schnapp - fascist mass spectacle
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18 BL: Fascist Mass SpectacleAuthor(s): Jeffrey T. SchnappSource: Representations, No. 43 (Summer, 1993), pp. 89-125Published by: University of California Press
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JEFFREY T. SCHNAPP
18 BL:
Fascist Mass Spectacle
Moscow
OR
ROME?
The
question was posed
with
urgency hrough-
out the
1920s
and
1930s.
Socialist
pamphleteers
drew
up diagrams
to illustrate
the stark
hoice
confronting
ll
of
humankind: "Fascism
or
Communism;
Rome
or Moscow."' Fascist yndicalists
ike
Sergio
Pannunzio envisionedcontemporary
history s
a
clash
between he two ecular churches hat
had arisen after he death
of God: the fascist religionof spirit" nd the Bolshevist religionof matter."2
Others
formulated he dilemma less as a choice between Rome or Moscow than
between Rome
and Moscow versusthe old
Europe:
Italy nd Russia .. two patial nfoldings
f
history.
odern evolutions born
n
these
gigantic heaters.he first reat
n
the spiritual randeur
f itsuniversalmission.
he
second
great
n
the
human
randeur
f
ts
many eoples.
he
political rocess
hat
egan
in
1789 nd extended
nto he
apitalisthase,
now
xplodes
nd reaches
ts
evolutionary
epilogue, using
n
equal
measure
he
nduring itality
fRoman ivilization
nd thefresh
and
primitiveitality
f Moscow's
nti-civilization.3
A widespread conviction ubtends these views: namely, hat iberaldemocracy
had run its full ourse
in
history.ndustrialization
ad
ensured
the
triumph
f a
new mass society nd,
so
many
believed,the demise of all liberal forms
f social,
cultural, political,
and economic
organization.
The
bourgeois individual,
who
once stood at
the centerof the universeof
iberaldemocracy,
ad been
buried
in
the trenches f
World
War
. The
question
facing
humankind
was,
therefore, ne
of
succession.
What
sort
of
being
would takethe place of the bourgeois subject?
What
sortof mass
society
would
arise
out of the
trenches'mud? Would
the den-
tity
f the new
subject
and
society
e
anchored
in
the concept of class or
in
that
of the nation? Would theircharacterbe utopian, utilitarian, nd collectivist; r
instead
mythical, esthetic,
nd individualist? id all roads lead to Moscow or
instead to Rome?
Culture
was the
laboratory
ithinwhich a new
mass
subject
could be
shaped
and new
forms
f mass
organization
estedout.
I
use the
metaphor
of
the "labo-
ratory" dvisedly,
not
only
because it
pervades the culturaldebates
of
the
1920s
and
1930s,
fromthe Proletkult o the
Bauhaus, but also because it underscores
the
inaugural
role
assigned by
both
revolutions o cultural artifacts.Works
of
fascistor communist rt were conceived
not
merely as
instruments f propa-
ganda; theywere to serveas messengers rom he future, elaysfrom he imagi-
REPRESENTATIONS
43
*
Summer 1993 C
THE
REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
89
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nary to
the
real,
activatingwithinthe collective's
mind and
body the entire
complex of the revolution's
alues yet o befully ealizedn history. nd since
the
values
in
questionencompassed
every
rea of human activity-fromwork to lei-
sure,
from
politics
o ethics o ndividualpsychologyo a regime
of bodilyhygiene
and exercise-culture was envisaged n total, ven totalitarian,erms.
From the start
he theaterwasthe revolutionists'rt of choice, much
as it
had
been during
the French Revolution.
Due
to its value as a tool for mobilizing n
illiterate opulation,
to
its
status
s
the preeminent
in de
sitecle
rt form, nd to
its
potential s a
total
pectacle
blending ll of thearts, he theater
underwent n
explosion
in the
yearsfollowing
he
October Revolution.Hundreds of amateur
and professional
clubs sprang up throughout
Russia and performedagitprop
works, eading
Viktor
hklovsky
o remark
wryly
hat
drama circles ..
are
prop-
agating
ike
protozoa.
Not
lack of fuel nor ack of food nor theEntente-nothing
can stoptheirgrowth."4 housands of actorsperformed n open-airmass spec-
tacles
recreating
he
events
f therevolution;worker heatersproliferated
nder
the
guidance of Alexander Bogdanov's
Proletkult; nd directors uch
as Vsevolod
Meyerholdproclaimed
"Theatrical October," aunching war
against the bour-
geois
theater s
millions tarved nd Russia battled hrough tsbitter ivilwar. By
1920,
it seemed
to
Shklovsky
hat "all Russia is acting;some
kind
of elemental
process s takingplace
where the iving abric f
ife s being transformednto the
theatrical."5
he
purpose
of
this heatricalization
f
everyday
ifewas understood
by contemporary
heorists
s
at
once
utopian
and utilitarian. hrough
the
revo-
lutionary heater
twas hoped that a
new
generation
f harmoniously eveloped
individuals"wouldbe forged.
Fascismwas
in
its
nfancy
s Russia decked
itself
ut
as
a living tage. Origi-
nating
from
within
he fold of
socialism,
he
fascistmovement
merged
in
1919
out
of
an
ill-defined
rouping
of
nationalists,rredentists,
uturists,
nd war
vet-
erans,
drawn
together
y
their
pposition
to
Italy's
parliamentarian
egime,
o
ts
politics
f accommodation
vis a
vis
a
wave
of
strikes nd
factory ccupations,
nd
to the
Treaty
of Versailles.
Although small,
the
movementwas
able to seize state
power
n
1922.
But it was not
untilthe
ate
1920s
that fascism's
culturalrevolu-
tion"
truly egan: first,
ecause Mussolini had
ruled over the old
parliamentary
stateuntil1925,whenhisdictatorshipwasdeclared; second,because fascismwas
an
inherently
nstable
deological
formation.
ascismdid not have at
its
disposal
a
complete philosophical
system
ike
that
provided by
Marxism-Leninism s
it
struggled
o
address
such
fundamental
onflicts s those
between
ts
populist
and
elitist urrents
r between
tscult
of heroic
ndividualism
nd its nstitutional
all
to order.
Rather,
fascism
was
littlemore than a
complex
of
ethical
principles,
credos,
and
aversions,
held
togetherby
a rhetorical-aesthetic
lue.
Unable to
resolve
the
question
of
its
dentity
y
means
of recourse
to the
utopias
of
theory
and
technology,
aunted
by
tsown
belatedness
with
espect
o tsBolshevik
rival,
fascismrequired (and attemptedto stimulate hroughthe lavishpatronage of
90 REPRESENTATIONS
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FIGURE 1. Ferdinando
Gatteschi,
oster
for
18
BL,
1934. Posted throughout
Florence
and reproduced in
/
-I
newspapers
and on
the cover
of Gioventfifascista,
his
/
O poster
hows the spectacle's
-
protagonist
olling
over a
line of barbedwire
early
n
-/\
t _ z
act 1.
In later
printings he
slogan
"Credere,
Obbedire,
Combattere"
"Believe,Obey,
Fight")
washandwritten ver
te truck's adiator;the
inscription
A.
Blasetti
Director" ook the
place
of
theacronym G.U.F."
-
---y i v+(Gruppi
Universitari
Fascisti).
ource: Blasetti
X i _ x
Archive.
modern art) "an
aesthetic
overproduction-a
urfeit
f
Fascist
igns, mages,
slo-
gans,
books,
and
buildings-in
order to
compensate
for,
ill
n,
and cover
up
its
unstable
deological
core."7
This is one reason
why
the fascist
egime,despite
ts
authoritarianism,ended
toward n
"eclecticism
f
the
spirit"
n
itsculturalpoli-
cies,encouraging
a
proliferation
f
competing
formulations
f
fascistmodernity,
among
which
Mussolini
felt ree to choose as a
function f
circumstance.8
This
essay
examines
one such formulation:
n
experimental
mass
spectacle
that was engaged
both
n
negotiating
he
fascist evolution's elation o
its
Soviet
predecessor
and
in
forging
n alternative
o Bolshevism'smechanicalmass sub-
ject-the
fascist
deal
of tmetallizedman."
Entitled
18
BL
(after
he model name
of its
truck-protagonist),
he
spectacle
was the featured vent
of
the
1934 Litto-
riali Della Cultura
e
dell'Arte,
fascism's
youthOlympics
of
art and culture fig.
1).9
The collaborative
reation
of seven
young
writers nd a
film
irector,
8 BL
broughttogether
wo thousand
actors,fifty
rucks, ightbulldozers,
four field-
and
machine-gunbatteries,
en
field adio
stations,
nd
six
photoelectric
rigades
in
a
stylized oviet-style
epresentation
f
the fascist
evolution's
ast, present,
18BL 91
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and future.
But however itanic
ts
cale,
ts mbitionswere even
greater:to insti-
tute a theater
of the future,
modern theaterofand
for themasses that
would
end, once and
for all, the
crisis
of
the bourgeois theater.Against
the bourgeois
stage's emphasis
on
individual
psychology,
ts reliance on the
star system, nd its
maintenance of partitionbetween interior and exterior forms of spectacle
(betweenthe
theater'sprivate
dramas and the state's
public actsof self-display),
18 BL elaborateda
total oncept
of
spectacle
founded
on fascism'swholesale
thea-
tricalization
f Italian
ife.
Moreover,
t aspired to fashion distinctive
masshero
for the new mass
theater: being cast
n
the
mage
of the nation's eader,
at once
individualized and
mass produced; a subject
identifiedwith
the transnational
values
of
industrialism,
s
well as withnew
image
and voice technologies,
ut in
whom
the
principle
f the nationcould be modernized and preserved.
t created,
in short, mass protagonist
who could
represent he
fascist evolution's
ontin-
uitieswith ts Bolshevikdouble butwho, n so doing, could also embodythe dis-
tinctive
fascist
ethos of
constant
exertion
and fatigue endured
by means of
individual and
collective iscipline.
18
BL was
but one of a number
of
interlocking heatrical
nitiatives nder-
taken
n
early
1930s
Italy,
o
I
begin byexamining
he event'sbroader context.
then
turn to
the
spectacle
tself,
o its organization, ealization,
nd failure, on-
cluding
with ome
remarks
n
fascist ulture s
a
whole.
I wish to insist
from
he
outset,
however,
hat
myobject
of
analysis
here
cannot
be designated
as the "offi-
cial theater
of
the regime."
A diversity f theaters
oexistedduring the
1930s,
some traditionalncharacter,omeavant-garde, ew propagandistic"ntheordi-
nary sense. No
simple
correlation xists,therefore,
etween state
sponsorship
and
explicit
olitical
ontent.
Those
few
major
works
hat,
ike 18
BL,
endeavored
to
devisespecifically
ascist
orms f theaterhave
generally
een dismissed
either
as "kitsch"
r as
expressions
of artistic ad
faith.
I
view
the effort
o dissect
works ike 18
BL
and
to reconstruct
he
complex
social
choreography
of their
taging
s
a
challenge
to the modes
of
writing
ul-
tural
history
hathave
prevailed
n the
study
f talian fascism.
or
reasons
having
to do with
he
urgent
need
to dismantle ascism's
ultural-politicallaims,
he first
generation
of
post-war
ultural
historians
was
averse
to an
enterprise
f this ort.
Whether
iberal
or
Marxist-affiliated,
his
generation
ook as axiomatic
Benedetto
Croce's
notion,
articulated
n
the
1925
"Manifestoof
the Anti-Fascist ntellec-
tuals,"
that fascism
nd culture were
diametrically
pposed.
Its
historiography
therefore
mphasized
apolitical
or anti-fascist
riting,
urned a
blind
eye
to the
political
commitments
f writers uch as
Giuseppe Ungaretti
and
Luigi
Piran-
dello,
and
elaborated
the fiction
hatneorealism-the characteristic
ultural
form
of
the 1930s and
1940s-represented
a revolt
gainst
the
unreality
nd
manip-
ulations
of
the fascist
poch.
Although
ts
findings
were sometimes
valuable,
this
historiographical
model
was
gradually
displaced by
more
complex
second-
and
third-generation pproaches thataddressed a questionthefirst-generationis-
92
REPRESENTATIONS
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torians
ither ould
or would
not:
namely,
How
did
Mussolini'sregime
maintain
the support
of the Italian
populace
during
a
period
of over two decades?
Terror
and censorship
were nadequate responses;
so, inspired
by theground-breaking
work of historians
such as Renzo
de
Felice,
"consensus"-oriented
historians
turnedtheir attention o the fascist tate's nstrumentalizationf the realmsof
media,
culture,
ntellectualnquiry,
nd leisure. "Consensus"
studies
have revo-
lutionized
he study f
fascist ulturalpolitics.
Yet,
due to an inherent ias
toward
matters
f
policy
nd
a desire
to
provide
a
unified, op-down
perspective
n fas-
cist culture, hey
end to
shy
away from ustained engagements
withfascist
es-
thetic rtifacts,
ith he result
hat he atter till emain argely
unread.
I believe
that
t is
precisely
his ort
of
analysis
of the fascist
maginary
hat
must now
be
undertaken
n the
pursuit
of
a
complementary,
s
it
were
"lateral,"
perspective
n the culturalhistory
f the fascist ecades.
Cultural historians,
hat
is,need to look beyondthe broad descriptive axonomiesthat have heretofore
occupied
them
to
bring
to bear a broader
set of
methodological
tools
(psycho-
analysis,
reception
theory,
nd
so
on)
on the
reading
of the
period's
aesthetic
production.
n
so doing,
their askwill
be twofold:
n the one hand,
to
propose
new periodizations
that
help
to account
for
the
notable continuities
between
fascist-period
ulture
nd
pre-
and
post-fascist
esthetic
roduction;
on the
other
hand,
to attend
to
the
deeper question
of how and
why
a
generation
of writers
and
artists,
s well
as a
substantial
egment
f their
udience,
not
only
heard
and
gave
heed
to the
regime's
call to
forge
an authentic
fascistculture but
also
expanded upon and
reinvented
his
call,
often
transforming
t into a
personal
calling.
Fascism's
nterpellative
uccess
n
post-World
War
I
Italy,
hat
s, points
less
to the efficacy
f certain
violent actics
nd policy
nitiatives
r
to
the crisis
f
the iberal tate
han to the fact,
well understoodby
GeorgesBataille,
thatfascism
elaborated
a
myth
far
more
powerful
nd
psychologically
stute than thatpro-
vided
by
either
ts iberal
or
socialist
ivals.'0While Mussolini's
policy fforts
ave
been well described,
t s
only
recently
hat
the
persuasive
effects f
this revolu-
tionarymyth
r its bility
o sustain
plurality f
competing ultural
formulations
has begun
to be accounted
for
n
any detail."
The eventunder
consideration
here,
18 BL, put
forward ne distinctive edaction
of thisfascist
myth.Although
influentialmong intellectualsn the heady atmosphereof theearly 1930s,with
itsdebates on the collective
ovel,rationalist
rchitecture,
nd fascist
ypography,
thisversionwould prove
ess successful
n the
ong
run. And this ack
of success
renders18
BL
all the more valuable
a case study
of theuncertainties
f fascism
in
the
making.The
first
and
last)
fascist xperiment
withSoviet-style
mass the-
ater wasmany hings
o
manypeople:
to
the
fascist outh rganizations,
training
exercise;
to its director
nd hissupporters, battering
am against cultural
con-
servatives;
o the theater
community,
solution
to the
crisis
of the theater;to
Mussolini's
tate,
potential
nswer
to the vexingquestion
offascism's
cultural)
identity.n this ssay, his luster fmeanings s explored.
18BL
93
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Shklovsky's arlier-cited
emark
that
the fabric of Russian life was
being
"transformed nto
the theatrical" n
the wake
of the 1917 revolution ould well
be applied to fascist taly.
As
never before,
theater ame to permeate thefabric
of Italian ife
n
the 1920s
and
1930s, from he
streets o the public squares to the
factory loor othecorridors f Palazzo Venezia.Among the fascist ierarchs,no
less than six ministers
r Grand Council or Directoratememberswere
involved
with the theater:
Enrico Corradini, author of Giulio Cesare;Roberto
Farinacci,
who
penned
a
play
entitled
Redenzione;
Galeazzo
Cianno, foreign
minister
between 1936
and 1943 and author
of
La
fortuna
i Amleto; ornelio di Marzio,
creator
of
Occhi
di
gufo;
Alessandro
Pavolini,
futureMinister fPopular Culture,
author
of Le
fatalone;
nd, finally, dmondo Rossoni, head of the fascist
abor
unions and minister
f
agriculture etween 1935
and
1939, co-author
of I canto
del avoro,withmusical accompanimentprovided
by Pietro Mascagni. Never
one
to be outdone bymembers f hisentourage,BenitoMussolinidabbled frequently
in the contemporary
heater.During the 1930s he collaboratedwithGiovacchino
Forzano
on a trilogy f tragedies depictingthe lives of Napoleon, Cavour,
and
Julius
Caesar.
2
To these
exercises
n
playwrightinghowever
modesttheir
iterary
value) one must add a vigorous participation
n
debates concerning
state
patronage
of the theater
nd
opera.'3
The hierarchs'
ingular
commitment
o the art of
theater
must be
viewed
against
the
backdrop
of a
widelyperceived
and
decried "crisis
f the traditional
theater":
a crisisof
inadequate facilities,
f
a diminishing ontemporary
eper-
tory, f a falteringtarsystem,nd of audiences in decline due (or such at least
was
a
widespread
perception)
to
growing ompetition
rommovies
and
sporting
events.
t
was
as an
expression
of the former ommitment nd
in
response
to the
latter
crisis that a
series of
policy
initiatives ame about
in
the later
1920s,
designed
to achieve
three
nterrelated
oals:
first,
o absorb the
fragmented
world
of theater nto
the
regime's orporative
tructures; econd,
to
expand
the
tradi-
tional
audience of
theater,
whether
from the
standpoint
of
topography
or of
social
class,
n order to
forge genuine
mass and national
audience;
and
third,
o
alter and
ideologically
nflect he
way
n
whichtheatricalworks
were
delivered to
this new audience.
The
first f these aims was addressed via the creation
of the
Corporation
ofSpectacle n December 1930: a nationalentity ringing ogether
individuals
at all levels
of
the
music,theater,
nd
film
ndustries.'4The second
and
the third
bjectives
were addressed
via the
creation
of
"philodramatic"
sso-
ciations,
Theatrical
Saturdays,Thespian Cars,
and
open-air
festivals.
ike the
open-air festivals, philodramatic"
ssociations had
preexisted
the
March
on
Rome,
but
it
was under
fascism hat
they
ame
into theirown.
They
consisted
n
amateur drama clubs
that,
under the
aegis
of the fascist fter-work
rganization,
the
Opera
Nazionale
Dopolavoro (OND),
trained workers
n the theater arts.'5
Such clubs had
been rare
in
the
prefascist ra,
but
by
1938
they
numbered over
2,000 and performed n 1,200 theaters ll over Italy, n addition to whichthey
94
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staged
360
open-air
performances
before an audience
of nearly
200,000
spectators.
If the
philodramatists'
tagecraft
emained for the
most
part
traditional
(embarrassingly
o
in
the
eyes
of fascist ntellectuals),
he intended
intellectual
horizonswere hardlyprovincial.'6The juries of the annual philodramatic on-
tests lways
ncluded major
critics
ikeSilvio
D'Amico,
and the movement's
tan-
dard reference
manual was
authored
by
no less than Antonio Valente,
one of
the
designers
of the
1932
Exhibition
f
the
Fascist
Revolution
and
inventors
f
the
Carri
di
Tespi.
It called for
theater ast
n
the
mage
of "our era of
the masses":
a theater
uited
to the "incredulousand,
in
a
way,
theistic pirit
f the
modern
world"
and
founded
not on individual
protagonists,
ut nstead on an
"aesthetics
of the
company."'17
But
beyond
uch
qualitative
onsiderations,
t s the
sheer
scale
of the movement
hat
s
striking.
s
early
s
1931,
the
philodramatists
erformed
13,733plays n a singleyear.By 1938the numberofregular philodramatic ctors
had surpassed 32,000,
and
the
movementwas
administering
5
acting
schools
and
469
regional
theater
ibraries.'8
To this mass
mobilization
of
amateur
dramatists orresponded
initiatives
focused
nstead
on the
professional
heater.
he so-called Theatrical
Saturdays,"
a
program
of reduced-rate
matinee
performances
eld
in
smaller
cities,
eached
over 400,000
workers
nd
peasants
n
1936 alone.
But far
more
telling,
s
regards
the
regime's
determination
o
forge
nationalmass
audience,
were
the
Thespian
Cars:
state-of-the-artraveling
heaters
designed by
Valenteand Forzano.
First
developed
in the ate
1920s,
the Carri
di
Tespi
were
divided nto four
squadrons,
each with tsowncompanyofup tofourhundred actors,dancers,musicians, nd
staff.
hree
were dedicated
to
stagingplays;
a
fourth o operas.'9
For nearly
ten
years,
hese
four
ompanies
criss-crossed
he
peninsula
every pring
nd summer,
performing
efore
mall-town udiences
ranging
n size from woto fifteen
hou-
sand.
Their 1937
schedule,
for
nstance,
ook them over
10,000
miles,
withthe
drama cars
performing
24
timesbefore
170,000 spectators
nd the opera
car
performing
5
times
before
430,000 spectators.
The tours'
mmediatepurpose
was
thatof
bringing
provincial
udiences within he fold
of Italian high culture.
They
aimed
to further ascism's spiritual
nd intellectual eclamation"
f
Italy
and topropagatethe national anguage "inthose areaswhere dialects till eform
our marvelous
anguage."20
But on
a deeper
level,
the
medium
was the true
message. Mobile
and mod-
ular, apable
of
rapid
assembly
nd disassembly
y eamsof technicians,
eaturing
the best
n
contemporary tage
and
lighting
esign,
he
Thespian
Cars
functioned
as vehiclesfor
fascist alues.2'
Their
mere arrival
onstituted n event,
hanks o
media coverage
and
to efforts
n the OND's part
to coordinate
transportation
f
rural workers
o the show.Such
expectationswould
come to a
head on
the day of
the
performance
s the trucks
olled
into the city's
main square,
whereupon
an
armyof technicianswould feverishlyet about the taskof erectingcanvas and
18BL 95
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steel armatures.22 lways
well
attended, hispre-performance
show" was
meant
to put on display he efficiency
chieved through orporative
rganization. n the
words
of
Paolo
Orano:
The scientificisciplinefwork s appliedwith heutmost igor. very esture asa func-
tion nd is
brief,
esolute,
irm.
ands and shoulders urn oward
ieceswhoseposition
in the onstruction
s known recisely.uddenly,
he caffoldingf tubes ises
olidly p
into he ir.Every
workers a technician; e lives
nd masters he ector f material
or
which e s responsible.23
Broken
down into segmented
tasks that can
be mastered by ndividual
aborers
working
n
close collaboration,
he "scientific iscipline
ofwork"displayed n the
building process
may
sound
ust
like the sort of Tayloristdeology advocated
by
Lenin during
the
first hase
of the Sovietrevolution.24 ut it s only superficially
so inasmuch as the end producttowardwhichthe discipline trivess not a tech-
nological
utopia
founded on an ethos
of
utilitarianism.
nstead, it aspires to
realize an aesthetic"totality"
identical
to the nation): a totality mounting
to
more than the
sum of
any given
set of
individual parts,functions,
r elements.
In
the
case
of the
Thespian
Cars,
the
totality
n
question
is at
once
human,
mechanical, erial,
and
electrical.
xplicitlyssociated with
he adventof beauty,
it
claimsto resultfrom ascism's
miraculous" vercoming
f human nature, ime,
and
space-an overcoming,
however,
whose
authenticity
s
guaranteed by
its
being
bound
bynature,time,
nd space:
Everythings ntelligencendcertaintyndprecision.he skeletonakes hapebefore he
ecstatic yes
f
onlookers;
t
becomes
walls, illars,
nd vaults.
rom
he
hammer o the
bolt o
the
pulley
o
the
dynamo
o
the
generator
hat istributesnd
multiplies
nd nter-
rupts
he lectrical
urrent
or
urposes
f
ighting:
he ntire
amut
f
devices
s well s
thefull
ange
f
technicians,
tand
efore he
people.
A
people
who ees and learns
ust
how
rapidly
nd
easily
ascism'school
f nnovation
ransfigures
rudematternto
tyle,
harmony,
nd
beauty.
Here
then s the miracle
f
transformation,
f
construction,
f
making hings
men ime
pace
obey:
he
miracle,
hat
s,
ofthe
orporativege.25
The
rapid passage
described
here
from
crude matter
to
art,
from mere tech-
nology
to a
transfigured
otalitythe corporative
ge),
was central
to the
mythos
of theThespian Cars, to the"political tyle" f the fascist tate, nd, as will soon
be
seen,
to
the
concept
of
spectacle
elaborated
n
18
BL.
One
could
go
on
detailing
ther features f the
Thespian
Cars: their
refined
electrical
ontrol
booths,
their
ongitudinal
racks
for
rapid
set
changes,
and so
on. One could
also
document their
ncreasing
use as platforms
or
politicalpro-
paganda:
"Giovinezza"
and the
"Hymn
to
Rome,"
for
nstance,
were
sung
at
the
conclusion
of the
opera
car's tour
n
1937,
a
year during
which
"the
most
signif-
icant epic lyrics
oncerned
with the
Fascist
Empire"
were recited
during
inter-
missions.26
ut
the
key point
would
remain
much
the same:
through
these and
otheraspectsof theirdesign, construction,nd staging, he cars portrayedthe
96
REPRESENTATIONS
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fascist government
as a
ubiquitous
agent
of
cultural-political
modernization
reachingout directly
o attend
to
the
needs
of
the
talianmasses and to
forgethe
nation
nto a unifiedwhole. Moreover,
he sleek vision
of fascist
modernity
on-
veyed
by the cars and by
their tagecraftwas
not to be contemplated n
isolation.
Rather, the "marvelous reality" hatthey would bring to the provinceswas to
resonate
ot
only
with he
open
sky
ut also with
he classical,medieval,
nd
renais-
sance
architectural ackdrops provided
by Italian cities, o as
to
imply
genea-
logical
inkbetween he nation's
pastand presentgrandeur.27
uch
indirect
orms
of allusion
to cultural
tradition
would
give way
to far more
heavy-handed
ones
during
the
period
of
Italy's mperial
dventures
n
Ethiopia,
where open-air
fes-
tivals brought
as
many
as two
million
spectators
year
into sites such as
the
Roman arena
in
Verona.28
The
initiativesust
describedreached
as
many
s three
million
talians
a
year.
Yet theywere never
ntended
as more
than a
preparatory
tage.
A second
phase
was always
envisioned
n which the
prefascist epertory
would
yield
ts
place
to
an authentic
fascist
epertory
made
up
of works that would
convey
the
revolu-
tionary
pirit
of the
times.29
his
fascist epertory
was rarely
onceived
in
nar-
rowly propagandistic
terms.
Propagandistic
ntent,
rude didacticism,
nd
an
excessive
reliance
upon
mechanization
were
among
the
features f theSoviet
ev-
olutionary
heater
most
regularly
ecried
in
the
cultural
debates
of
the
1930s,
to
the
point
that
n
1932
Mussolini went
so far as to turn down
a
proposal
for the
building
of two
national theaters
on the
grounds
that
"the
belief
that modern
facilities
ill ave the
prose
theater"
s
"a
typicallymechanico-positivist,
aterialist
error."30he solution nstead aywith ontemporaryuthors, nd to themMus-
solini
ddressed himself
n
April 1933, nsisting
hat a Statecannot create
tsown
literature."'3' e went
on to summon them "to prepare
a theater of
masses, a
theater
able
to
accommodate 15,000
or
20,000 persons
[thatwill]
stirup great
collective
passions,
be
inspired
by a
sense of
intense
humanity, nd bring
to the
stage
thatwhich
truly
ounts
n
the ifeof the
spirit
nd
in
human affairs."32
he
"theater
f
masses"
Mussolinihad
in mind
was,
n
the first
lace,
a physicalplant
akin
to a modern
sports
rena. In
the
secondplace,the phrase
envisaged
a pop-
ular,
even
populist
heater
hat
would
foregothe representation
f privateemo-
tions nfavor f "thegreatcollective assions."The taskof puzzlingout ust what
such
passions
might
onsist
n or
ust
how
one mightfind
for
them
an adequate
dramatic
form
was left
o others.
Like
many fascist
ntellectuals, lessandro Pavolini,
heoriginator
f 18 BL,
heard Mussolini's speech
as an invitation o create
a theatermodeled
afterfas-
cism's most mmediate contribution
o
Italian national ife:
the mass ralliesand
ceremonies
that had
become
a
common featureof
daily
ife since the March on
Rome.
Such an
interpretation
ould have been buttressed
by
l
Duce's
frequent
self-styling
s the
dramaturge
of
the
Italian masses.
In the phrase "stir
up the
greatcollectivepassions,"Pavolini nd his cohortsdoubtless also heard echoes of
18
BL 97
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the cultural
war
cry
of
F. T.
Marinetti's
909
Manifesto
of Futurism:
"We will sing
the great
crowdsstirred p
by work,pleasure,
and revolt;
we will singthe multi-
colored
and
polyphonic
ides of revolution n modern capitals."33
ince
futurism
had played an inaugural
role
in the rise of fascism,
or Pavolini there
could be
little oubt that he"multicolored nd polyphonic ide"bestsuited to therequire-
mentsof
both the
futuristeader and
Mussoliniwas the fascist
evolution.Here,
then,
was a fittingubject
matter
o be
sung
in
the
new
mass theater.And who
better
o sing t than Italy'syouth:
the first eneration
o have been raised
in the
bracing
climate
of the fascist ra, the
first
eneration
untainted
by the pre-fascist
past?
Pavolinihad risen
rapidly
through he ranks
of the PNF to become
the fed-
eral secretary
f the
Florentine
ascio
by
ge
26.
In this apacity
hewasentrusted
with
organizing
the
1934
"LittorialGames
of
Culture and
Art": a national com-
petition mong universitytudents n fields uch as painting,poetry, conomics,
and political
cience.35 he games
were
a
keycomponent
n
the regime's
overall
strategy
or
"avoiding
at
all
costs
a rift etween the
generation
that fought
the
war
and theRevolution,
nd
subsequent
generations."36
n the words of Achille
Starace,
national
secretary
f
the
PNF
during
the
1930s, "thegoal
of
the
Littoriali
was
and is to
directly
nfluenceyouth, purring
hem to reflect eriously
utside
the
classroom
on the most
pressing
problems
ofcontemporary olitical
nd
spir-
itual ife, n order
tohave a decisive
mpacton their raining
s a ruling
class."37
A
breeding ground
for
the future
fascist lite,these "Olympics
of
the spirit"
seemed the deal setting orthe first heater born and realized byforceswithno
prior experience
of theater
or
spectacle:
conceived
by youth,
directed
by youth,
and acted
out
by youth."38
The
project
was set
in
motion
n late
1933
as Pavolini
convened a series
of
meetings
t
the Casa del
Fascio
in
Florence,
attended
by
seven
young
to
middle-
aged
critics, laywrights,
irectors,
nd set
designers:
Luigi Bonelli,
Gherardo
Gherardi,
Sandro
De
Feo,
Nicola
Lisi,
Raffaello
Melani,
Corrado
Sofia,
and
Giorgio
Venturini. Called
in
at
a later
point
were
the
choreographerAngela
Sartorio
and
Ugo Ceseri,
the actor
who would
play
the driver
of
the lead 18 BL
truck.)
n a
period
of
intensedebate
over the so-called "choral"
novel,
the
spec-
tacle
took
shape
as
a
group
creation.
As Pavolinidescribes t:
Each
of us
contributed.
irst he
physiognomy
f the
pectacle
was
discussed,
hen deas
for ts
plot
were
putforward,
nd
finally
he dea of
articulating
he
whole round n 18
BL truckwas
seized
upon:
a truck s
protagonist;
s
single
nd collective
ersonage;
s
hero
of
the
war,
fthe
truggles
ftheFascist
quadrons,
nd
of
building rojects.39
The era
of the
masses,
t
was
thought, equired
new collective
formsof art and
new
collectiveheroes,
be
they
human or mechanical.
The
psychologism
f
the
naturalist
novel
would
have to
giveway
to
a
mass
epos that,miming
communi-
cations technologies uch as radio and following he lead of novelists ikeJohn
98
REPRESENTATIONS
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Dos Passos
and the
Sovietwriters'
ollectives, ommingled
the nfinitely
ast and
the
infinitelyminute,
the
individual's
voice and
the
mob's howl."40
The
inter-
twined
realitiesof urban experience,
the
trials
of the modern
mass
individual,
could
be
represented
by pressing
modernist techniques,
ike
the
insertion
of
external bjects ntothenarrative tream nd the use of multiplenarrative oices,
into the
service
f a
distinctly
ascist
orm
f realism.Such
was the
theory
ehind
the "choral
novel"
as formulated
by the publisher
Valentino Bompiani.
It
remained
to be seen,
however,
whether he proposed
collective
pos would
be
a
matter of
process
or
simply
of
product.
In Pavolini's
experiment
the
answer
would
be "both." Every phase
of the
production
process-from
the shaping
of
the script
o theselling
of tickets-would put
on display
fascism's ulture
of
col-
lective
discipline
and
collaboration.
And the
spectacle
tself
would
place
masses
of actors
and machines
on
stage
before
a mass audience.
AmongtheplotsconsideredbyPavolini's ollectivewerea sequence ofbattles
from
World War
I,
the
so-called
eccidio
i
Empoli,
nd
the murder
of
the
young
fascist
Giovanni
Berta at the
hands of
Florentine ommunists.4'
he latter
heme
prevailed
at first,
ut as
deliberations
proceeded
the fascistmartyr
was
shunted
aside
in favor
of an 18 BL
truck.42
he selection f a truck s heromay
not
seem
self-evident, specially
given
the
importance
of
the
nationaltrain
system
o
the
fascist
magination.
ince
the late
nineteenth
entury
rainshad
indeed
become
a
privileged
symbol
of
modernization
throughout
the
world.
This was all
the
more
true
n
a
fragmented
nation such
as
Italy,
where
they
had
come to
signify
three
key
fascist conquests":
the
reimposition
f
discipline
after
the
labor dis-
ruptions
of the post-warperiod,theforging f a centralizednationalstate, nd
the
democratization
f
once-bourgeois
modes of
transport.
his rendered
trains
an effective
ymbol
of central
governmental
ower.
But
when it came
to repre-
senting
he
revolution's
eginnings,
t was the truck-the
proletarian
vehicle par
excellence-that
would
prevail
much
as
in
Bolshevist nd Maoisticonography).
In the
specific
ase of
Pavolini's
pectacle,
he
choice
of an 18
BL
was
ensured by
the fact
that this
particular
truck
was already fully enshrined
within the
mythology
f fascist
quadrism.
Featured
n
the worksof painters
uch as Mario
Sironi,
the 18
BL
merged
the
conography
f industry
with he evocation
of fas-
cism's outlaw"origins.43
A
first
reatment ntitled
18
BL was
developed fromthe
brainstorming
es-
sions held
at the Casa
del Fascio.44 ach
author was assignedthe task
of fleshing
out a subsection
of the
work
and,
after collective
discussion, the
draftswere
passed
along
to Alessandro Blasetti,
he
young
filmmaker avolini
had selected
to direct
he
spectacle.45
egarded
by
many
s the Eisenstein
f the fascist inema,
Blasetti
had
just
completed
a
suite of historical ilmsnvolving
argenumbers
of
amateur
actors,
notably ole,
TerraMadre,
nd
1860.
From these directorial
xpe-
riences Blasetti
would
bring
to
18
BL
a
battery ftechniques
for mounting
battle
scenesand achieving omplextwilightighting ffects,s wellas a stylized ealist
18BL
99
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~~~~~.--4-
H- - v*
*tAf 0
j;
tAcme; P.lsg
^-
J
-.@. zj
FIGURE
2
(above).
Site
map
of the "Theater of the
Masses";
La
nazione,
8
April
1934. The theaterwas builtdownriver rom he Ponte della Vittoria, eyond
the Oltrarno
neighborhood
of
San
Frediano and across
the
Arno from
he
Cascine,
Florence's
argest
public park.
Black
areas
representbuildings
nd
gray
reas vacantfields.Arrowsmarkthe two
points
of
access
to the stadium:
Viale della
Regina
(numbered tickets)
nd Via Isolotto
general
admission).
FIGURE
3
(below).
Alessandro
Blasetti,
ighting
nd
stage design
for ct
3,
pencil
drawing
on
mimeograph,
1934.
The
positions
f
searchlight rigades
are
indicated
by
numbered boxes. Numbers
within
ircles ndicate
taging
reas
connected
by
field
elephone
to home
base
(1).
Lettersmark
the
principal
roads
traversing
he
stage.
Cross-hatched ones stand
for
thecanted
platforms
n
whichthe action unfolded. Pencilled-in rrows
ndicate
the
movement
f
trucks
and actorsfromroad C toA, thenonto and off hecenterofthestageunder
searchlights ,
1
1,
and 12. Source:
BlasettiArchive.
C)1
.0-- .... -,x
-
100 REPRESENTATIONS
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FIGURE
4.
Left ide of stage during act 2, press
photo, 1934. This photo seems to show Road A
bending
around the central
part
of
the
stage,
withRoad
B
entering
t
from eft.Note staging
platform
n
rear center, ower ines running
along
back of the
stage,
nd control
booth
n
foreground,
overed
n
brush and
camouflage.
Source: Blasetti
Archive.
mode
of narration
lwaysopen
to
allegorical ntimations. lasettireworkedthe
collective's exts
with
he demands
of
staging
uch a
large spectacle
n
mind,car-
rying ver
fromhis films
umerous formal nd thematic lements.46During the
ensuing
monthsof
preparation
he would
adopt,
for
nstance, ole's Manichean
dialectic
of
darkness and
light, ccording
to which the Pontine
marshes repre-
sented the values of
"darkness and old
age"
and the reclaimed
swamps
the
promise
of
"sun and youth."47
romTerra
Madre,he would borrow he mass open-
air
ceremonials nd use of ntervals
f
silence s a
dramaticdevice.
From
1860 he
would
carryover,among many
other
ngredients, he film's ast andscape set-
tings; tsmyths f rural virtue nd urbanvice; tsmasschoreographies; tsuse of
songs, flags,
and
banners;
its
tendency
to
create dislocated relations between
bodies
and
voices;
its
oblique presentation
f
Garibaldi
through
he masses con-
vergingtowardunity
under his
leadership;and the triumphalparade featured
in
its
coda.48
But
the first hallenge facingBlasettiwas less the script han the design and
18BL 101
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construction
f
an outdoor theater:
an arena,
as per
it
Duce's orders,
"able to
accommodate
twenty housand
persons." This Blasetti
set about withseveral
dozen workers,
team
of
thirty
arth
movers,
nd withbarely six weeks
at his
disposal.49 nspired perhaps
by ontemporary rojects ike
WalterGropius's total
theater" and Gaetano Ciocca's teatro er masse, he youngdirector had initially
dreamed
ofbuildingan amphitheater hat
would turn theconventional
Greco-
Roman theater
nside out: placingthe audience
at the center of a crater,
ur-
rounded
by a circular
upward sloping stage.50
But practicalfactors ed
to the
adoption
of an alternate
plan (fig.2).
The
site selected
for
18
BL
was
on the left
shore
of
the
Arno,
across
from
he Cascine, Florence'sprincipal
public park.The
terrain,
knownas the
Albereta
dell'Isolotto,
was cleft
n
twobya deep gully Via
Argin Grosso)
which
the
city
uthorities greed to expand
so that Blasetticould
transform
t
nto a
command post
and
lighting
it.
The
gently loping
riverbank
to thenorthwas chosenas a seating rea; thesteeper nclinerisingup to the south
as
a
stage.5'
The
stage
was
roughly
ix
hundred feet wide bytwo hundred feet
deep, occupying
n area
equivalent
to two
and
a
half footballfields.Blasettihad
a
series
of
artificial
illscarved nto this
platform:
three-steppedhill to the eft,
a
two-stepped
illto the
right,
nd,
at the
center,
three-hundred-foot-longidge
with
basin hollowed out
in
its
middle,
behind
whichrose a conical hilltop-the
stage's highestpoint figs.
3 and
4).
Some
twelve
taging
reas
were cut into
the
various hillsides
for the
preparation
of
the
spectacle's
cenes,
as well as a circuit
of
roads and trenches
for
moving ctors,
rtillery, orses, nd trucks.
A network
of field
telephones
was installed to ease communicationsbetween
the staging
areas and
the director's
headquarters.52
Since
this
was a
stage
without
curtain,
Blasetti
determined that the
action
should
migrate
fromone area
of the
stage
to
another,following
he
movements
of Ceseri
and
his truck. While
the
spectacle
unfolded
withinthese
sharply
it
zones,
new scenes
could
be
prepared
in
the darkened
areas; during pauses
in
the
main
action,
thunderous
ounds
and
luminous effects
would]
draw
the
public's
attention
oward
zones extraneous
to the action"
n
order to
"hold
together
he
dramatic
design
of the action
fromone moment to another."53
iven that
both
sides
of
the
stage sloped steeply
downward,
Blasetti
nvisaged
18
BL
as a kind
of
shadow play nreverse,withfigures isingup and disappearingrapidlyoverthe
horizon
ine.
The
actors
and
machines,
hat
s,
would
be
viewed
in
profile
from
below,
s
in the films
f Alexander
Dovzhenko. Their
silhouettes,
ut out
against
either
the
night
ky
r
against
fields
f
light
produced by
means
of
pyrotechnics
and
searchlights,
would
thereby ppear
to
have been raised
to a
higher,
more
volatile
plane
of existence:
a
plane
defined
by
the
propensity
f these
sharply
outlined bodies
and
machinesto
suddenly
emerge
out
of or
dissolve
nto seas
of
darkness
or brilliant
ight fig. ).54
In
addition
to
lighting,
here
was
a second
element that
would
sustain
dra-
matic tension in 18 BL: the alternationbetweensilence and the "thunderous
102
REPRESENTATIONS
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sounds" alluded to above.55The scale of Blasetti's
tage
was such that
micro-
phones had to be planted
throughout
he
andscape in order
to ensure thedif-
fusion
of
the
work's
erse
dialogues
and
choral shouts.The
musicalscore,
songs,
and
sound effects ere all recorded nadvance for
broadcastover the same loud-
speakers employed by
the
microphones.
The
procedure
was not unlike that
adopted in 1860 where, nordertoavoidthe imitationsmposedbybulky ound
equipment,Blasettihad the
film
hot s
if
ilent, ubbing thedialogue and sound
effects ver
what,
n
essence,
was a silentfilm.
his
recourse
to
microphones
nd
a recorded soundtrackwould later
prove
controversial,56
ut ts
principal
im was
to
permit
ctors to move about without
oncern for
whether
hey
ould or could
not be heard.57 t also
permitted
the
amalgamation
of
natural
and artificial
sounds:
mechanically reproduced music,
voices,
and
machine sounds could
thereby
e
intermingled
with ive noises
produced
on
stage
by actors,weapons,
and trucks o as to create an unstable
boundary
between the real and the
magi-
nary.58
Moreover,
t
allowed
for
some
highly
riginal spatialeffects,
orming
a
vastsonic field hat,besidessurrounding heaudience,can movesounds, songs,
rhythms,nd noises close
up
or
far away."59 ut
most mportant f all, n a
spec-
tacle within
which
a few individuals would
speak
for
the
nation,
t
permitted
amplification.
"vocal
gigantism"
ould be
achieved
thatwould
grantthe occa-
sional
dialogues exchanged
among
the
human
protagonists
riority
ver
the sea
of machine noises.60
Because
this
heater or he masses was
also meant
as a theater f he
masses,
the
seating
area too was
designed
as a
theatrical
pace.
Shaped
like a
rectangle
with curved
back,
t was flanked n
both sides
by high embankment.Much
as
FIGURE 5. "Act
:
NetworkfBarbedWire
Under
Enemy Reflectors," ress
photo,
1934.
Source: Blasetti
Archive.
18BL
103
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in a modern sports
arena, the more expensive numbered
seats
(5,000)
were
placed along
the central xis,
and the nexpensive
popular"
seating reas (15,000
places) relegatedto
the flanks.6'
his distinction
etweennumbered and
unnum-
bered seatingmay
eem perfectlyrdinary.
ut itbecomes somewhat
ess
so when
one observesthat t correspondsto a complex social choreography, eflectedn
turn
n
the
play's
taging
of the dialecticbetween
mass man and the
heroic ndi-
vidual.
Two separate entrances
were provided for
the public. The
one on the
Oltrarno side
of
the
river was restricted o the
popolari,
who were
obliged
to
assemble
in
Piazza Gaddi
and descend
a blind alleyway
known as Via Isolotto:
a
"natural"
tinerary iven that
manyofthemwould
be arriving
rom he adjacent
proletarian
neighborhoodof
San Frediano
siteof Berta's
"martyrdom"). s they
entered the mist-filled
tadium, hese working-class
pectatorswould
have been
dazzled by eighteen
arge open
books topped bybayonets
built
n
a
ring around
the stadium's periphery.Powerful floodlightswere pointed against the books'
white
pages
so as
to bounce
light
back out
into
the stalls.
Amidst these pages yet
to
be inscribed
by
the first
eneration
of fascistyouth, hepopolari
would have
gazed upon
the
procession
of
dignitaries
ntering he theater'smiddle
section.
The latter
wouldinclude
writersike Ugo Ojetti
and Massimo
Bontempelli,most
of
Italy's
heater
ritics, nd
hierarchs ike Galeazzo Ciano,
so an equationwould
have been implied
between
fascist aces,fasces,
weapons, and books.62
The
elite
members
of the
public
would reach theirnumbered
seats
by
fol-
lowing
an
itinerary
estricted
o the
city
ide of the river.
Having
traversedFlor-
ence's
affluent
nineteenth-century
eighborhoods, they
would have
reached
Piazza Zuavi, proceeding
down the spacious
tree-linedpromenades
of the
Cas-
cine
to
the theater's rue entrance:
a
bridge
of
riverboats,
it
by
torches held
by
boatmen
(fig.
6).63
Boat-bridgeswere
one of themost ancient
formsof military
bridging,
o the
symbolism
f
moving
crossthe river oward
a
"theater
of
war"
as
if
one were a soldier
could not have
been loston the audience. But
the
primary
aim
was
surely ymbolic.
quote
from
contemporary
ource:
For
thisnew
type
f
theater
new method
f
entry
was
essential.
he theater
f the
Albereta
s a
kind f naccessible
ermetic
emple:
will t
be,
midst
he
nightlights,phan-
tasmagoriaecreatinghemythshatWagner
onceived
or
he
Bayreuthtage
but with
entirely
ewmeans han hose fwhich e
disposed?
ere we aredealingnotwithmyth,
but
with
ontemporary
istory.
evertheless,
he atter
s
sufficientlyoetic
o
partake
f
the
ppearance
nd
fascination
f
myth.64
Traversing
this
bridge,
standing
under a celestial
X formed
by
beams
of
light
projected
from
pposite
sides
of the
Arno,
the
spectator
would have
gazed down
the
river nd
over
the
city's
ooftops pon
such monuments s Giotto's
bell tower.
He
would then
have
completed
his
"walk
on the
water,"
ascended
a broad
stairway,
nd
passed
through
a
triumphal gateway
of
fasces marked
with
the
Roman numeral twelve datingthespectacleaccordingto therevolutionaryal-
104
REPRESENTATIONS
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FIGURE
6. Giannetto annucci nd Maurizio empestini,oat
bridge ntrance
o
Theater
f
theMasses, en and nkdrawing,
1934; GuidoSalvini, Spettacoliimasse 18 BL,"Scenario,no.5
(May, 934): 251-55. As ndicated
n
this arly esign, he nitial lan
was for doubleboatbridge.As ate s 22 March1934,Blasetti
pleadedwith ocalmilitaryuthoritiesor dditional oats, earing
that single ridge ouldnothandle hemass fspectators. dearth
ofboats nsured he
doption
fa
single ridge
olution.
endar). Beyond hegatewayaythe cement ookswith ayonets nd, beyond
them,
he
misty
wirl f the assembled
rowd urrounded ytheTuscan and-
scape
nd under he
night ky. here,
he
heart f thehermetic
emple
would
t
last
havebeen
reached: place
f
mass ommunion here hedistinctionetween
members
f
the
priesthood
nd mere
believerswas maintained,ven as they
rubbed houlders nd merged nto single ommunity.
18 BL's first nd onlyperformanceookplace on 29 April 1934,one week
after
he
opening ay
ceremonies
f
theLittoriali.
he sell-out udience ssem-
bled
according
o
plan
and
the
bridge,
hevarious
massing oints, nd the
book-
lit
uditorium
ll seemto
have nfused he ssembled pectators ith he sense
that hey hemselves ere heprotagonistsf Mussolini'smasstheater: There
werenot3,000 ctors,"bserved neaudiencemember,but 3,000."65he two-
hour how
egan
with
he
tage
nd the
eating rea veiled
n
a curtain f moke.
At the
appointedhour, call
to
order oundedoverthe oudspeakers nd the
lightsnd smokewereextinguished,xposing o view he mmense tage, he
surroundingandscape,
nd
the
night ky.
he
firstftheplay's
hree
ctsbegan
with he
trumpet
alls from he
openingbars of Renzo Massarani's rchestral
18BL
105
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score, Squilli
e danzeper
ii
18 BL.66
Then came
the broadcast of the
spectacle's
leitmotif,The Captain's
Testament,"
World War I hymn
associatedwith the
Alpine brigades instrumental
n
Italy'svictory
ver Austria n the
battle of the
Piave River.
The actionmaybe summarized as follows.Act 1, scene1. The location and
volume
of the chorusof voices oscillate
as a
light cans the rightportion
of the
stage,finding odies,
barbwire, nd galloping
horses. Suddenlythe
rumble of an
18 BL Fiat truck
s heard
and, as itcrossesover
the horizon ine, artillery
arrages
lightup the night ky.
A spotlight evealsthe truck's
estination: everal
hundred
second-line
talian
soldiers
to whom its driver,Ugo Ceseri, delivers
rations and
mail.
The
truck's
nickname,
"Mother Cartridge-Pouch" Mamma
Giberna), s
shouted
out
in the
course
of
a dialogue.67
cene2. New volleys re
fired
n the
distance
as a machine-gun
battle has front-line
talian soldiers pinned
against
barbed wire on the middle hilltop.The trucknow rambles up the slope, its
armored
shield riddled
by
bullets.
Snippets
of
dialogue
can be heard interwoven
withmechanical ounds.
The driverheaves food sacks
nto trench nd continues
downthe backside of
the slope out of view.Scene
. The
truck eappears around
the corner
of the third
hill.
The twilight eveals that
t is brimmingover with
young
soldiers who
are
being
transported
o the front.Several
dozen 18 BLs
follow
n its
wake
and
unload
their
oldiers,
who
oin
in
an assault across the top
of the
ridge.
Machine-gun
battles start
and
stop
until
victory
s at hand. Far
behind
the firsthill,
an Italian flag
is
hoisted
against the light of
a sign that
announces the conquest
of
Trento
and Trieste.
Ceseri's truck
eads a parade of
18 BLs
over the horizon
towardthe
flag,
ccompanied by song.
End of act
1.
The transition etween
World War
I
and the abor
strikes f
1922
is marked
by
the
firing
f
a curtain
of red fireworks
ver the
public.
Act
2,
scene1.
Beyond
the redrain,
the
repositioned tage
ights
eveal a new
andscape
on the
efthand
side
of
the
stage.
Strewn cross
t are abandoned
work
mplements,
attered
hay-
stacks,
otting roduce.
Factory
irens
ound but theirwail s soon distorted
nto
the
squawk
of
rusty ears
and
the electronic
rowl
of
a
howling
mob. Ceseri
and
his mechanic
attempt
to
unload
their 18 BL's
cargo. They preach
against
the
strike nd become
the
target
of
a
mob of strikers
randishing
red
flag.
The
mob's"mechanicalhowl"-the phrase sfrom hescript-growstodeafeningpro-
portions
s
the
strikers atter
he truck nd leave
the mechanic
unconscious.
At
this nstant
he
truck's
ngine
starts
p.
The circleof strikers
pens
up
and Ceseri
can
be heard
crying
out for
revenge
as the truck flees
nto
a
gully.
Scene
2.
A
banquet
table
bearing
the word
"PARLIAMENT"
appears
atop
the
central
hillock.Seated
at
the table are
politicians
epresenting
he
liberal,
socialist,
nd
popular parties.
Some wear
black tuxedos
and
oversize
top
hats that
hang
down
over
their
eyes;
others are
sloppily
dressed and
full
of rhetorical
bluster.
The
strikers
ally
round
them,
remaining
ilent
except
for an occasional
chorus of
"Long live thepeople's representatives "oon allconversationhasceased and the
106
REPRESENTATIONS
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only
noises that an be
heard
are
those of
knives langing
on
plates.
An
applause
then
rings
ut. A socialist olitician
tands
up
to begina speech. Instead
of a
voice,
however,
he
sound of a barrel
organ
issues from
his mouth: a wind-up
organ,
like that
mployedbybeggars
withmonkeys, laying he
Dance of the Seven
Veils
from the opera Salome.Behind him, hundredsof slogan-bearingballoons float
into thesky
filledwith mpty
promises."
The barrel organ churns
awayfor sev-
eral
minutes,
fter
which
t
begins
to wind down as a newsboy
ries
out headlines
announcing
the foundation
f fascist
roups.
The music
stops.
One of the
elders
croaks
thewords
of
Luigi
Factabefore the
March
on Rome:
"But
what
do
these
Fascists
want?"
At this nstant
Mother Cartridge-Pouch
hundersdown the
hill
and
overturns he tables
of
parliament.
Afterward
Ceseri harangues the
mob:
"One
hundred
and
thirty
million
n
damages
to
farming
hanks
to the socialist
dictatorship
n theBologna region
Workers,
when willyou
freeyourselves
rom
yourmystifyingeaders?" Scene3. Fire alarmsringout. Fascisthymns re sung
far away
and
nearby.
A
factory
s ablaze
in
the
left orner of the
andscape.
Ces-
eri's
18
BL,
filledwith lack
shirts, oes
to the rescuebut sambushed
by
n
armed
socialistmob.
Bullets
fly
nd,
when
the
ambush
is
over,
darkness redescends.
In
the twilight
ne can see
the
fascist
ead beingheaped
onto the
platform
f Cese-
ri's truck,
s if
an altar. The truck
rolls up to the summit
of the stage's
central
crest. Two hundred
fascists onverge upon
the
truck,
rranging
themselves
n
formation
nd
standing
mutely
t
attention
fig.
).
Over the horizon a white
ight
glows
withever increasing ntensity.
rom
out of the light, "metallic
nd clear
voice" (Mussolini's)
nterrupts
he funereal
silence, calling out:
"Heroes of the
war and martyrsftherevolution " Present," hey nswer. To whomdoes Italy
belong, to
whom
Rome?"
"To
us,"
they
answer.
But
the
chorus of voices
is no
longer
solated. Black
shirts
houtout "to us" from ll sides
of the
auditorium
nd
stage.
Led
by
a
truck
onvoy, heyparade
out across the andscape
and converge
over the horizon line,where
their silhouettesvanish into the
light. Act 2 has
ended; the March
on Rome has begun.
The final
act of 18
BL
concerns one
of the centerpiecesof
fascistdomestic
policy:
the
draining
of the Pontine
marshes,
the
reclamation
of marshland
for
purposes
of
farming,
nd
the construction here
of
fascist ew
towns. ince these
eventsprojectthe action of 18 BL tenyearsforward,Blasettidevised a second
interlude o markthe shift
rom he
early 1920s
to 1932 duringwhich
squadron
of
airplanes
overflew
he crowd and
dropped
broadsheets
celebrating he
prin-
cipal
accomplishments
f fascist
ule.68 ct
,
scene
. The lights rop and a
heroic
dance
music sounds.
The
stage
s
aswarm
with
hildren,who wend their
way up
over the
horizon
following
urrows
ut
nto the and
bypeasants,
whose tools are
in view. The
children are followedby one hundred athletes
n
formation,
who
perform
gymnastic
ance
with ances and bows: emblems
of the "human rec-
lamation"
ccomplished
byfascist ducation.
Scene . Off n a hollow
to the
eft,
swampcomes into view under a faintgreenishspotlight.Filled with reeds and
18BL 107
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FIGURE 7. "Act , Scene2: Present ,"ress hoto, 934.
In
the
dark ilence.. a beam hines orthvermorebrightlyrom
behind
he
hill f the
pectacle.
vermorenumerous
ascist
squadronsmutely
onverge rom ll directionsn evergreater
numbers. heygather
ound he ltar nd biers f themartyrs.
Rigid, t attention,hey orm square";from heoriginal
script,
18
BL:
Spettacolo
i masse
per
l
popolo,"
Gioventis
fascista, no.
8
(15
April1934):13.Source:Blasetti
rchive.
bubblingwithmud, temanates roglikeroakingsntermingledith oices f
rumor nd doubt.As thegymnastsepart ne mutters,
Billions pent o uglify
therace
Violent nd
gnorant
enerationsre being ashioned,ungry
or
war,
slaughter,
nd
excess.. "
The
rumor-mongering
ontinues
until, top
the
hightestoint n the tage, monumentaligure n horseback
ppears nprofile
against ntersecting
eams f
ight:
he
Commander. e
utters wo
teely ords:
"Qui. Colmata."Here.
Landfill.) legion f trucks oarsup andbegins o fill n
the swamp.The Commander otates
180
degrees and issues
an orderto a
squadron
f
bulldozers n the ther
ide
of
the
tage:
In three
ays,
heroad to
Littoria ill ross
his oid.Wewill
work ll night."cene .
The entire tage s it.
On the
eft,
he
illingperationontinues;
n the
ight,
he ulldozers
nd
trucks
carve ut highway.ereand there acks fworkersanbe seen illinghe and.
A
factory histle ounds,marking
he
end of
the
night hift.
he trucks ead
back otheir heds s
revolutionaryongs
re
sung.
The
stage
s eft mpty xcept
for few
tragglers
hose anter
s
overheard s they
wait
ridefrom
Mother
Cartridge-Pouch,
ow
ebaptized
ld
Cartridge-Pouch.
till
riven
yCeseri, he
arrives rom
ffstageight,
attered nd torn.
Although
ble to transporthem
108
REPRESENTATIONS
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halfway
cross the stage, her
motor
s blown
and
soon beginsspewing
moke.
All
efforts
t revivalfailand,
instead of abandoning
her,theydecide topush
her
up
to
the lip
of
the
firstwamp.
As she wobbles toward the precipice,
trucks
filled
with
workers rrive
on the scene. They
surround her
and
shut off heir ngines.
The lefthillock s now ablaze "in themode of dazzling transfigurationsr the
head
of Moses" amidst
the dead silence.69
Ceseri stands
at the center
of this
funereal omposition
nd proclaims:
She has fought he war,
he revolution,
nd
the battle f and
reclamation.Now
she
will
upport
the highway o
Littoria."The
old truck s pushed
over the precipice
and buried, as
Ceseri prophecies
her
return:
In three
days she will return
o her dutiesanew,
my old lady.Forever "
The trucksdepart
and
pass
above
her,barely
visible,
s the sound
of
marching
drums
is
heard,
blended
with
music. White buildings
flicker
n the distance as
Italymarches off
owardthe city
of
the
future: Littoria,first
f the fascistnew
towns.A trumpet all heard offn thedistance choes backwithredoubled force.
War,
revolution,
econstruction:
hesewerethe three
great
themes
of 18
BL's
theater
of
and
forthe
masses.
However crude its
unfolding
fthese themes
may
sometimes seem,
the
spectacle
aspired
to
elevate
contemporary
history
o
the
status
of
mythby
means
of
a
hybrid
tagecraftmerging
hyperrealism
with
lle-
gory,
nd
even
political
aricature.70
n
an
era
when the
transition
rom ilent o
talking
ilmswasbeingcompleted,
t
tried o
adapt
to the
stage
the
use
of
ayered
soundtracks,
inematic
ighting
ricks,
nd
editing techniques
such as
montage
and
the
rapid
crosscutting
f scenes.7'
But,
for all
its
attempts
o
transport
ine-
matic ensations
o the
stage,
18
BL
also
set
out
to transcend
he cinema and
forge
a hallucinatory ewdramaticform. t setout to achievea higher,more distinc-
tively
ascist
ormof
tragic
pathos,
"to
embody
the
real
and
the
symbolic
imul-
taneously,
reating
kind
of
actualized
mystical xperience
..
of
a
heroic
subject
matter."72
n the words
of
Corrado
Sofia,
one of
18 BL's authors,
t
sought
to reawaken
he same
enthusiasm
xpressed
y
rowds
n
sports
renas nd
perhaps
o
succeed
n
being
more eductivehan he inema,
ecause
ctual
oices nd human igures
and
the
open
air
that urrounds
he
stage,
re all sources f
nstinctualttraction.
he
cinema
hrusts
he pectatornto dark
oom.Onthe creen tpresents
latnd colorless
figures.
y its nature
t s tied to documentarynd
scientificorms, ather
hanto an
imaginationapable fenveloping actsnmystery.73
Sofia's theorization s exemplary
nasmuch
as
fascism's ttitudetoward
the film
medium
had
been ambivalent
rom
he start.On the one hand,
fascism elebrated
cinema as the state's
most
potent
weapon";
on the
other,
n aversiontoward
the
medium tself
rompted
fascism
o
single
out
the theater s the privileged
fascist
art and
to
place
theatrical alues
at the centeroffascist olitics.
Film, Sofia sug-
gests,
s
by
ts
very
nature a decadent
medium. It attenuatesthe bond
between
spectators'
nd
performers'
odies,
reducingthe world
to a series
of flat and
colorlessprojectionsmeantforsilent nd solitary ontemplation.The theaterof
18BL 109
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masses,on the
contrary, estores o thebody ts entral ole and in
so doing forges
a transformative,
utuallyeductive elation between representation nd
reality,
art and
life.The
mass audience
and
mass performerseave behind
the cloistered
interiors
f
the
old theater nd cinema in order to stand before
one another n
actualtime nd space,undertheopen sky.Within hisnatural etting n "instinc-
tual attraction" etween them can break down the barrier betweenauditorium
and
stage, provoking
he sort
of
healthy ontagion fosteredby athletic
ventsor
mass rallies.
And
the spectacle
tself s
designed
to
excite such
primordial pas-
sions.
Plot is
stripped
down
to
its
minimal constituent lements:
hero versus
antihero,
lack
versusred versuswhite.Actions re simple,readily ccessible, nd
anchored
in
the historical
resent.
The
poetic
word is subordinated to the
mys-
terious
play
of
imagesand rhythms.74hysical ctions,optical tricks,
crobatics,
magic,
fireworks
.. in
short,
xternal
ffects nd affects ccupy the
place ofhonor
once held in the theaterbythevaluesof individuality nd interiority.75nd the
end
result
toward
which
this
complex
of
techniques
strives s the
forging
of
a
charismatic
ommunity,
microcosm
f
the
fascistized talian nation:
"the fusion
of thousands and thousands
of
souls
within
single framework
f
ideas and
events."76
Such
at
least was
the theoreticalmatrixwithinwhich
the creators
of 18 BL
were
operating:
a
modernistmatrix ndebted to
Bontempelli's
notion
of
"magic
realism"
nd to his writings
n
theater
nd
sport.77 nfortunately
orBlasetti nd
his
collaborators,
8 BL
fell short
of
fulfillinghese ambitions.The
new theater
of the
masseswas applauded, praised
for
ts audacity and patriotic
entiments,
but it
was ust
as
often dismissed as
a
resounding flop.
To
make
matters
worse,
the
atter
erdictwas
trumpeted y
Corrado
Sofia,
who aunched a
series
of
fierce
attacks
gainst
Blasetti
from he
pages
of
Quadrivio.78 lready
n the months
pre-
ceding the performance
here had been hints
of
rivalry.79 ow
Sofia came
out
into the
open
and
accused Blasetti
of
a
long
list
of
"treasonous"
acts:
of
having
been a
poor
director
o start
with;
of
havingneedlesslydestroyed
he
lead
18 BL
truck;
f
developing
the
spectacle
round machines
nd mechanized
voices when
Italians were "staunch
nemies
of
machine-worship";80
nd
of
having
wanted
"to
revolutionize verything
n littlemore than a
month"when "revolutionsmustbe
prepared carefully n even the most minimal
particulars."8'
Blasettiresponded
angrily
n La
tribuna,
ccepting
blame for 18 BL's
failings
ut
calling
attention
o
Sofia's
volte-face:
nly
weeks
before
Sofia was
taking
full
redit
forthe
spectacle;
now he
pretended
to
have
been disaffected
rom he
start.82
counterattack
ol-
lowed severaldays
ater
nd featured uch accusations
s thatBlasetti's
rue ambi-
tion
n
18
BL had been
to
gain
for
himself
government ension.83
his
in turn
provoked yet
another
furious
rejoinder,
as
well as intercessions
on
Blasetti's
behalf
by
Leo Bomba and
Gherardo
Gherardi.84
As
might
have
been
anticipated,
echnical
problems
contributed
heir
hare
to the mixed receptionthatgreeted18 BL. The vaststage had diminishedthe
110 REPRESENTATIONS
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audience's
ability
o
participate
n
every
ction. Able to hear
but unable to
see,
many pectators
would
feel no "instinctual
ttraction"
owardthe mass
of protag-
onists
on stage. Instead of being transported
nto an
unstable realm
wherethe
threshold
between reality nd
some
magical/mythical
omain
appeared
perme-
able,they
would be
left,
ike
Bontempelli
himself,with lingering
sense
ofemp-
tiness,depression,and coldness."85Visibility roblemswere aggravatedbythe
discontinuous
nature
of thenarrative,
nd
by
theoften wkward
ynchronization
between
the soundtrack
nd
the events
on
stage.
Not least
of all, there was
the
performance's
inale,
which Blasetti
had not been able
to
rehearse.
In
a near-
disastrous
Pirandellian
twist,
Mother Cartridge-Pouch
had changed
her
mind
about being
buried
at the last moment
and for several tense minutes
the
com-
bined forces
f a dozen actors
proved nsufficient
o
roll her over
nto the swamp.
In the
end they
did succeed, but only
afterBlasetti
switchedoff
he lights nd
summoned
a second
truck.
When
the
lights
came back
on Mother
Cartridge-
Pouch was in her grave,but many spectatorshad already departed and the
intended tragic
ffect ad
been buried
long
before
the
truck.86
Technical
deficiencies
here were,
but at the heart
of the controversy
ur-
rounding
18
BL
loomed
the
deeper
questionof whether
machine was a fitting
hero
for the fascist
heater.Some young
members
of the crowd thought
not,
greeting
he event's
conclusion
with
cries
of
"What
the hell do
we care about a
truck?"87
he
objection
would be
repeated
often n the
ensuing
months f
debate,
always
n
tandem with
criticism f
the
collective
drafting
f 18
BL's
script. For
the
fascist
magination
mechanization
nd collectivization
ere ndissociable.)
n
the wordsofthe novelistUgo Ojetti, The idea ofmaking machine ntoa hero,
whether hat,
s some say but
I doubt),
of Mussolini,
or instead of
Marinetti r
Pavolini,
s
a
stupid
dea.... Art s
man. Machines without
men are soulless
wood
and
metal;
and
they
re
mass-produced
as
equal,
nay,
dentical."88 jetti's
aver-
sion
to
mechanical
heroes is motivated
by
the fear thatthey summon
up
the
specter
of a soulless mass
society:
society
ounded
not
on the values
of nation-
alism
but
on those
of internationalism. uch a society
had
a name, and
other
commentatorswould prove
ess reticent egarding
ts dentity:
mechanicalheroes
"are
well suited to
peoples
for
whom
the
machine
has become a religion. 4.
To
drawnear to such mentalitiesmakes it more difficult o uproot
the error
com-
mitted
by
those
who,
after
cursory
ook at our
affairs,
would liken
our Revolu-
tion
to the
Russian
revolution."89
or
theseand otherlike-minded
viewers,
he
recourse
to
a mechanical
protagonist
nd the
collective uthorship
of the script
raised grave
doubts
about
fascism's
pecificity.ike
its enemytwin,
fascism
was
committed
obuildingan industrial
mass society,which s to
say a societydepen-
dent
upon
the close
interconnection etween machines
and human
beings.
Yet
fascism
lso claimed
to stand
n
opposition
to
Marxistmaterialism,
tilitarianism,
and
collectivism,
nd
in
favor
f
values associated withvague
terms
uch
as
soul,
spirit,
eauty,
heroism, ndividualism,
nd Latinity. ould such
values,
however
18BL
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defined, be
fully econciled
with
mechanization
nd
industrialization?
erhaps
not
for a cultural
conservative
uch
as Ojetti,
but for
committed
modernists
ike
the
creatorsof
18 BL the answer was
affirmative.
The spectacle's
detractors
were right
n at least
one important
espect:
18 BL
was indeed hauntedbySoviet antecedents.The machineas protagonist f mass
actions
had
long been
one
of the heroic themes of
Soviet culture,
a fact
amply
documented
in
Rene
Ffildp-Miller's
i
volto el bolscevismo,
contemporary
est-
seller
thathad
devoted two hapters
o
the
Soviet
revolutionary
heater. t
claimed
that
under socialism
the
mitation f
machineshas
been
raised to the
statusof
a
sacrament,
omparable
to the mitation
f Christ,"
nd discussed at length
Soviet
experiments
with ollective uthorship.90
he
Soviet nterest
n
developing
mod-
ernist
forms of
epic
founded upon
the interactionbetween
machinery
and
human
masses
would
also have
reached Blasetti
nd his
cohorts
via the
cinema.
Eisenstein's
theoretical
writingswere
available
in translation
nd,
by the early
1930s,
Italian cinemaclubs had started o exhibithis silentfilms, romTheBattle-
ship
Potemkin
o the
quasi-documentary
The General ine,
whose final parade
of
tractors
was
a probable
source
for 18
BL.91 But an even
more direct source
of
inspiration
were
the
Soviet
revolutionary estivals,
vant-garde
experiments
n
mass
pageantry
that had
stimulated
great
interest
n
Italy
during
the cultural
debates
of
the
early
1930s.92
Among these,
the most immediately
pertinent
s
perhaps
The Stormingf
theWinter
alace,
a
collectively
uthored
reenactment
f
the
events
of October
1917
cast
n the same
hyperrealist
et
llegorizing
mold
as
18
BL. Performed
n
Petrograd's
Palace
Square
in
1920
before a public
ofnearly
100,000,thismultimedia pectaclesurrounded ts8,000 protagonistswith gun-
fire,
rtillery,
ockets,
nd a
panoply
of
lighting
ffects.93
nd
as
can be
seen
in
several contemporary
rawings
nd
photographs,
ts climactic
pisode
featured
a
white
truck
carrying
he
fleeing
Kerensky
government
with
a
platoon
of
Red
Army
trucks
n hot
pursuit.
Other
parallels
could
be cited from
works such
as
Yurii
Annenkov's
The
Mysteryf
Liberated
abor and
Meyerhold's
History
f
Three
Internationals,
he atter nvolving,
n
FUl6p-Miller's
ccount,
200
cadetsfrom
he
cavalry
chool, 2300
soldiers,
ixteen
cannons,
five
irplanes
with
reflectors,
en
mounted reflectors,
rmored
trains,
rmored
cars,
motorcycles,
ield
hospitals,
etc.,notto mentionvariousmilitaryands and choruses."94The proletarian he-
aters
of
Erwin
Piscator and
Ernst
Toller,
also
well known n fascist
taly,
ould
also
be cited
in this
regard.)95
But,
however considerable
the direct mpact
of
Soviet
precedents
might
have
been,
t s essential o
emphasize
that he
"haunting"
of 18
BL is
more
than a
simple question
of influence.
The drama
isbuilt
upon
a
series
of
binary
oppositions
that
betray
imilarities
etweenfascism
nd
its
Bol-
shevik
win,
ven as
they ttempt
o institute ifferences.
Elided
by
this
binarism
is fascism's
rue
historical
nemesis,
iberal
democracy.)
The red strikers
arade,
fight,
nd
chant
chorusesjust
ike
their
lack-shirted
ounterparts.96
he metallic
howloftheirvoicesechoesthe mechanicalroarofthe fascists'rucks.Bothgroups
112
REPRESENTATIONS
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are presented
as undifferentiatedollectives, nd
both
constitute
hemselves
n
a
choral dialogue with leader's mechanized
voice.
This said, t makesa substantial
ifference hether he voicein question con-
sists
of
a wind-up
barrel
organ playing
the
tune of Salome'sDance
of
the Seven
Veils, r instead ssues
forth rom living questrian tatue n the
form f metallic
orders.
What
I
mean is that while
the
detractors
f
18
BL
may
have been right
about
the work's Soviet
resonances, they
were
blind to the
contrast
it was
attempting
o
enforce
betweenfascist nd Bolshevik ttitudes owardmachinery.
For purposes of simplicity,
will erm his
distinction etweenmechanizationnd
metallizationeven though
t must
be noted
thatthedistinction s hardly bsolute,
due
to an increasing ultural nd political onvergencebetween
fascist taly and
StalinistRussia during
the
1930s).
Mechanization had been one
of the
driving
forcesbehind the Soviet revolutionary
heater.
t
was identified
with n effort o
strip he stage bare and disclose
ts most ntimateworkings. nstead of a factory
of seductivemythsnd illusions, heproletarian tagewould thereby ecomeboth
an instrument
orthe
demystification
f
contemporary ociety,
nd
a
place
where
alternate
futures ould be
staged
and
produced:
in
short, factory
n
which the
efficient
nteraction etween mechanized actor/workers, orking
machines, and
a
transparent
cenic
apparatus
would
exemplify
he
communist
ociety
of the
future. Since
the
actor-worker
epresented
the
ideal
citizen of
this
future
republic,contemporary
ramatists uch as Meyerhold ought to
transform
im
or
her
nto a
utopiansubject
dentical
o the
classless nd
sexless
economicsubject
the revolutionwas
attempting
o
forge.
nspired by theireconomistcolleagues,
theyfound in the motionefficiencytudiesof Taylor and othersa model for the
reduction of
"the work of acting" to a series of biomechanical
functions: a
machinelikediscipline
whose objectiveswere
economy, hythm, nd deliberate-
ness. This "mechanico-technological
econstruction
f man's daily life" was
viewed not as dehumanizingor deindividualizing
ut, on the contrary,s eman-
cipatory.
Mechanizationwas
the
means to a
utopian
end: the creation of
a
body
without
atigue the
robot)
and of
a society reed
from
he burden
of alienating
work
communism).
The creators
of 18 BL
were also
striving o shape a new societywithin nd
outside the confinesof the theater, nd for them, no less than the Soviets,the
production process
was ust as integral o therevolutionary pectacle
as the final
product. Yet,
committed
o
the fascist deal of an absolute theater
that would
collapse
the
boundaries between the real
and the ideal, theyviewed Soviet-style
mechanization s
the foe of a
theatrical imagination apable
of enveloping
facts
in
mystery."
he function f mass
theater s they onceived
it was
at
once
ritual
and
inaugural:
ritual" o the extent hat
by having actors
too
young
to
have
par-
ticipated
n
the March on Rome reenact the
battles
of theirfathers,
t
hoped
to
bridge
the
gap
betweenthe
pre-
and
post-revolutionary
enerations;
inaugural"
to the extent hatthe
spectacle
was
organized
n
such a way
as
to offer
preview
18BL 113
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of
a future
fully fascistized" ociety.Accordingly,
he production of 18 BL was
organized
along strictmilitary
ines.
The two thousand
actors,mostlymembers
of
the
GUF
and Fasci Giovanili although soldiers,Balilla, and Giovani
Italiane
participated),
were divided
into
armylikeunits,
each assigned a number
and
placed under the leadershipof a war veteran. And theirtraining s Thespians
was indistinguishable
rom
military raining.The director, unctioning
s a sur-
rogate Duce, oversawthese war
games as
if
a field
commander, inked by wiring
to the entire xpanse
of the stage:
In a central
abin
ontaining
network
f
elephone ontrols,ells, nd variegated
ignals,
the director"
ill,
ike
commander,ave
he
pectacle'sate irmly
n
hisgrip.
rom ime
to time,
epending
n
theunfolding
fthe
ction, ortions
fthe andscape r details n
the
tage
will
e
illuminated:
position,
communicationsrench, hilltop. he "vision"
will hus e
unbrokennd
synthetic.97
The authority, mniscience, nd ubiquitygranted
the directorby the
network f
cables was
not imited o the
stage. Strictly igurative
wires"oined him to the city
authorities,
he
military,
nd the
PNF,
all of
whom made a show
of
contributing
resources,manpower,
nd technical ssistance
n
order that "the vision"
be real-
ized
without
mpediment.98
And from the
start Blasetti had made
clear his
demands
for
absolute authority: Nothing
that have requested can
be dimin-
ished
in
scale
or
granted
without
full
cooperation....
The
execution
of
produc-
tion orders must
be
absolutely military,
which
is
to say
immediate,without
hesitation
or need for
discussion."99
eroic acts of the collectivewill
were the
order oftheday and, whether ctualor imagined,constituted spectacle n and
of themselves.
Rehearsals
carried
on
late
nto
the
night.
n
an ostentatious
isplay
of fascism's
evolt
gainst
the
ife
of
ease
and
comfort,
he
stage
and auditorium
were
completed
after
weeks of continuous
day
and
night
hifts
y
a
construction
crew
designed
to
embody
the deals
of
discipline,
lass
collaboration,
nd
national
mobilization.
imilar deals
extended
to the
audience, segments
f which
rrived
on
special
trains
nder the
aegis
of
the fascist
outh
nd after-work
rganizations.
Even
in the domain of
ticket ales there were
to be no
"inopportune
contradic-
tionsor
privileges."
8
BL would
inaugurate genuine
mass
art
form,
o
no
com-
plimentary icketswere distributed.'00 isibilitywould be comparable from all
sectors
of
the
auditorium
n
order
to
ensure that one
perspective
lone
would
emergeby
the
spectacle's
end: a unified ollectivevision ordered
and
organized
by
a
single
director/dictator.
Within he
setting
f this
ociety
n
a
state f
perpetual
mobilization,
machines
are
not
ust
tools
to
be
used
by
human
protagonists.
heir function s a
higher
one,
that
of
serving
s
idealized doubles
of
both
the collective nd
its
director/
commander.
I
employ
the word
"doubles"
because, contrary
o Soviet
practice,
two
parallel
dramatic
universes
coexist on
stage
in
18
BL: one human and one
mechanical-one involving he nterplay f menwith heir eaders; theotherthat
114
REPRESENTATIONS
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of Mother Cartridge-Pouch
with
her
"chorus"
of fifty
rucks.Like
their
human
counterparts,
machines
are treated as
irreducibleentities
n 18 BL. They are
mechanical
"individuals"who
can
be
organized
into
larger
collectivegroupings
or totalities or placed
in
the
service
of
a
totality s prosthetic
evices), but who
cannot be broken downinto a series of interchangeable unctions r parts.This
principleof irreducibility ermits
ascistmachinery o take on human attributes
such
as
age, gender,will-power,
nd courage.
It
also
ensures that
ny mingling
f
man and
machine will assume
the formof "identification"nd not the
exchange
of
parts
or functions.Within his
economy
of
identification,
achines
stand for
an ideal:
not that
of
a
body
without
atigue
r of
a
society
without
lienation,
but
instead the distinctively
ascist deal
of
constant
exertion and fatigue coldly
resisted
.
.
in other
words,
"metallization."'0'
Metallization
s
a
paradoxicalconcept
whose
tentacles
xtend
deep
into con-
temporary
mass culture,
but whose crucial
mportance
o
fascism
willnow
limit
myself
o
sketching
ut
in
some finalremarks.
Unlike the sexless
stage
machines
of the Russiantheater,
he mechanical
hero of 18 BL
is
neither n emblem
of
an
atemporal utopia
nor a
specimen
of advanced
engineering.
She is
simply
a
mother truck: a
plain,
utilitarian
vehicle
destined
for
obsolescence,
a carrier
"pouch"
for
young
soldier-"cartridges"
hatwill
eventually
e used
up.
The
first
mass-produced
Fiat
truck,
he
embodies
the
fascist
masses,
even
when
singled
out with
respect
to the
other trucks.'02Her
mass
identity
s confirmed
by
two
further
igns:
her
gender-the
masses
were
always
feminized
n
contemporary
propaganda-and by
her
placement
under a relay
of
male governors xtending
fromCeseri to Blasetti o Mussolini. But iffeminized,whythenshould she be a
mother?
A
clue
is provided by the
sole other
female presence
in
18
BL:
Salome.
Temptress and
decapitator
n
Oscar Wilde's play and
Richard Strauss's opera,
Salome
is
conjured
up
in
order to
forge
a
symbolic
ink
between
the
menace
of
decadent
sensuality
nd Marxian materialism.'03
er
dance,
garbled
and
paro-
died
by
barrel
organ,
becomes a
strip-tease
kin
to the
denuding
of Soviet
tage
with ts
false
promises
f a
techno-mechanical
topia. Against
uch seductive
llu-
sions
imported
from
England,
Germany, nd Austria-indeed against sexuality
as such-18
BL elaborates the chaste
metallic ountermyth
f the Latin mother
truck: an
autocarro tipo normale
whose norm is heroic service, dedication, and
incessant
work. Able to bear the feverish
xploitsof 1917, 1922, and 1932 with
icy coolness,
she succumbs
n
the end only to be transfigured nto a symbolof
national sacrifice.
ike her
figurative
sons," hesoldiers ofWorld War
I
and the
March
on
Rome,
Mother
Cartridge-Pouch
ays down her body
in a finalgesture
of
self-offering
hat iterally aves
the
way
to
futureglory.
18
BL thus ends on
something
f an
elegiac note. The vehicle thathad come
to
personify ascism's
esistance o
fatigue
ubmits o nature's ron aw
of
degen-
eration
over time
via
an act of
fruitful
acrifice.And
thisat the culminating
momentofa work nwhose tableauxthepromise of a transfigured ational col-
18BL
115
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lectivitys
always
hadowed
by
the
menace ofdissolution nd loss.
Fascismnever
ceased
reflecting pon
decline,
whethern
the domain of
the
body
or the
history
of
peoples. Having
little aith n
the
ability
f
science
or
technology
o
decisively
alter humankind's
emporal
predicament,
ecular and
anticlerical t its
origins,
the
movement ried to
practice
what t
called
"realism," skeptical nti-idealist
turn of mind with ties to Bergsonianphenomenology.This said, itwas deeply
fearful
hat
realism"
ould
lead
back
to a
sense of sadness
and
fatigue,
n
short,
back to the ethos
of
decadentism nd materialism
hat
the revolution laimed to
have overthrown.
National
skepticism,
melancholy,
nd
mourning
were
symp-
tomsof the iberal-democratic/socialist
aralysis
hathad
preceded the March on
Rome, and against them fascism
reached a gospel of
constant ctivity,heerful
self-creation,
nd
eternal
youth,
ven
going
o
far s to
nvent ecular
otherworlds
forthe
preservation
f
ts
martyrs.
t
was
in
this
pirit
hat n
early
versionof
the
.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FIGURE 8 (left).Xanti
Schawinsky,1934-XI I,"
poster;Annitrenta:
Arte cultura n talia
Milan,
1983),
487.
FIGURE 9
(right).
R.
Bertelli,Continuousrofile
fMussolini, ood,
early
1930s. Photo:
collection f
Paul Sullivan.
116
REPRESENTATIONS
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script
or 18
BL had proposed
thatMotherCartridge-Pouch
e resurrected
fter
three
days of
burial.
But
in the
finalversionofthe spectacle,
he perils
of ending
on
an
elegiac
note were evaded by means
ofa less
batheticdevice:
a
swift hift
n
focus away
from
the burial scene toward
fascism'spresent
achievements
and
future romise.The mother ruckmayhave passed away, apitulating o the nex-
orable reality
f
aging,
but
fascism
s
always
lready
on the move
and the deal of
metallization
he
once embodied
has
been fully ransposed
nto the
human realm
by
iDuce.
The
viewers f
18 BL
did not need
to have this
final ransposition
xplained
to them.
The most
fleeting llusions
would
do. A metallic
voice heard over
oud-
speakers,
n equestrian
profile,
nd a slogan or
twowere enough
to nsinuate
hat
Mussolini
was the
spectacle's
secret
protagonist.'04
uch economy
of means was
possible
because by
the
mid 1930s fascism
had
begun
to fill ts deological
voids
with totalitarian
ult.
This was not
a traditional ult
of
personality
utrather
modernist ultof the dictator'smetallizedbodyas missile, s axe, as man of the
crowd,
as
hero with
a thousand faces,
as helmet,
s mask, as
head with
a 360-
degree
gaze (figs.
8 and
9).
In
this vast
proliferation
f
images,
fascist
rtists
decomposed
and
recomposed
fascism's
mostoriginal
though
paradoxical
crea-
tion: the
myth
f an individual
who
could stand at the center
of a
reconstructed
universe;
a
being,
at once
hyperphallic
nd
hyperchaste,
who
might
reconcile
man with
machine,
ndividualwith
mass,
matter
with
pirit;
deus x machina
or
the
gigantic
heater f
modern revolution.
Notes
I wish o acknowledge
he support
of the National Humanities
Center and the Simon
Guggenheim
Memorial
Foundation during the
time that this essay was
written.
would also
liketo thankMary
Hunter and Donald Raleigh
for heir
help with, espec-
tively, he
musicological
nd Slavic portions
f this ssay's rgument; nd,
especially,
Mara Blasetti for her
making available to
me the manuscript
materials
nd photo-
graphs in
her collection. All future
references
o documents
held in the Blasetti
archive re
designated with
he nitialsBA.
1. ScottNearing,Fascism New York,n.d.),58.
2.
"La finedi un
regno,"
Criticafascista,
no. 18
(15
September 1931):
343.
3. Bruno Spampanato,
"La rivoluzione del
popolo," Critica
ascista 10, no. 21 (1
November 1932):
403.
4. Quoted fromLynnMally,
ulture f
he uture: he
roletkult
ovement
n Revolutionary
Russia
Berkeley,
990), 125.
5. Cited
n
KonstantinRudnitsky,
ussian
nd Soviet heater: 905-1932, trans.
Roxanne
Perman,
ed. Lesley
Milne
New
York, 1988),
41.
6.
Platon
Kerzhentsev,
reative
heater;
ited n
ibid.,
45.
7.
Jeffreychnapp,
"Epic
Demonstrations:The 1932
Exhibition
f the FascistRevolu-
tion,"
n
Fascism, esthetics,
nd
Politics,
d.
R.l. Golsan
(Hanover, N.H.,
1992), 3; but
18BL
117
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see
also Barbara
Spackman,
"The FascistRhetoric f Virility."
tanfordtalianReview
8, nos. 1-2 (1990):
81-102.
8. The phrase
"eclettismo
ello
spirito" s from
Mussolini's naugural speech
for the
Italian Academy on 28
October
1929.
On this subject see
Giuseppe Carlo Marino,
L'autarchia
ella cultura Rome, 1983), 3-17.
9. Passingreferences o 18 BL may be found in Emanuela Scarpellini,Organizzazione
teatrale politica el
teatro
ell'Italiafascista
Florence, 1989), 238-40; Adriano AprA's
introduction
o Alessandro lasetti: crittiul
cinema Venice, 1982), 31; Giovanni
Laz-
zari,
Littoriali
elta
ultura
dell'arte
Naples, 1979), 22-23;
Enzo Maurri,Rose carlatte
e
telefoni
ianchi
Rome,
1981), 77-78;
and Mario Verdone, "Spettacolo politicoe 18
BL,"
in
Futurismo,
ultura,
politica,
d. Renzo De Felice
Turin,
1988), 483-84.
10. Due perhaps
to his own affinities
ith
ascism,
Georges Bataille's theorization
s often
stronger
han
that
f the Frankfurtchool. As a point
of
entry ee "The Psychological
Structure
f
Fascism,"
n
Visions
f
xcess:
electedWritings,
927-1939, ed. Alan Stoekl
(Minneapolis,
1985), 137-60.
11.
I
have in mind a research
agenda not unlike thatwhich nforms
he work
of Diane
GhirardoRuth Ben-Ghiat'sTheFormationf Fascist ulture: heRealistMovementn
Italy, 930-1943
(Ph.D. diss.,
Brandeis University, 991); and, across the
Atlantic,
Pier Giorgio
Zunino's L'ideolog'a
elfascismo:
iti
credenze valorinella
stabilizzazione
del
regime
Bologna, 1985);
PietroCavallo's mmaginariorappresentazione:
l teatrofas-
cista
i
propaganda
Rome, 1990);
and Klaus
Theweleit's
psychoanalytic
tudy
f Frei-
korps
fficers,
ale Fantasies
Minneapolis,
1987-89).
12.
These
plays,
entitledCampo
di
maggio 1930), Villafranca1931),
and Cesare
1939),
are
reprinted
n
Giovacchino
Forzano,
Mussolini,
utore
rammatico
Florence,
1954).
De
Felice comments:
"There can be no doubt that .. the three historicaldramas
resulting
rom
Mussolini's
ollaboration
withForzano bear
witness o Mussolini's
en-
dency
to projectively
dentify
imself nd his
actionswith
history's olitaryman who
is conscious not onlyofhisgreatmissionbutalso ofhaving to accomplish t amidst
the
ncomprehension
nd moral
nadequacy
of those who surround
him
and
ought
to
have been
of
assistance;
conscious also of
having
to
act
by capitalizing
on and
exploiting veryopportunity
n a more dramaticrace event
even than
that
against
death: the
race
against
cyclical ecursion"';
Mussolini
l
duce,
vol.
,
Gli
anni
del con-
senso,
929-1936
(Turin, 1974),
32.
13.
On
at least
one
occasion,
Mussolini
ven found the
timeto
make
suggestions
or
the
revision
f a dramatic
text: the
tragedy imma, y
Francesco
Pastonchi,
o whom he
offered
he
thought borrowed
fromAnatole
France):
"Caress
your
sentence:
she
will
nd
up smiling
ack at
you";
cited
n
Opera
mnia
i Benito
Mussolini,
ds. Edoardo
Susmel
and Duilio Susmel
(Rome, 1978),
42:92.
14. On theCorporazionedello Spettacolo'shistoryee Scarpellini,Organizzazioneeatrale,
131-64.
The
government's
ias
toward
regulation
f theater
producers
and not
the
content
of their
work has
been examined
by
Mabel
Berezin,
"The
Organization
of
Political deology: Culture, State,
and Theater
in
Fascist
taly,"
American
ociological
Review
6
(October 1991):
639-5
1.
15.
The best source
on the
history
nd
teachings
f
the Filodrammatiche
s
l
teatrofilo-
drammatico
Rome, 1929),
edited
by
the "Ufficio ducazione
Artistica ella
Direzione
Centrale
dell'OND,"
but
argely
uthored
by
Antonio
Valente.
16.
The
philodramatic
elebrations
f
political
nniversaries
were
particularly
riticized
by
the
advocates
of a modernist ascist heater.
A
case
in
point
s
Augusto
Consorti:
"These re-evocations
which
can
hardly
be referredto as
'representations')
ught
to be harmonizedwiththe same criteriathathave guided the organizersof the
118
REPRESENTATIONS
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Exhibition
of the Revolution";
Rievocazione,"
L'Italia vivente
, no. 18 (28
October
1933):
9.
17.
O.N.D.,
Il
teatrofilodrammatico,
01, 99,
107.
18. All the
cited
figures re from carpellini,Organizzazione
eatrale,
49.
19. The repertory
f the Carri di
Tespi
is
furnished
y Scarpellini,
bid., 365-69.
20. Carlo Lari, "I Carri diTespi,"Comoedia 5,no. 7 (15 July-15August1933): 36; Paolo
Orano,
I
Carri
di
Tespi
ell'O.N.D. Rome,
1937),
17.
21.
A
complete
technical
verview f the Thespian
cars s
found n Carro
i
Tespi,
pam-
phlet published
by the Opera
Nazionale Dopolavoro
in 1936. Also worth
onsulting
are
Mario Corsi,
i teatroll'aperto
n talia (Milan, 1939),
263-88;
and Orano,
I Carri
di Tespi.
22.
Giovanni
sgr6,
Fortuny
ii
teatro
n.p., 1986),
107.
23.
Orano,
I Carridi Tespi,
9.
24.
On the science of work
ee Anson Rabinbach,
TheHuman
Motor:
nergy, atigue,
nd
the
Origins
fModernity
New
York, 1990).
25. Orano,
I Carridi
Tespi,
9-20.
26. C[orrado] P[uccetti]n "I Carri diTespi,"Gente ostra,nos. 47/48 13-26 September
1937):
7; Orano, Carri
di Tespi,
6.
27.
Ibid.
28.
As noted
earlier, pen-air spectacles
were
hardly
nvented
by
fascism.Following
he
lead
of theorists
uch as Edward
Gordon
Craig
and Sheldon
Cheney,
Ettore
Roma-
gnoli
had, for nstance,
evived he
Greek theaterof
Siracusa
earlier
n
the century.
But it
was under fascism
hatopen-air
theater eceived
a full
consecration nd
gov-
ernmental upport
on
which
ubject
ee Corsi,
l
teatro ll'aperto
n
talia).
29.
Scarpellini,
Organizzazione
eatrale,
7.
30.
Cited
in
ibid.,
149.
31. SIAE speech, Rome, 28
April 1933;
Mussolini,Opera
omnia,
4:5
1.
32. Ibid., 44:50.
33.
F. M.
Marinetti,
Fondazione
e
manifesto
el Futurismo,"
eoria invenzionefuturista,
ed. Luciano
De Maria (Milan, 1983),
11.
34.
On
Pavolini's
areer and
biography
ee
Arrigo
Petacco,Pavolini:
'ultima affica
i Sal6
(Milan, 1982);
and Marco
Palla, Firenzenel
regime ascista,
929-1934
(Florence,
1978),
171-230.
35.
On
the Littoriali
ee
Ugoberto
Alfassio
and Marina Addis Saba,
Cultura passo
romano: toria
strategie
ei
Littoriali
eltacultura dell'arte
Milan, 1983);
Giovanni
Lazzari,
I
Littoriali
ella cultura
dell'arte
Naples,
1979); and Ruggero
Zangrandi, l
lungoviaggio
ttraverso
lfascismo:
ontributo
lla storia i
una
generazione
Milan, 1962),
esp.
381-87.
36. Cited frompage 9 of a letter ddressed to Mussoliniby Achille Starace,dated 19
March 1935,
and written
n
response
to a proposal by
Cesare Maria De
Vecchi,Min-
ister f Public Instruction,
hat he GUF and Littoriali
e placed under
the supervi-
sion of his ministry;
enito Mussolini, personal
papers, microfilm
15, reel 230
#1222B,
University f Chicago
Library.
37. Starace to
Mussolini,
19 March
1935,
p. 4;
in
ibid.
38.
Pavolini,
Fascisti
iovani
l
lavoro,"
l
bargello,
April 1934,
1.
39.
Ibid.
40. Valentino
Bompiani,
"Invito ditoriale l romanzo collettivo,"'
Gazzetta
elpopolo, 4
March
1934,
3. On fascist ealism
ee Ben-Ghiat,
ormationf ascist
ulture, 85-229.
41.
Berta,
son
of
the owner of the
Berta foundries,
was slain for
appearing in
a black
shirt efore thepopulationof San Frediano Florence'smain proletarianneighbor-
18BL 119
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hood) right
fter he
fascists'
murder
of the
communist eader Spartaco
Lavagnini.
Immortalized s
a "martyr
f
the revolution"
n fascist ong, Berta would
stillfigure
in the central
episode
of act
2 of
18 BL, in which a commemoration
of the fascist
dead is
accompanied by
the
singing
f "Hanno ammazzato
GiovanniBerta,"
ballad
promising
aith
n
Mussolini nd the
defeat of Lenin.
42. The source for his dea mayhave been "II vecchio amion"byLeo Bomba, published
in the midst
of
L'Italia vivente's
ampaign
for revolutionary
ascist heater.Bomba,
a fascist squadrist, had fondly
recalled and, indeed,
humanized the squadrons'
trucks:
It's
impossible
to
disentangle
the memory
of days past from that fast
and
noisy carcass
which
we never viewed merely
s a means of transportation";
'Italia
vivente ,
no. 18
(28
October
1933):
6-7.
43.
See,
for
nstance,
Mario
Sironi's
ollages
TheYellow ruck1919)
and
Urban
andscape
with
ruck
1920-23).
44. Corrado
Sofia describes
the
compositional
process
n
"II parere
di
uno degli
autori:
TRADIMENTO ,"
Quadrivio,
May 1934, 3.
In
his tirade
against collective uthor-
ship, Sofia subsequently
laims
that he
produced
a full screenplayof his own,
even
thoughthescript reserved n theBA contains nlyfive f the nine tableaux referred
to
in
its title 8
BL: Mistero
n
9
quadri.
45.
Many decades
later,Blasetti
would assertthat Mussolini
had personally hosen
him
to
direct he spectacle: "[Mussolini]
magined show for
crowdof 20,000 spectators
and he
wanted me to
direct t. made a show called
18 BL,
the name of
a
truck....
It was the
biggest
fiasco
n
the
history
f international heater.This was ... the only
time
Blasettireceived
the
congratulations
f Mussolini....
He said: 'This has dem-
onstrated
power
of
initiative,
f
force,
of
resistance,
f steadfastness.
xtraordi-
nary"';
cited
in Elaine
Mancini,
Struggles f
the talian Film ndustry uring
Fascism,
1930-35 (Ann
Arbor,
Mich., 1985),
113. Archival
records ndicate,
on the contrary,
that t
was Pavolini
who
organized
18 BL and made the
keypersonnel
decisions.
46. The scripts reserved n BA are thoseof De Feo, Lisi,Melani, Sofia, nd Venturini-
the atter
wo
serving
s Blasetti's
main sources.
The
degree
to which
Blasetti ook t
upon
himself
o introduce
lements
fromhis
prior
films
nto the final
creenplay
s
hard
to
determine.
n
any event,
he
key
modifications f
the various
scripts
esulted
from
he
practicalities
f
staging
18
BL.
47.
The
quotation
s from
AlbertoBoero's
first
creenplay,
ited
fromSole:
Soggetto,
ce-
neggiatura,
ote
per
la
realizzazione,
d.
Adriano
AprA
and
Riccardo Redi
(Rome,
1985), 27.
48. Two
recent
English
discussions
of 1860
are
Angela
Dalle Vacche's
in The
Body
n the
Mirror:
hapes
fHistory
n talian Cinema
Princeton,N.J.,
1992),
96-120;
and Marcia
Landy's
Fascism
n Film: The
talian Commercial
inema,
931-1943
(Princeton,N.J.,
1986), 183-87.
49. As Pavolini
describes
t,
the
enterprise
was carried out
with
city
nd
military elp;
"Fascisti
giovani
l
lavoro,"
1.
50.
Giuseppe Isani,
"Nascita
d'uno
spettacolo,"
'Italia
etteraria,
8 March
1934,
4.
51. Cipriano Giachetti,
II
teatro i
Littoriali i
Firenze,"
Comoedia
6,
no. 6
(June
1934):
8.
52.
Ruggero Orlando,
"Che
cos'e
18
BL,"'
La
tribuna,
0
April
1934,
3.
53.
Blasetti,
Primeconsiderazioni
proposte,"
ypescript,
arch
1934,
BA.
54.
From an
anonymous article,
Per lo
spettacolo
di
masse,"
l
bargello,
March
1934,
3. Much of
the
post-performance
olemic
would
hinge
on the links
to Eisenstein:
"Blasetti
wanted all
the
figures
o
be
profiled
gainst
the
sky,
hat
is,
in
his usual
manner,he imposed thecinematographicmannerism fviewing hingsfromdown
120
REPRESENTATIONS
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below a la
Eisenstein
.. treating
he
spectators
ike the geese
that nspired Eisen-
stein'spasse
cinematic tyle";
ofia,
II
parere di uno
degli
otto
autori,"
7.
55. Isani, "Nascita d'uno spettacolodi masse,"
4.
56. In an unsigned
articlepublished
before the spectacle, Sofia
had already expressed
reservations:
The impactof suchan innovation n theatrical nd musical practices shard
to foresee.
Given
the
exceptionally
arge
number
of
spectators,
Corrado
Sofia, one
of
the
creators
of the mystery lay,'
had wished instead
to
nor-
malize
the highlighted
voices;
several newspaperboys
would have
com-
mented upon
the action as if the chorus
n an ancient Greek play; events
of
capital
mportancewould
have been
announced bymeans
of a town
rier;
n
the most allegorical
and
stylized
cenes-the
parliamentary
anquet,
for
example-the
banqueters
would
have
employed
megaphones
to communi-
cate with
the
spectators....
The director
decided instead to transmit
ven
the choruses
over
loudspeakers
by
means of
records, hoping
to achieve
an
emotive
force
equivalent
to that
possessed
by
ive voices and songs:
an
aim
which,
f
successfully ttained,
willconstitute
notable
precedent.
"Nel clima
dei
giovani,"
i
lavorofascista,
8 April 1932,
3.
57. Blasetti,
Primeconsiderazioni
proposte:
Parte sonora,"2,
BA.
58.
Isani,
"Nascita
d'uno
spettacolo
di
masse,"
4.
59.
Sergio Codelupi,
"Un teatro
per
ventimila
persone
a
Firenze,"
i
telegrafo, April
1934,
7.
60.
"B.
F.," "Esperimento
di
teatro
per
ventimila
persone,"
Corriere
ella
sera, 20 April
1934, 3.
61. General
audience
tickets ost
3
lire;
reserved
seating
tickets ost
10,
25,
or 50
lire.
No
free tickets
were
distributed,
nd the
only
discount
vailable was for
dopolavoristi,
who could purchase
10 lire seats for
only
8
lire.
62. Records concerning he makeup ofthe audience are lacking.Press reportsnotethe
presence
of
Florentine ity
eaders as
well
as Renato
Ricci,
Giacomo Paulucci
di Cal-
boli,
and Arturo
Marpicati.
A
note fromPavolini o Blasetti
had
promised
thatEdda
Mussolini
would
accompany
her husband Galeazzo
Ciano to the
performance.
63.
Original plans
were for
double boat
bridge,
s indicated
n Mannucci and Tempes-
tini's
drawings
and
in
documents contained
in
the BA;
Blasetti to Giovanni
Poli,
protocol
#39, p.
1.
The dearth
of boats ensured
the adoption of a
single bridge
solution.
64.
Cipriano Giachetti,
La
rappresentazione
del '18
BL'
ha luogo stasera,"
La nazione,
29-30
April 1934,
5.
65. Raffaello
Franchi,
18
BL
spettacolo
di masse,"L'Italia etteraria,
May
1934, 1.
66. The firstmovement fSquilli danze er l18 BL is designatedas a solenne,onsisting
in
a series of trumpet
alls accompanied by
tam tams and slow
drumming.Massar-
ani's score was
published
n
1937
by
Edizioni
G.
Ricordi
n
Milan.
67.
In
the
original
script
published
in
Gioventitascista)
nd
in
draftspreserved
n the
BA
the
truckwas named Mamma Gloria
nd not Mamma Giberna. ometime
n late
March, Blasetti
musthave decided to shift o the atter
name.
68.
The
original
plan
was for two
air
squadrons to overfly
he crowd. For reasons
that
may
have to do with he one-week
postponement
f the performance
due to rain),
these two
squadrons
were reduced either
to several
airplanes
or to a single
one.
Blasetti'snotes
read as
follows:
The airplanes, riss-crossed
ythe multicolor eams
of the
photoelectric
rojectors,
will scatter
broadsheets
fromthe Popolo
d'Italia
...
for a giventime, fterwhichtheywillrapidlydepart toward the left nd right ides
18BL 121
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95. For a comparative
tudy
f mass theater n
Soviet Russia, the
WeimarRepublic, and
Nazi Germany,
ee
Hannelore Wolff,Volksabstimmung
uf der Bithne?:
Das Massen-
theaterls Mittel olitischer
gitationFrankfurt,
985).
96.
This doubling
extends even to the
spectacle's
ongs. "Hanno
ammazzato Giovanni
Berta,"for
nstance,
would
have
been familiar
o the audience
of 18 BL in both black
and red flavors.n thesoundtrack tsfirst erseswere:
They
have killed Giovanni
Berta
a fascist mong
fascists,
revenge,
yes,revenge
shall befallthe communists.
In the
communist
ersion t would have opened:
They have
killed
Giovanni
Berta
son of a
war
profiteer:
long live the communist
who
stomped
on his hands.
Cited fromCantidell'Italiafascista,919-1945, ed. A. V. Savona and M. L. Straniero
(89-90).
Such doublings
are
endemic: "The fascist epertory
istinguishes tself
ar
less
than t would have
liked from he
contemporaneous
ntifascist
nd democratic
repertory.ndeed,
it often
dopts
the
same tonalities
nd the same linguistic
liches,
and
on occasion
even had recourse
to
the same
songs,
whichunderwent nly
minimal
modification"5).
97. Yambo,
"Fervida preparazione
dei Littoriali,"
3
April
1934,
1.
98.
Since Florentine
municipal
records for this
period
are
incomplete,
t is difficult
o
establish
he
precise
contribution
made
by city
uthorities.
he Azienda Autonoma
di
Turismo
di
Firenze contributed
t
east 100,000
lire to the budget
of the Littoriali,
according
o documents
found
n
Florence's
Archivio
di
Storia.The
Comune of Flor-
ence also coveredthe electricalbill at the Parterre an Gallo, and allocated 35,000
lire for
"the
preparation
of some
segments
f
Argin
Grosso, Mortuli,
nd Isolotto
streets"
quoted
from
document,
dated
2
March
1934, signed
by
the
Podesta'
Paolo
Pesciolini,
Archiviodi
Storia,
Florence
Prefecture,
General
Affairs,
eries
2, 1934,
file
87,
envelope 2202).
99. Cited from
Prime considerazioni
proposte:
Ufficio,"
A.
100. Orlando,
"Prove
di
18
BL," 3.
101. The
metaphor
of "metallization,"
entralto Marinetti's
writings,
s
cited
in
the
epi-
logue
to
Walter
Benjamin's
"The Work
of Art
n
the
Age
of Mechanical
Reproduc-
tion": "War
s beautiful
because
it nitiates he dreamt-of
metallization
f the human
body"; lluminations,
d.
Hannah
Arendt,
rans.
Harry
Zohn
(New
York,
1976),
241.
The metaphoralso figuresprominentlyn thewritings xamined byTheweleit in
Male
Fantasies nd
in
works uch as
Ernst
Junger's
n
Stahlgewittern
aus
dem
Tagebuch
eines
tosstruppfihrers)Berlin,
1931).
102.
One
contemporary ress
account
presents
the 18
BL as the
founding
ancestor
of
Italian
mass
transportation;
[urio] M[ortari],
Teatro
di
masse:
Lo
spettacolo
di
stasera
a
Firenze,"
a
stampa,
9
April 1934,
4.
103.
Salome
is
identified
with the so-called
donna crisi
o
be
contrasted
with the donna
madre/truck,
n which
ubject
ee Victoriade
Grazia,
How Fascism
uled Women:
taly,
1922-1945 (Berkeley,
1992), 212-13.
De
Grazia
notes:
"To
respond
to
the
aesthetic
mayhem
unleashed
by
commercial
culture,
the fascist
propaganda
machine,
with
124 REPRESENTATIONS
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