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Ebreo nato a Vienna, a vent'anni emigro' a Parigi per studiare cinematografia. Nel 1929 torno'
in Germania, dove fu assistente di Ulmir per Menschen am Somntag. Nel 1930 emigro'
in America al seguito di Flaherty, e si lego' alla scuola di New York. Con Strand realizzo'
Redes (1936), sullo sciopero di pescatori messicani. Il suo primo lungometraggio (a
trentasette anni!) fu Seventh Cross (44), tratto da un romanzo di Scyhers e imbevuto di
spirito antinazista.
Nel 1936 Tracy e altri sei prigionieri fuggono da un campo di concentramento nazista per
dissidenti politici; uno ad uno gli altri vengono ripresi e crocifissi come monito per gli altri:
e' impossibile sfuggire alla caccia spietata della polizia e all'ottuso fanatismo della gente.
Tracy riesce a raggiungere il suo paese, chiede invano aiuto alla sua ex-ragazza, la quale
ha sposato un nazista, ma trova asilo da un vecchio amico di gioventu' che ora e'
felicemente sposato e padre di tre bambibi, ligio al regime vigente, talmente preso dal suo
lavoro di operaio da non aver neppure letto sui giornali le disavventure dell'amico.
Quando questi gli consegna la verita', lui non lo abbandona: va in cerca del capo della
dissidenza, affida Tracy a un compagno di lavoro, viene interrogato dalla Gestapo ma non
parla; un inserviente dell'albergo in cui Tracy si e' nascosto lo aiuta a eludere una
perquisizione e lo fa fuggire dopo che la dissidenza, messasi finalmente in contatto con lui,
gli ha fornito i documenti per emigrare.
La storia e' raccontata da un morto (uno dei sei) e insiste su una morale semplicistica: che
benche' la folla si dimostra bieca e crudele nei confronti della vittima, il singolo e' solidale:
tanti piccoli uomini rischiano la vita per salvare quella di Tracy. La fuga dal campo ricorda
i film carcerari, quella nei vicoli della cittadina, i film espressionisti (buio, il presunto
mostro inseguito da una muta di presunti uomini).
Dopo altri cortometraggi minori, diresse in Svizzera
The Search (1948), film semi-documentario, ambientato fra le macerie
della Germania, ma falsato da una trama melodrammatica.
In occupied Germany, Americans are taking care of children without a family.
A flashback shows how one of the children was raised by a decent family in
the Czech republic, and then deported to a concentration camp.
The children are scared and try to run away from the American soldiers.
Two of them succeed. One drowns and the other one disappears. But he is
alive. He is found in the ruins by an American officer, a civil engineer,
who gains his trust and teaches him English. In the meantime, his mother
is looking for him and arrives to the camp that he ran away from.
The child, now renamed Jim, and the officer become good friends.
The officer is told that the child's mother is dead.
One day the child realizes that he used to have a mother, and decides that
he wants to find her. He runs away, but the officer finds him and tells him
that his mother is dead.
His mother, instead, has taken a job at the camp to help take care of the
children. But she can't resist and eventually resumes her desperate quest.
Ironically, just when she is about to leave on the train, the officer brings
her son to the camp. The nurse who welcomes him realizes that it is the
same child that the woman has been desperately trying to locate. The nurse
runs to the station to stop her, but only to see the train leave. Luckily,
a new group of children has arrived, and, at the sight of all those lonely
children, the woman has changed her mind: she has decided to stay and resume
her job. The nurse finds her among the children and brings her back to the
camp, where she is finally reunited with her son.
Fu il successo che lo lancio' a Hollywood.
The film noir Act Of Violence (1949) was set in the immediate post-war
period, as if to extend the moral dilemmas of the previous film to peacetime.
But the emphasis now shifted dramatically towards guilt and responsibility.
The protagonist was a tormented soul. The plot was a classic case of stalking,
but the real stalker was his conscience.
A limping man grabs a gun from a drawer, walks out of the buildings, boards
a bus and drives to California, where he takes a room in a hotel and circles
a name on the telephone book. It is the name of a man, Frank, who is being
paid honored for his role in a housing project. A respected family man, he
is going on a fishing trip. He just misses the telephone: the limping man
was calling his number.
The limping man shows up at his house and learns from Frank's wife Edith where
Frank went fishing. The limping man rents a car and drives there, inquires
around, rents a boat, and finds where Frank is fishing. The limping man
pulls out the gun and is ready to shoot but doesn't get a chance.
Back to the pier, Frank learns that a limping man was looking for him.
Frank quickly packs his stuff and heads back home in a hurry.
He turns off the lights, doesn't answer the phone and gets angry at his wife Edith.
When someone rings the bell, Frank is clearly terrified and stops his wife
from making any noise. They hear the noise of the lame man dragging his leg
around the house, looking for a way to get in.
Frank tells his wife that the man holds a grudge against him for something that
happened during the war. The man waits in his car outside the house. They
go to sleep and the man is still there. His wife Edith asks him if this man is the
reason that they moved to the other side of the country. He admits it.
He has been hiding from this man all the years since the end of the war.
This man, Joe, used to be his best friend when they were in the air force.
Frank used to write to his wife about this Joe. They ended up in a prison camp,
and that is where something went awfully wrong.
The following day Frank leaves early, pretending to be preparing for a convention.
Joe shows up and forces his way into the house. She threatens to call the
police, but Joe tells her that Frank would not want the police.
Joe tells Frank's wife that Frank was a nazi informer who caused his fellow
soldiers to be tortured and killed. He (Joe) was left for dead and survived.
Frank's wife runs to tell Frank. And Frank admits the truth.
He was the leader of the officers taken prisoner. When Joe and others decided
to escape, Frank tried to stop Joe, thinking that they had no chance. As Joe
couldn't be talked out of it, and fearing massive retaliation by the nazis on
the other prisoners, Frank informed the nazists, asking only that his friends
not be killed. The men who tried to escape were, instead, all mercilessly
killed except Joe. Frank leaves town for the convention.
Joe finds out where Frank went and checks out from the hotel. His old
girlfriend, Ann, has reached him and tries to stop him, but he can't be
stopped. Then Ann goes to see Frank's wife, begging her to warn Frank that
Joe knows where he is hiding. Frank is at the convention, partying with his
friends, when Joe shows up. Frank runs away, chased by the lame man.
He takes shelter in a bar that is closing and a woman (a prostitute?) takes him
home. Frank asks the woman to call Joe (not clear how they get the number)
and offer him money. Frank can hear Joe laughing. The woman tries to help by
taking him to an ambiguous attorney. The attorney offers to hire a killer
on his behalf, but Frank resists the temptation. He wanders aimlessly
through the dark deserted alleys of the underworld and then decides to end
his life on a railway track.
But at the last second he changes his mind. The woman and the hitman take him
back to the woman's apartment.
One more time Frank is torn between his conscience and his life, and one more
time Frank is too weak to choose his conscience: he tells the hitman how to find
Joe. When he wakes up, Frank realizes what he has done. The kind woman is
packing her things to move out of town before the murder is committed.
Frank goes home to tell Edith that Joe has left town and the problem is solved.
Then he heads for the railway station, where the hitman is supposed to meet
and kill Joe. Frank walks right in front of Ann without knowing who she is:
she has called the police to look for Joe, fearing that Joe is about to kill
Frank. At the railway station Joe faces Frank and is ready to shoot. Frank
sees the hitman who is about to shoot Joe and jumps between them. The hitman
runs away in a car, but Joe jumps on it and causes it to crash. The police,
Ann and the crowd surround Frank's dead body. Joe volunteers to tell Frank's
wife that Frank died a hero.
The Men (1950) e` un melodramma ancora sui reduci.
Bud (Brando) is a paraplegic young man who lost the use of his legs in the war.
At the hospital he has a hard time accepting the idea. In particular, he
refuses to see his fiance, Elly. When she comes to see him, against his will,
he shouts at her to go away. He doesn't want her pity, but her insistence
wins him over. Her love gives him the motivation to start exercising.
She asks him to marry her, and this gives him even more psychological strength
to reacquire physical strength. Elly's parents are opposed, though, because
they would like Elly to have children. Elly asks the doctor if that would be
possible, and the doctor honestly says that he doesn't know. As Bud improves,
he can only go back to basic pleasures of life, such as bowling.
Even the doctor attends the moving wedding. But the first evening is a
terrible embarrassment, as Elly realizes what it really means to live with
a paraplegic and Bud realizes how miserable their life will be.
After an argument, he goes straight back to the hospital, still dressed in
the elegant wedding suit. His attitude is now hostile and violent.
He becomes such a liability (he even has a car
accident) that the manager of the hospital wants to dismiss him.
His own friends at the hospital vote to have him dismissed.
The doctor too thinks that it would be
better for him to start a real life instead of vegetating at the hospital.
This heals Bud who goes back to his wife with a more positive attitude.
E` un film segnato dallo sceneggiatore Carl
Foreman e dal produttore Kramer, ma dove torna il tema della responsabilita'.
Dopo un documentario sugli ospedali psichiatrici, Zinnemann dirige
in uno stile semi-neorealista
Teresa (1951), ancora sui
problemi causati alla coppia dalla guerra; un soldato americano sposa un'italiana e la porta
in America, dove lei si sente straniera. E' un altro pannello del calvario dei reduci, ma
questa volta visto dalla prospettiva di lei.
A young veteran of war, Philip, is in line at an unemployment office but can't
find the guts to beg for work. He runs back home where he can't talk to his
nice parents. He is still having the same nightmare. A flashbacks shows him
in Italy during the war. He is a naive soldier stationed in a ruined village
among starving natives who hates violence and falls in
love with a sweet girl, Teresa. They get married in the local church, or,
better, what is left of it after the bombing. At the end of the war,
Philip goes back to his parents but did not tell them about the wedding.
His wife is waiting for the visa to join him. Finally, a telegram announces
that she is coming on the ship. Philip's mom finds out accidentally that
he is married, when she sees a picture of their wedding. Instead of rejoicing
she cries. Philip waits for his wife at the harbor with many other former
soldiers, each of them waiting for his war bride. He takes Teresa home to
his parents. Their life with Philip's parents is awkward. His parents don't
believe in Philip. He can't fight in real life the same way he couldn't fight
as a soldier. His parents mean well but they suffocate him.
Teresa gets pregnant, and Philip, instead of being happy,
has a nervous breakdown. Still struggling to prove himself and to find
a job, he decides to go away.
When the baby is born, though, he comes back to his wife (a rather
implausible happy ending).
Il film che lo affermo' definitivamente fu High Noon (1952),
il western che, nel rispetto delle convenzioni, stabili' il nuovo standard
psicologico.
Si sta celebrando in umilta` il matrimonio fra James Cooper e la quacchera
Grace Kelly.
Kelly, come tutti i quaccheri, aborrisce la violenza, e Cooper le ha promesso
di appendere la rivoltella e di rinunciare alla carica di sceriffo.
Per 24 ore il paese rimarra` senza sceriffo, in attesa dell'arrivo
del suo successore.
Intanto alla stazione si presentano tre banditi ad aspettare
il treno. Il capostazione apprende che sul treno viaggia un nemico giurato
di Cooper, rilasciato dal carcere, e corre ad avvertirlo.
Cooper parte comunque con la sposa sul calesse, ma il suo senso del dovere
presto prevale: volta il calesse e torna in paese, deciso ad attendere
il bandito e difendere il paese. Si tratta di un truce bandito che lui aveva
mandato in carcere e che aveva giurato di vendicarsi.
La moglie invano lo implora, poi lo minaccia, e infine lo lascia: va alla
stazione a comprare un biglietto per lo stesso treno.
Il paese e` in subbuglio. Il giudice che lo condanno` prepara le valigie e
se ne va in tutta fretta.
Il giovane e impulsivo vicesceriffo, furibondo che Cooper non abbia voluto
promuoverlo sceriffo e convinto che ce l'abbia con lui soltanto perche' si e`
messo con la sua vecchia ragazza, si dimette.
La ragazza, una messicana passionale, vende il suo negozio e decide di lasciare
il paese.
La moglie di Cooper aspetta il treno nella lobby dell'hotel dove soggiorna
la ragazza messicana, e vede pertanto Cooper che va a trovarla.
Cooper non aveva idea che lei si fosse messa con il vicesceriffo, ma
sa che il bandito ha un conto in sospeso anche con lei: lei era infatti
la ragazza del bandito prima di diventare la ragazza di Cooper.
La moglie apprende la storia dal proprietario dell'albergo.
Il proprietario dell'albergo e` uno di quelli che addirittura sentono
la mancanza del bandito: ai suoi tempi c'era vita in paese, e pertanto
business. Molti in paese rimpiangono quei tempi e tifano per il bandito contro
lo sceriffo, tanto che uno dei sicari viene trattato come un vecchio eroe al
saloon, mentre, quando vi entra Cooper a cercare cittadini disposti ad aiutarlo,
viene schernito.
Cooper cerca invano, di casa in casa, qualcuno disposto ad aiutarlo.
Uno dei suoi migliori amici non si fa trovare in casa.
Cooper va a cercare aiuto in chiesa: dapprima gli uomini onesti vorrebbero
aiutarlo, ma poi si svolge un dibattito e prevalgono quelli che non vogliono
piu' sparatorie in citta'. I cittadini riconoscono che Cooper ha portato
l'ordine in paese ma adesso gli chiedono di andarsene e di rinunciare a
battersi, perche' in tal modo si evitera` una sparatoria.
Cooper prova da un altro vecchio amico, ma questi non vede lo scopo:
non ha senso rischiare la vita per difendere un paese che non vuole essere
difeso.
La moglie di Cooper va a chiedere alla messicana di spiegarle perche'
il marito e` cosi` testardo, sospettando che sia perche' e` ancora
invaghito di lei. Ma la messicana la rimprovera invece di aver abbandonato
il marito al suo destino.
Tutti, per una ragione o per l'altra, esortano Cooper a fuggire,
ma il senso del dovere e forse l'orgoglio prevalgono, e lui decide di
affrontare egualmente il bandito.
Nessuno lo vuole piu`, ma Cooper rimane.
Il suo vice, colto da rimorsi, tenta di convincerlo a scappare, e tenta
persino di stordirlo, ma e` invece Cooper a stordire lui.
Anche l'unico uomo che si era offerto volontario si tira indietro, convinto
che si tratterebbe soltanto di un suicidio.
Quando il bandito arriva Cooper e' solo e il paese e' deserto.
La moglie e` appena salita sul treno con la messicana, ma al primo sparo
scende e si precipita in paese.
Nella lunga sparatoria per le strade del paese, Cooper riesce ad uccidere due
dei sicari, ma non ce la farebbe se la moglie non uccidesse il terzo sicario,
mettendo da parte i principi religiosi.
Il bandito prende allora lei in ostaggio e obbliga Cooper ad arrendersi, ma
la donna lo aggredisce quando sta per sparare e Cooper ha buon gioco a
ucciderlo.
Mentre i paesani escono a felicitarsi, Cooper getta la stella e se ne va con
la moglie.
Prodotto da Kramer e sceneggiato da Foreman, il film venne interpretato anche
come un'allegoria dell'America maccartista.
La costruzione del film, il quale si svolge nell'arco di due ore,
rispetta lo schema da morality play del western e la missione morale
dell'eroe ("quest" cavalleresca dell'ideale), ma tutto e' sovraccarico di
tensioni psicologiche (i personaggi hanno una struttura interna!) e di
metafore universalizzanti.
A questo capolavoro di Foreman, Zinnemann diede un montaggio nobile e
angosciato e una fotografia arcaica.
From Here To Eternity (1952), una scialba riduzione da Jones, con un cast di stelle che
ottenne un grande successo , e' un melodramma prolisso, ambientato alla vigilia di Pearl
Harbour tra le truppe dei marines. Con questo film Zinnemann entra nella logica dello
star system e delle convenzioni di Hollywood.
Diresse infatti Oklahoma (1955), il celebre
musical di Rodgers e Hammarstein, e poi A Hatful Of Rain (1957), uno dei primi film sui
drogati incapaci di disintossicarsi.
The Nun's Story (1959), adapted from Kathryn Hulme's novel (that was
extremely popular at the time),
traccia l'itinerario morale di una missionaria Belga insofferente della
disciplina ecclesiastica, la quale decide di abbandonare l'abito religioso per
potersi dedicare alla vera carita' cristiana in tempo di guerra, aiutando
anche la Resistenza.
Gabrielle (Audrey Hepburn) leaves her family (and her influential father)
for the convent, to become
Sister Luke. She is indoctrinated and is ready to leave for missionary work.
She passes a tough examination on tropical diseases (despite her mother
superior's advice to fail in order to show humility) but her father intercedes
so that she is not sent to Africa but to a local mental hospital.
She is finally allowed to leave for Congo, where she enthusiastically joins
the team of a clever and handsome doctor in the operating room.
Her only trouble is the discipline that is "inflicted" on the nuns. She is not
allowed to discuss, chat, etc.
She witnesses a random act of violence when an African hacks the death one of
the nuns. She is sent back to Europe. Again, bureaucracy interferes with her
true vocation. She is sent to a hospital where she witnesses the brutality
of the war that has just started (Germany has invaded Belgium and Holland).
She receives a letter from her brother Pierre that her father has been killed
by Germans for protecting refugees. She decides to leave the convent.
Benche' ambientata nei grandi spazi aperti,
Sundowners (1960) e' fondamentalmente una commedia domestica,
ambientata nell'Australia degli anni Venti.
A nomadic shepherd, his wife and their son reach a town in search for work.
Paddy finds it right away and gets drunk at the saloon. His son meets a nice
Englishman who helps him rescue his father from the saloon and joins them
as a sheep driver.
The shepherd's wife dreams of a permanent home, but they can hardly make ends
meet.
They lead the sheep to another town and cash in. Paddy is ready to move on
and leave the town behind, but his wife and his son want to settle down, and
they convince him to take a job shearing sheep at a farm. The whole family
gets employed by the owner, who also hires the Englishman. While the latter
starts flirting with the saloon owner, Paddy's wife becomes the chef of the
farm. The only problem is that Paddy is rather unhappy with a routine: he
needs open spaces and adventure. They convince him to stay a little longer
in order to compete in a shearing context. He loses it, but his wife has
saved enough money to purchase a farm. He hates the idea. They manage to
take him there for a night. All he has to do is pay: instead, he gambles
the money and loses it all. Whether by destiny or by design, he caused them
to become nomads again. There is still one chance: their son has entered
a horse race. He wins the first prize, and Paddy is ready to sell the horse
and purchase the farm. Now it is his wife who doesn't want it, because she
doesn't want him to be unhappy for the rest of his life. As they are arguing
about buying the farm, the jury decides to disqualify their son for an
irregularity. They burst out laughing and move on.
Behold A Pale Horse (1964): durante la guerra civile spagnola un rivoluzionario uccide un
sadico capitano di polizia.
A Man For All Season (1966) e' la biografia di Thomas More.
The Day Of The Jackal (1973), based on a Forsyth novel, is a
fanta-political thriller that has zero depth. It is a mere tour of Europe
a` la James Bond, without the high-tech gadgets and without the sexy
partners. The plot is basically an elaborate implausible plan to stage
a major terrorist act. It is even more predictable than the average Hollywood
plot. The direction is superficial at best.
The "Jackal" is the professional hitman hired by a group of French "patriots"
who want to eliminate French president Charles Degaulle, guilty of having
surrendered in Algeria.
The police is puzzled by a series of bank robberies carried out by the
anti-Degaulle terrorists.
In the meantime, the Jackal begins his meticolous preparation for the
job by traveling to Rome, where he investigates in libraries, steals
a Danish passports, and orders a special gun to be built.
(All Italians and French have a cute English accent, so it's always a bit hard
to figure out someone's nationality - luckily the Italians whistle "Volare").
The French police are monitoring members of the terrorist group in Rome,
but don't quite understand what they are up to. They use all means: they
even torture one of the members of the group. In the meantime, the "patriots"
brutally assign a young girl to seduce an old minister of the government,
so that she can spy on what the authorities know.
The French authorities have figured out that the terrorists are planning
a major strike, and that a man is in charge, but they can't find out the name
of this person because nobody, even the members of terrorist group: they
only know his nickname, "the jackal".
know it. The French decide to assign the case to their brightest detective.
Finally, the French find out the jackal's real identity and begin a colossal
hunt for him. But he has already crossed into France, and has seduced a dumb
noble woman. The police are following his moves, but always arrive too late
to arrest him. He kills the woman, changes identity again and takes a train
to Paris. The police keeps missing him because the girl tips him off every
time after the detective reports to the ministers. The detective figures
out that there is a mole, and eventually the minister is identified and has
to resign (and later commits suicide).
The detective finds out his new fake identity as a Danish teacher,
and has the face of the teacher broadcast on television. The jackal has made
a new friend and is staying at his place, to avoid the police searches in
all the hotels. When his friend sees his face on television, the jackal
has to kill him too. The detective suspects that the jackal is planning to
strike during the parade of a national holiday, and the national holiday
has come. The police are on maximum alert, but would miss him if the detective
did not have the final stroke of genius and caught the jackal just one second
before he pulled the trigger.
Julia (1977) racconta l'amicizia tra due donne, una scrittrice (Fonda) e un'aristocratica
ebrea (Redgrave). Dopo essere cresciute insieme, si sono separate: l'una, ambiziosa, in
America, e l'altra, idealista e ribelle, a Vienna. Quando scoppiano le persecuzioni contro
gli ebrei, Redgrave viene picchiata dai nazisti; Fonda va a trovarla, poi torna in patria,
ormai scrittrice famosa. Si ritrovano alla vigilia della guerra: Redgrave lavora con la
resistenza (nonostante sia l'erede di un immenso patrimonio in America) e chiede all'amica
di portare a Berlino una somma ingente che serve a comprare la fuga di famiglie ebree.
Fonda compie la missione e a Berlino incontra l'amica per l'ultima volta prima che venga
assassinata. Fonda si dedica allora a rintracciare la figlia, ma invano: nessuno la aiuta e alla
fine deve rassegnarsi.
Delicato, nostalgico, sensibile ritratto di due donne e di un'epoca.
Five Days One Summer (1982) e' una commedia romantica altrettanto atmosferica, in cui
Connery e' un dottore scozzese in vacanza sulle Alpi svizzere che si innamora di una
nipote.
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