Changing my mind: occasional essays - By Zadie Smith Page 0,79

social reality. What neorealismo needs . . . ‘dangerous’ mixture of reality and romanticism.”

He found the perfect objective correlative in the summer life of the Roman projects: reality on the inside, cinema in the outside (courtyard). Inside, Maddalena’s reality is stark: she earns the little lire she has going door to door, giving injections to invalids and hypochondriac ladies, a business that survives more on Maddalena’s charm than the efficacy of her “medicines.” Otherwise, alliances with other women prove hard to forge. In Italy, your mother-in-law (suocera, a perfectly vile-sounding word) is your nemesis, the other mothers are your competitors and the gossiping neighbors in the stairwell, your daily tormentors. But there is also a practical, strategic sisterhood, which makes itself visible in times of crisis. When Spartaco physically attacks Maddalena (she has spent money they don’t have on a dress for Maria’s screen test), the women of the housing estate invade the Cecconi apartment, another chorus, heavyset and loud-mouthed, outnumbering Spartaco, who has Maria in his arms and is trying to take her away, as his paternal property. Maddalena is hysterical: she screams and weeps. It is, as far as an expat is concerned, a scene of horrific domestic terror. A raging Spartaco calls the women balene, whales (the English translation—one of many poor examples—renders it “cows”), and they sing a whale song of overlapping accusation. Visconti, an opera buff, choreographs the scene as an echo of the RAI choir.

“You only do it because I’m weaker!” cries Maddalena.

“Spartaco, today you really crossed the line!” cry the whales.

“I want my daughter to be somebody. . . . Am I entitled to feel this way or not? . . . She mustn’t depend on anyone or get beaten like me!”

“Spartaco, she went all the way to Piazza Vittorio to a man with diabetes!”

“I’m full of bruises! I’m all swollen!”

“Spartaco, she’s made so many sacrifices!”

“Maddalena, stop acting,” yells Spartaco, to the outrage of the whales, as Maddalena collapses into a chair. Frightened he may have gone too far, he releases the child to the protection of one of them, and runs from the house.

“Women like me,” said the actress Anna Magnani, “can only submit to men capable of dominating them, and I have never found anyone capable of dominating me.” It is the sort of statement to make an expat sigh. What is this mysterious deflected Italian feminism that can only take power discreetly, without ever saying that this is what it is doing? And what is an expat to make of the sudden evaporation of Maddalena’s tears (Spartaco was right!) as her face creases into a coy smile? The whales, nodding appreciatively at the art of the thing, pass the child, hand to hand, back to its mother. The crisis is averted.

Congratulations are due. Italy is truly the land of the sign and countersign, incomprehensible to outsiders. Maddalena begins to laugh.

“We’ve won, darling. If we didn’t do that, we wouldn’t get an audition. My dear, do you think I’m working for nothing?”

The director Vittorio De Sica called Magnani’s laugh “loud, overwhelming and tragic.” Tragic is a word men will reach for if called upon to describe women outside of their relation to men. In American cinema, a woman’s laugh is almost always flirtatious, a response to a male call. The unexpected thing about Magnani is that she makes herself laugh.

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In Italy, the right recommendation will get you through the door, to the top of the class, and behind the scenes. Maddalena’s has got her this far, into the editing room (“Mr. Annovazzi told me to come and see you”), where a beautiful young girl lines up the screen tests, ready to take downstairs to Blasetti and the producers. Maddalena, in the process of pleading for one more favor (she wants to be hidden in the projection room to watch her daughter’s test) recognizes the girl. Wasn’t she in that courtyard summer movie? Sotto il sole di Roma? The girl’s face contorts, a mix of pride and dejection. In Italy, a woman is the looked-at-thing, until people tire of looking at her, at which point she is cut loose:

“I don’t make films anymore. . . . I’m not an actress. They only hired me once or twice. . . . as I was the type they needed. I even got my hopes up. And I lost my boyfriend and my job. . . . I convinced myself I was so beautiful and so great, and yet I’m stuck here, doing the editing.