	Augusto Genina
Starring	Fosco Giachetti ; Antonio Centa; Fulvia Lanzi ; Guido Celano ;
Cinematography	Anchise Brizzi ; Massimo Terzano ;
Music by	Antonio Veretti
Distributed by	Roma Film
Release date	1936;
Running time	97 min
Country	Italy
Language	Italian

Last updated September 06, 2024

Lo squadrone bianco (Italian for "The White Squadron") is a 1936 Italian film directed by Augusto Genina. The plot features a cavalry lieutenant, unlucky in love, who redeems himself by battling the "rebels" of Tripolitania (modern Libya). The film won the Mussolini Cup at the Venice Film Festival, during the Second Italo-Abyssinian War.

Plot

Cristiana (Fulvia Lanzi) is seen enjoying herself, dancing and drinking with other men. Lieutenant Mario Ludovici (Antonio Centa) races down a dark road and calls Cristiana from a payphone with a sense of urgency. When she does not answer, he proceeds to her apartment and angrily pounds on the door and rings the bell. He demands a traditional relationship, and leaves when she refuses but tries to seduce him.

Mario transfers to a desert fort in Tripolitania, where he replaces a heroic lieutenant who has recently perished in combat against the rebellious natives. Captain Santelia (Fosco Giachetti) distrusts Mario at first as a cowardly playboy. However, after the rebels steal some animals, the two pursue them with a squadron of camel-riding native troops allied to the Italians on a long and panoramic desert trek. Mario becomes ill, but eventually the two officers come to a mutual understanding and Mario disposes of a cigarette case from Cristiana and stops reminiscing of their luxurious memories.

Having caught up to the rebels at an oasis, a battle ensues; the rebels are defeated but the captain is killed. Meanwhile, Cristiana and a group of other tourists have arrived at the fort. A reconnaissance plane brings news to the fort of the battle and a dead officer, without knowing which officer has perished. This causes Cristiana an anxious night of waiting. The following day Lieutenant Ludovici returns, now in command of the squadron, and elects to remain in Tripolitania. As Cristiana prepares to leave with the tourist group, Mario bids her a final goodbye.

Production

The film is based on the novel L'Escadron blanc by French writer Joseph Peyré, who had a hand in the adaptation of the script to the screen.^[1] It was shot at the Cines Studios in Rome.

Genina's noted shots of the Tripolitanian desert were all done on location.^[2] For its use of foreign technologies, it has been called the "first sample of the Americanised technical powers of Italy's huge new cinema city."^[3]

Reception

Writing for Night and Day in 1937, Graham Greene gave the film a good review, characterizing it as "odd and refreshing" for a "superficially melodramatic film". Greene claims that the film is "a very slow picture", but that in time the audience comes to recognize that "slowness is a value", and he describes the photography as "unsensational and memorable". Greene also praises the acting of Fulviá Lanzi.^[4]

A reviewer from the British Union of Fascists raved that the film "has all the enduring greatness of simplicity. There is no affection, only a plain recounting of Man's eternal battle with Nature."^[5]

Analysis

Traditionally, the film is divided into three narrative segments in the theme of the Fascist male conversion:^[6] "the bourgeois prologue, the colonialist segment, and the epilogue."^[7]

Lo squadrone bianco has been interpreted as an "exemplary film" of the Fascism reinterpretation of pre-Fascist historical narratives for contemporary purposes,^[8] i.e. "expansionist propaganda."^[9] Others consider it first and foremost an Italian neorealist film, only indirectly nationalistic through its use of patriotic themes.^[10]

As in other Fascist colonial films like Il cammino degli eroi, the native "rebels" are portrayed as well-armed with European weapons.^[11] The film plays down the overwhelming disparities between the Italian and Tripolitanian forces, omitting for example the offensive use of aircraft (in addition to reconnaissance) and the use of gas warfare by the Italians.^[12]

Other analyses of the film draw on Gustave Le Bon's theory of crowds (i.e. the native Tripolitanians) and space (i.e. the desert) as "two interconnected phenomena,"^[13] noting that the natives themselves are "virtually absent from the screen."^[7]

Genina was temporarily banned from Italian studios for his work on such imperialist war films, but continued to find work after 1945, in a climate where nearly all Italian filmmakers had collaborated to some degree with the regime.^[14]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pietro Badoglio</span> 20th-century Italian military officer and colonial official

Pietro Badoglio, 1st Duke of Addis Abeba, 1st Marquess of Sabotino, was an Italian general during both World Wars and the first viceroy of Italian East Africa. With the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, he became Prime Minister of Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mario Monicelli</span> Italian film director and screenwriter (1915–2010)

Mario Alberto Ettore Monicelli was an Italian film director and screenwriter, one of the masters of the commedia all'italiana. He was nominated six times for an Oscar, and received the Golden Lion for his career.

Omar al-Mukhṭār Muḥammad bin Farḥāṭ al-Manifī, called The Lion of the Desert, known among the colonial Italians as Matari of the Mnifa, was a Libyan revolutionary and Imam who led the native resistance in Cyrenaica under the Senussids, against the Italian colonization of Libya. A teacher-turned-general, Omar was a prominent figure of the Senussi movement and is considered the national hero of Libya and a symbol of resistance in the Arab and Islamic worlds. Beginning in 1911, he organised and led the Libyan resistance movement against the Italian colonial empire during the First and Second Italo-Senussi Wars. Externally, he also fought against the French colonization of Chad and the British occupation of Egypt. After many attempts, the Italian Armed Forces managed to capture Al-Mukhtar near Slonta when he was wounded in battle by Libyan colonial troops, and hanged him in 1931 after he refused to surrender.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Savari</span>

Savari was the designation given to the regular native Libyan cavalry regiments of the Italian colonial army from 1912 to 1943, in Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica, and later in Italian Libya. The word "savari" was derived from a Persian term for "horsemen" (Savārān).

The Italian colonizationof Libya began in 1911 and it lasted until 1943. The country, which was previously an Ottoman possession, was occupied by Italy in 1911 after the Italo-Turkish War, which resulted in the establishment of two colonies: Italian Tripolitania and Italian Cyrenaica. In 1934, the two colonies were merged into one colony which was named the colony of Italian Libya. In 1937, this colony was divided into four provinces, and in 1939, the coastal provinces became a part of metropolitan Italy as the Fourth Shore. The colonization lasted until Libya's occupation by Allied forces in 1943, but it was not until the 1947 Paris Peace Treaty that Italy officially renounced all of its claims to Libya's territory.

Augusto Genina was an Italian film pioneer. He was a movie producer and director.

Libya was a colony of Fascist Italy located in North Africa, in what is now modern Libya, between 1934 and 1943. It was formed from the unification of the colonies of Cyrenaica and Tripolitania, which had been Italian possessions since 1911.

Fosco Giachetti was an Italian actor.

Italian Tripolitania was an Italian colony, located in present-day western Libya, that existed from 1911 to 1934. It was part of the territory conquered from the Ottoman Empire after the Italo-Turkish War in 1911. Italian Tripolitania included the western northern half of Libya, with Tripoli as its main city. In 1934, it was unified with Italian Cyrenaica in the colony of Italian Libya. In 1939, Tripolitania was considered a part of the Kingdom of Italy's 4th Shore.

The Libyan resistance movement was the rebel force opposing the Italian Empire during its Pacification of Libya between 1923 and 1932.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guido Celano</span> Italian actor (1904–1988)

Guido Celano was an Italian actor, voice actor and film director. He appeared in 120 films between 1931 and 1988. He also directed two spaghetti Westerns: Cold Killer and Gun Shy Piluk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">4th Venice International Film Festival</span> Film festival

The 4th annual Venice International Film Festival was held between 10 and 31 August 1936. This year saw an international jury nominated for the first time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1945 anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania</span> Pogrom against Jews in North Africa (1945)

The 1945 Anti-Jewish riots in Tripolitania was the most violent rioting against Jews in North Africa in modern times. From November 5 to November 7, 1945, more than 140 Jews were killed and many more injured in a pogrom in British-military-controlled Tripolitania. 38 Jews were killed in Tripoli from where the riots spread. 40 were killed in Amrus, 34 in Zanzur, 7 in Tajura, 13 in Zawia and 3 in Qusabat.

The Tripolitanian Republic, was a short-lived Arab republic that declared the independence from Italian Tripolitania after World War I. It didn't succeed in setting up a republic and Italian rule was restored in 1922.

The Second Italo-Senussi War, also referred to as the Pacification of Libya, was a conflict that occurred during the Italian colonization of Libya between Italian military forces and indigenous rebels associated with the Senussi Order. The war lasted from 1923 until 1932, when the principal Senussi leader, Omar al-Mukhtar, was captured and executed. The Libyan genocide took place during and after the conflict.

Anchise Brizzi was an Italian cinematographer.

The Great Appeal is a 1936 Italian war film directed by Mario Camerini and starring Camillo Pilotto, Roberto Villa and Lina d'Acosta. It is sometimes known by the alternative title The Last Roll-Call.

<i>Rainbow: A Private Affair</i> 2017 Italian film

Rainbow: A Private Affair is an Italian drama film directed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani, based on the novel A Private Matter by Beppe Fenoglio. It is the last film directed by both brothers before Vittorio Taviani's death in 2018.

Events in Italy in 1988:

References

↑ Ben-Ghiat, Ruth. 2004. Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-24216-5. p. 140.
↑ Gottlieb, Sidney. 2004. Roberto Rossellini's Rome Open City. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-54519-6. p. 49.
↑ British Film Institute, British Institute of Adult Education. 1932. Sight and Sound. p. 198.
↑ Greene, Graham (2 December 1937). "Lo Squadrone Bianco". Night and Day . (reprinted in: Taylor, John Russell, ed. (1980). The Pleasure Dome. Oxford University Press. pp. 181, 184. ISBN 0192812866.)
↑ Gottlieb, Julie V., and Linehan, Thomas P. 2004. The Culture of Fascism: Visions of the Far Right in Britain. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-799-5. p. 39.
↑ Landy, Marcia. 1998. The Folklore of Consensus: Theatricality in the Italian Cinema, 1930-1943. SUNY Press. ISBN 0-7914-3803-1. p. 222.
1 2 Palumbo, 2003, p. 281.
↑ Landy, Marcia. 2000. Italian Film. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-64977-3. p. 312.
↑ Evans, Alun. 2000. Brasseys' Guide to War Films. Brassey's. ISBN 1-57488-263-5. p. 201.
↑ Gottlieb, 2004, p. 47.
↑ Ben-Ghiat, 2004, p. 134.
↑ British Film Institute, 1932, p. 199.
↑ Palumbo, Patrizia. 2003. A Place in the Sun: Africa in Italian Colonial Culture from Post-unification to the Present. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23234-8. p. 282.
↑ Ben-Ghiat, 2004, p. 208.

External links

Lo squadrone bianco at IMDb