Contempt (10 page)

“One can work anywhere, Signor Battista,” said Rheingold; “certainly Capri might be useful...especially if, as I think, we take the exterior shots of the film in the Bay of Naples.”

“Exactly...Rheingold, however, says he would rather go to a hotel, because he has his own habits and, besides, he likes to be alone at certain times and to think over the work by himself. But I think that you, Molteni, might stay at the villa, together with your wife. It would be a pleasure for me, if at last there was someone living there...The villa has every convenience, and you would have no difficulty in finding a woman to look after you...”

At once I thought of Emilia, as always; and I felt that a stay in a lovely villa in Capri might perhaps solve many difficulties. What I am saying is true: all of a sudden, for no reason, I was absolutely certain that it would indeed solve them. It was therefore with genuine warmth that I thanked Battista. “Thank you,” I said. “I also think that Capri would be the best possible place for writing the script...and my wife and I would be delighted to stay at your villa.”

“Excellent; that’s understood, then,” said Battista, holding up his hand, with a gesture that vaguely offended me, as if to check a flood of gratitude which I really had no intention of letting loose. “That’s understood; you’ll go to Capri and I’ll come and join you there. And now let us talk a little about the film.”

“High time too!” I thought, and looked closely at Battista. I had, now, an obscure feeling of remorse at having accepted his invitation so promptly. I did not know why, but I guessed instinctively that Emilia would have disapproved of my hastiness. “I ought to have told him I must think it over,” I said to myself with some irritation, “that I must first consult my wife.” And the warmth with which I had accepted the invitation seemed to me misplaced, a thing to be almost ashamed of. Battista, meanwhile, was saying: “We’re all agreed that something new in the way of films has got to be found. The after-the-war period is now over, and people are feeling the need of a new formula. Everyone—just to give an example—is a little tired of neo-realism. Now, by analyzing the reasons for which we have grown tired of the neo-realistic film, we may perhaps arrive at an understanding of what the new formula might be.”

I knew, as I have already mentioned, that Battista’s favorite way of attacking a subject was always an indirect one. He was not a cynical type of man, or at any rate he was determined not to appear so. Thus it was very difficult for him to speak openly, as did many other producers franker than he, about financial matters: the question of profit, no less important to him than to the others—in fact, perhaps even more important—remained always shrouded in a discreet obscurity; and if—let us suppose—the subject of a film did not seem to him sufficiently profitable, he would never say, like the others: “This subject won’t put a penny into the cash-box,” but rather: “I don’t like this subject for such and such a reason”; and the reasons were always of an aesthetic or moral order. Nevertheless, the question of profit was always the final touchstone; and the proof of this was to be seen when, after many discussions upon the beautiful and the good in the art of the film, after a good many of what I called Battista’s smoke-screens, the choice fell, invariably, upon the solution that held the best commercial possibilities. Owing to this, I had for some time now lost all interest in the considerations, often extremely long and complicated, put forward by Battista on films beautiful or ugly, moral or immoral; and I waited patiently for him to reach the point where, always and inevitably, he came to a halt—the question of economic advantage. And this time I thought: “He certainly won’t say that the producers are tired of the neo-realistic film because it isn’t profitable...let’s see what he will say.” Battista, in fact, went on, after a moment’s reflection: “In my opinion, everyone is rather tired of the neo-realistic film mainly because it’s not a healthy type of film.”

He stopped and I looked sideways at Rheingold: he did not blink an eyelid. Battista, who had intended, by pausing, to stress the word “healthy,” now went on to explain it. “When I say that the neo-realistic film is not healthy, I mean that it is not a film that inspires people with courage to live, that increases their confidence in life. The neo-realistic film is depressing, pessimistic, gloomy. Apart from the fact that it represents Italy as a country of ragamuffins—to the great joy of foreigners who have every sort of interest in believing that our country really
is
a country of ragamuffins—apart from this fact which, after all, is of considerable importance, it insists too much on the negative sides of life, on all that is ugliest, dirtiest, most abnormal in human existence. It is, in short, a pessimistic, unhealthy type of film, a film which reminds people of their difficulties instead of helping them to overcome them.”

I looked at Battista and once again I remained uncertain as to whether he really believed the things he was saying or only pretended to believe them. There was sincerity of a kind in what he said; perhaps it was only the sincerity of a man who easily convinces himself of the things that are useful to him; nevertheless, sincerity there was. Battista went on speaking, in that voice of strangely inhuman timbre, almost metallic even in its sweetness. “Rheingold has made a suggestion which interested me...He has noticed that in recent times films with subjects taken from the Bible have been highly successful. They have been, in fact, the best money-makers,” he observed at this point, almost pensively, but as though opening a parenthesis to which he himself wished no importance to be paid. “And why? In my opinion, because the Bible remains always the
healthiest
book that has ever been written in this world...And so Rheingold said to me, the Anglo-Saxon races have the Bible, and you Mediterranean peoples, on the other hand, have Homer. Isn’t that so?” He interrupted himself and turned towards Rheingold, as if uncertain that he was quoting him correctly.

“That’s it, exactly,” confirmed Rheingold, not without an expression of slight anxiety on his smiling face.

“To you Mediterranean peoples,” continued Battista, still quoting Rheingold, “Homer is what the Bible is to the Anglo Saxons...And so why shouldn’t we make a film from, for instance, the
Odyssey
?”

There was silence. Astonished, I wanted to gain time, and so I asked, with an effort: “The whole
Odyssey
, or an episode from the
Odyssey
?”

“We’ve discussed the matter,” Battista answered promptly, “and we’ve come to the conclusion that it will be best to take into consideration the
Odyssey
as a whole. But that doesn’t matter. What matters most,” he went on, raising his voice, “is that, in re-reading the
Odyssey
, I’ve at last understood what I’ve been looking for for so long without realizing it...something that I felt could not be found in neo-realistic films—something, for instance, that I’ve never found in the subjects that you, Molteni, have suggested to me from time to time recently...something that I, in fact, have been feeling—without being able to explain it to myself—have been feeling was needed in the cinema as it is needed in life—poetry.”

I looked again at Rheingold: he was still smiling, perhaps a little more broadly than before, and was nodding his approval. I hazarded, rather dryly: “In the
Odyssey
, as one knows, there is plenty of poetry. The difficulty is to get it over into the film.”

“Quite right,” said Battista, taking up a ruler from the desk and pointing it at me; “quite right...but to do that, there are you two, you and Rheingold. I know there’s poetry in it...it’s up to you to pull it out.”

I replied: “The
Odyssey
is a world in itself...one can get out of it what one wants. It depends what point of view one brings to it.”

Battista seemed now to be disconcerted by my lack of enthusiasm, and was examining me with ponderous intentness as though trying to guess what purposes I was concealing behind my coldness. At last he appeared to be postponing his scrutiny to a later occasion, for he rose to his feet and, making his way around the table, started walking up and down the room, his head held high, his hands thrust into the hip pockets of his trousers. We turned to look at him; and, still walking up and down, he resumed: “What struck me above all in the
Odyssey
is that Homer’s poetry is always spectacular...and when I say spectacular, I mean it has something in it that infallibly pleases the public. Take for example the Nausicaa episode. All those lovely girls dressed in nothing at all, splashing about in the water under the eyes of Ulysses who is hiding behind a bush. There, with slight variations, you have a complete Bathing Beauties scene. Or take Polyphemus: a monster with only one eye, a giant, an ogre...why, it’s King Kong, one of the greatest pre-war successes. Or take again Circe, in her castle...why, she’s Antinea, in
Atlantis
. That’s what I call spectacle. And this spectacle, as I said, is not merely spectacle but poetry too...” Much excited, Battista stopped in front of us and said solemnly: “That’s how I see a film of the
Odyssey
produced by Triumph Films.”

I said nothing. I realized that, to Battista, poetry meant something very different from what I understood by it; and that, according to his conception of it, the
Odyssey
of Triumph Films would be a film based upon the big Biblical and costume films of Hollywood, with monsters, naked women, seduction scenes, eroticism and grandiloquence. Fundamentally, I told myself, Battista’s taste was still that of the Italian producers of the time of D’Annunzio, how indeed could it have been otherwise? In the meantime he had made his way back around the desk and sat down again, and was saying to me: “Well, Molteni, what do you say to it?”

Anyone who knows the world of the cinema knows that there are films of which one can be certain, even before a single word of the script has been written, that they will be brought to a final conclusion; while there are others which, even after the contract has been signed and hundreds of pages of the screen-play completed, will equally surely never be finished. So now I, with the experience of the professional script-writer, recognized immediately, even while Battista was speaking, that this
Odyssey
film was, precisely, one of those which are much discussed but, in the end, never made. Why should this be so? I could not have said; perhaps it was because of the inordinate ambitiousness of the work, perhaps it was Rheingold’s physical appearance, so majestic when he was seated, so meager when he stood up. I felt that, like Rheingold, the film would have an imposing beginning and a paltry conclusion, thus justifying the well-known remark about the Siren:
desinit in piscem
, she ends up in a fish. And then, why did Battista want to make such a film? I knew that he was fundamentally very prudent, and determined to make money without taking risks. Probably, I thought, beneath his desire there lay the hope of obtaining solid financial support, perhaps even American support, by playing upon the great name of Homer—the Bible, as Rheingold had remarked, of the Mediterranean peoples. But on the other hand I knew that Battista, no different from other producers in this respect, would find some pretext, supposing the film were never made, for refusing to give me any remuneration for my hard work. It always happened like that: if the film failed to come off, payments also failed to come off, and the producer, generally, suggested transferring the emolument for the already completed script to other work to be done in the future; and the poor script-writer, forced by necessity, did not dare to refuse. I said to myself, therefore, that I must in any case forearm myself by asking for a contract and, above all, an advance; and that to achieve this goal there was only one method: to place difficulties in the way, to set a high price upon my collaboration. So I answered, tartly: “I think it’s a very good idea.”

“You don’t seem, however, to be very enthusiastic.”

I replied, with a sufficient show of sincerity: “I am afraid it may not be my kind of film...it may be beyond my powers.”

“Why?” Battista seemed irritated now. “You’ve always said you wanted to work at a film of quality...and now that I give you the chance, you draw back.”

I tried to explain what I meant. “You see, Battista, I feel myself to be cut out chiefly for psychological films...whereas this one, as far as I understand, is to be a purely spectacular film...of the type, in fact, of the American films taken from Biblical subjects.”

This time Battista had no time to answer me, for Rheingold, in a wholly unexpected manner, broke in. “Signor Molteni,” he said, summoning back his usual half-moon smile on to his face, rather like an actor suddenly sticking on a pair of false mustaches; and leaning forward slightly, with an obsequious, almost fawning expression. “Signor Battista has expressed himself very well and has given a perfect picture of the film I intend to realize with his help. Signor Battista, however, was speaking as a producer, and was taking into account, more especially, the spectacular elements. But if you feel yourself cut out for psychological subjects, you ought, without any possible doubt, to do this film...because this film is neither more nor less than a film on the psychological relationship between Ulysses and Penelope...I intend to make a film about a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return.”

I was disconcerted by this, all the more so because Rheingold’s face, illuminated by his usual artificial smile, was very close to me and seemed to cut me off from any possible loophole of escape: I had to reply, and at once. And then, just as I was about to protest: “But it’s not true that Penelope does not love Ulysses,” the director’s phrase “a man who loves his wife and is not loved in return” brought me suddenly back to the problem of my relations with Emilia—the relations, precisely, of a man who loved his wife and was not loved in return; and, at the same time, through some mysterious association of ideas, it brought to the surface of my memory a recollection which—as I immediately became aware—seemed to provide an answer to the question I had put to myself in the anteroom, while I was waiting to see Battista: why did Emilia no longer love me?