Post on 17-Jul-2016
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Le Quattro Giornate di Napoli: A Glorified Insurrection
“Applaudite!, Applaudite!” is what was shouted to over 7,000 Neapolitans,
who were forced at gunpoint to watch the execution of an innocent young sailor
while applauding and crying at the site of a burning University.1 Despite the
armistice and the encroaching American troops, the Nazis nevertheless bitterly and
systematically besieged their former allies with a barbaric degree of vengeance. The
Four Days of Naples is the glorified story of the Neapolitan insurrection that
successfully forced the Germans to retreat from Naples. Accented by chaotic
guerrilla warfare and the contribution of nearly every social group, this
spontaneous collective effort has not only been glorified as a heroic national event
of Naples, but has been represented and portrayed through various mediums,
particularly that of film, photography, and literature. Le Quattro Giornate di Napoli
is hailed as a glorified spontaneous insurrection through the authentic, yet tragic
portrayal of a guerrilla style revolt against the Nazi enslavement of Neapolitans in
the eyes of film director Nanni Loy, as a resistance fought and won by the scugnizzi
of Naples who bravely took arms against the Germans, and as a male-dominated
retaliation against Nazism led by young idealistic heroes. These mediums of film,
photography and literature fit together to construct a romanticized and glorified
tale of the successful Neapolitan insurrection that became a precedent for future
resistance in a post armistice Italy.
1 Other Italy 35
Praised for historical accuracy and cinematic brilliance, Nanni Loy’s “Le
Quattro Giornate di Napoli” coherently merges the psychology and physicality of
urban warfare in Naples in an effort to reproduce the same rage and patriotism once
felt by the Neapolitans of 1943 in the minds of its viewers. This is achieved
primarily through the pointed use of panoramic cinematography, emotionally latent
scenes and chaotic guerrilla battles. The film opens with the jubilant outcries of
Neapolitans as they flood the streets shouting ironically, “We've lost the war!”2 This
hints that the events to come are not out of conventional patriotism, instead they
are birthed through the resentment of the oppressed. Clarence Peterson of the
Chicago Tribune contends that Nanni Loy employs a series of “hit and run shots of a
city in celebration and revolt” to embody the chaotic atmosphere of the resistance
itself.3 Loy deliberately spends more time building tension than constructing a plot
in order to transcend the psychological tension of Neapolitans to the minds of his
audience. As the Nazis enact the forced migration of all inhabitants within 300
meters of the sea line, Loy fixates on the distress and frustration of a mother
attempting to provide and keep track of four young children amongst a chaotic
crowd of migrating Italians. This is the beginning of a cinematographic technique
used to progressively intensify the suspense and distress of the situation as the
confinements of the Nazi siege take an increasing toll on the Neapolitan inhabitants,
ultimately sparking spontaneous revolts.
2 Nowell3 Peterson
After the Nazis systematically detonate several industrial structures on and
along the coastline, the Nazi commander of Naples, Col. Scholl, called for all males
born between 1910 and 1925 to report for obligatory labor, so that they may be
transported to German labor camps in the north. Loy makes sure that his audience
is the first one to hear this rumor. Instead of portraying the announcement as words
from the Nazi commanders, Loy proceeds to follow this development through the
continued hit-and-run technique by tracking the spread and reaction to this rumor
via word-of-mouth. He makes it clear that Nazis showed an utter disregard for social
class, political affiliation or age when recruiting men for labor. Even a returning
Italian war veteran, suffering from wounds, is pried away from his child and wife to
join the other hundreds of men forcefully extracted from their homes by German
soldiers.4 To stress the psychological dismay even further, Loy redirects us to the
element of starvation, as we are forced to relate with the pitiful and almost tragic
scene of a mother refusing to eat once again for the sake of her children. This
coupled with the massacre of Neapolitans attempting to escape by boat, build
tensions to the breaking point of the first insurrection during which men under
gunpoint are able to overcome several German soldiers with the help of a few hand
grenades in the Plaza. During this spontaneous battle, two of the men are shot and
killed, allowing the Partisans to use their bodies as patriotic symbols of recruitment
as the fighters attempt to solicit the remaining Neapolitans in revolt. From this
moment forward, the pace of the movie nearly doubles, conveying the spontaneity
of the violent uprisings that occurred against the Germans across several sections of
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Naples. DeBlasio states clearly that, "there were no generals or politicians to lead
the Neapolitans, no plan of attack, just the feeling that they could stand no more."5
The spontaneity of this insurrection is precisely what Loy attempts to underscore
through his deliberate and rapid camera scenes as the tension builds and erupts.
The infamous photographer Robert Capa also captured this heroic
insurrection authentically via the photographs he took on an assignment for LIFE
magazine. Capa accompanied the American troops during the invasion of Sicily in
July and August of 1943. He took several photographs following the American
advancement from Sicily to the mainland Italy, producing a couple of iconic photos
that captured the liberation and aftermath of a post rebellious Naples. Upon
entering Naples, Capa encountered the funeral of twenty schoolboys from the
Vomero district of Naples who were led by their teacher to rebel against the
Germans. Photos of this funeral and other scugnizzi were exclusively the subject of
Robert Capa's portfolio for Naples and therefore helped to produce a bias
representation of the events. Robert Capa did an excellent job of capturing the
mourning and emotion of Neapolitan mothers who lost young boys during the
insurrection. This coupled with a fixation on the scugnizzi of the rebellion made it
seem to readers of LIFE magazine as though “gangs of young boys forced the
Germans out of Naples.”6 Though his selectivity caused inaccurate assumptions
about the events that took place, Capa nevertheless manages to capture the
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authentic emotion and reality of the tragic fight Neapolitans endured to rid
themselves of the Germans.
One of his images captures the anger and sadness of a group of Neapolitan
mothers flashing the photo of a young boy recently killed during the rebellion.
Another photo fixates on the coffin of a fallen schoolboy, whose feet over extend the
size of the coffin. Robert admits that, “these children's feet were my real welcome to
Europe, I who had been born there.”7 It is clear that Capa, being a Hungarian, related
on a personal level with the sacrifices made by these children against the Germans.
As a result he only took pictures of the scugnizzi and those who mourned for the
deceased patriots, forgetting to include the rest of the rebel participants and their
sacrifices. This selective representation of the insurrection as a rebellion led by the
children of Naples serves as one of the most common interpretations of the event,
due to the widespread audience these photos were immediately delivered to via
publishing in LIFE magazine. Consequently, many Italians and Americans believed
that the revolt was exclusively that of the scugnizzi’s successful attempt to force the
Germans out of their city.
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Appendix 2
Appendix 3