The four days of Naples (film)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
German title The four days of Naples
Original title Le quattro giornate di Napoli
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1962
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Nanni Loy
script Carlo Bernari ,
Pasquale Festa Campanile ,
Massimo Franciosa ,
Nanni Loy,
Vasco Pratolini
production Goffredo Lombardo
music Carlo Rustichelli
camera Marcello Gatti
cut Ruggero Mastroianni
occupation

The four days of Naples is an Italian war film from the year 1962 , based on real events. It is about a four-day, successful uprising of the people of Naples (the Four Days of Naples ) against the German occupation forces in 1943.

action

On September 8, 1943, General Pietro Badoglio of the Italian Army signed the Cassibile armistice with the Allies. When the news reaches Naples, the residents celebrate in the streets. But the joy is short-lived. The Germans see the contract as a fraud. German units take possession of the military facilities. After four days the occupation of the city is complete.

The Germans try to keep the population in check with reprisals. The commandant orders the execution of the Italian seaman Livornese. The residents are supposed to witness the execution on their knees and applaud. The male residents between 5 and 50 are taken to German camps for forced labor .

An uprising broke out in Naples on September 28th. The resistance movement, planless and unorganized, is getting a lot of popularity. Now the Germans are on the defensive. The rebels fight with previously hidden ammunition and improvised weapons, they erect barricades, place snipers and let grenades explode under German tanks. The young Gennaro Capuozzo, killed during the fighting, is made a hero. Four days later, on October 1, 1943, the German Wehrmacht withdrew from Naples. Allied troops enter the city that has been liberated from its own inhabitants.

Reactions in Germany

When The Four Days of Naples in Italy premiered in November 1962 in a major gala premiere, violent protests against this film appeared in numerous German newspapers, which among other things was described as inflammatory film and anti-German. The world demanded diplomatic intervention by the Foreign Office, the German embassy in Rome intervened, and Berthold Martin (CDU), member of the Bundestag , chairman of the cultural policy committee, condemned the film because it sabotaged "the European idea and the idea of ​​international reconciliation" .

It was not until April 1963 that the film was submitted to the FSK for examination. The examiners called in several Wehrmacht officers as well as a historian and an international law expert as experts, as well as representatives from the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense and the Foreign Office. Although Wilhelm Alff from the Munich Institute for Contemporary History referred to a large number of Italian sources, according to which the shown actions of the Germans did occur if not in Naples, then in other Italian cities, but the officers present rejected the portrayals of the film on the threat of an oath of honor categorically and instead described the benefits of the German military administration in Naples. A large majority of the working committee refused to release the film because it falsified historical truth. This was also confirmed by the main committee that was called.

In mid-September 1963, the FSK's Legal Committee met again to discuss the film. This coincided with violent censorship allegations in the media about the FSK's requirements for the release of the film The Enclosed . Under these changed circumstances, the legal committee released the film on the grounds that historical facts were not falsified simply because the acts shown did not take place in the specified location of Naples.

Reviews

The lexicon of international films wrote that the anti-fascist film, which was controversial at the time and only approved by the FSK in a third instance, begins as a carefully constructed image of war and ends as an undifferentiated partisan cinema.

Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote that it was one of those films that you will never forget. Almost every scene is packed with eloquence and meaning.

Awards

background

The film premiered in Italy on November 16, 1962. In Germany it was released in cinemas on December 20, 1963.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Kniep: “No youth release!” Film censorship in West Germany 1949–1990 , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2010, pp. 166–168
  2. ↑ The four days of Naples. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  3. ↑ Critique of the New York Times (Eng.)