Contempt - Alberto Moravia [35]
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