The Secret of Santa Vittoria

1969 US
Dir: Stanley Kramer
Str: Anthony Quinn, Hardy Kruger, Virna Lisi, Anna Magnani

It's funny I strongly feel 1960s in the movie The Secret of Santa
Vittoria.
I was born in 1960, and spent my very early years in 1960s. At that time, Japan was about to start the drastic economic growth spanning from the later 1960s to the earlier 1970s whereby Japanese people, I clearly remember, came to be known distinctively as economic animals by the people living in western countries. Compared to this duration, it seemed that Japan had quite bucolic atmosphere when I was just five years old or so, since that was before this frenetic economic growth took place. There is no doubt in that there was certainly an element that could be referred as the very essence of 1960s. You might say what I know about such things as were experienced when I was just a kid. In a sense, such suspicion is quite an adequate one. Yet it should be well considered that there is the possibility kids might be able to know more than grown-ups do because of their keen senses that haven't yet been so contorted by many of viases as to adapt themselves to the views of contemporary grown-ups. Anyway, although I don't know why, I always feel this sense of 1960s whenever I watch the movie The Secret of Santa Vittoria more than any other movies made during 1960s, even if the movie was made at the very end of 1960s. It's rather strange. For the movie is depicting an event happening in Italy during the WW2. Even there is a torture scene, and there appears German army troops led by Hardy Kruger. Nevertheless, the movie has familiar feel of 1960s for me, and that is one reason why I watch it frequently. It's, however, quite difficult to exactly point out what parts are typically 1960s-like. I will answer this question in the last paragraph briefly. But I'm going to explain the story first.
They try to hide millions of bottles of wine from German troops.
Which side will win? The villagers who are led by a clown Anthony
Quinn, or the Germans who are led by quite an efficient-looking
man Hardy Kruger.
The story has Anthony Quinn as a mayor of the village called Santa Vittoria. The reason why he has become the mayor is because he is an idiot. For the original members of the village congress whose position is at stake due to the downfall of Mussolini, he looks absolutely harmless. One day, he and his fellow villagers know Germans are coming, and they have an intention of confiscating millions of bottles of the wine the village stores in a wine cellar. Firstly, he becomes desperate, but when he has asked an Italian wounded soldier who is actually a deserter what he should do to counter the situation, the soldier answers that he should stash the wine in a cave so that it will appear there is no wine in the cave. He follows the soldier's advice, and let all the villagers carry that millions of bottles of the wine to the cave. Firstly it doesn't work because traffic hopelessly clogs. Again the soldier advises him to let the villagers formulate several lines starting at the wine cellar and all the way down to the cave, and let them pass the bottles one by one. Then it works. Furthermore, also by the advice from the soldier, he decides to leave a part of the bottles of the wine in the wine cellar to deceive Germans. Then the time comes the Germans marches into the village. He gets further advice from the soldier because he doesn't know how he should act in front of the Germans. And, as have been expected, the leader of the German troops (played by Hardy Kruger) asks him to give them the wine, and correctly guesses there must be more bottles than the ones left in the wine cellar. But Quinn stalls and stalls and stalls. As everybody knows, he is a clown, and never be an offspring of Niccol Machiavelli from whose book he frequently cites a phrase or two ever since he got it from a young villager (played by Giancarlo Giannini). As I will explain it later, being a clown is his strength, and he seems to be quite good at evading coming to the right spot for Kruger. There is even a torture scene by the hand of Gestapo officers. But the ones tortured don't know where the wine is, because they were being imprisoned on account of the vicious deeds they had done to villagers in the past years while the aforementioned hiding process was undertaken. Eventually the Gestapo officers give up. But Kruger doesn't. He Knows Quinn knows he knows there certainly is the wine somewhere in the village. Kruger's final attempt to locate the wine is to make a martyr. He declares if no one tells him where the wine is by the next morning, that wounded deserter will be executed. But the deserter is saved by a girl (played by Virna Lisi) who slept with Kruger on the condition he should be freed. Thus at last, Kruger must leave the village empty-handed.
Clowns as well as comedians have their own world where their
audience come to think of everything in their terms as long as the
audience stay in the world.
As I wrote in the plot summary, Quinn is considered by everybody, fellow villagers or enemies, as a clown. Even so, he succeeds in protecting the wine. Why so? I will explain it here. This rather comedic drama movie ends by the scene where Quinn imitates Kruger's act after Kruger has been astonished at the fact no one has tried to save Quinn who would be shot to kill if no one told Kruger where the wine was, and said "what kind of people are you?" while turning around with his index finger pointing at the villagers. At this point it becomes clear that the highly disciplined German officer has completely been fooled by a clown, and become a clown himself. This is the strategy of clowns. In usual circumstances, even if firstly the audience laugh at a clown, gradually the audience are dragged into his world, and come to think of everything in his terms as long as they stay in his world. Comedians also have this power. They involve their audience gradually into his world. I know someone said being a comedian is extremely difficult, because he must keep his audience laughing constantly, and one moment of silence might cause disastrous consequences for his reputation as a comedian. I guess this would be true. Yet one thing should be noted; that is, once he has established his own world, and succeeded in dragging his audience into it, whatever he speaks will necessarily elicit laughter among his audience even if it isn't funny for those who haven't been dragged into his world yet. For example, when I firstly watched Takeshi Kitano playing manzai (a kind of funny talk show) in a TV program about twon decades ago (Takeshi Kitano was and is a TV comedian, and better known as such than as a movie directer in Japan), he wasn't funny at all for me, though my friend insisted he was extremely funny. After I watched him several times, also I came to think he was funny, though his jokes have always been poignant and extremely harmful. The reason why, at first, I didn't think he was funny probably would, I guess retrospectively, lie in the point I wasn't so deeply involved into his world yet. In this regard, I don't want to watch such kind of TV programs (anyway I seldom watch any TV programs) as testing the skills of amateur comedians, and providing them with an opportunity to enter the world of professional comedians, though I don't know there are such kind of TV programs in your country (I know, as to the quality of TV programs, Japan is quite notorious). Because as the amateur comedians don't have such level of skills and styles as usual professional comedians have, I know it would actually become disastrous if their performance caused nothing but silence among their audience, and there would be no guarantee he could ever retrieve such a disastrous loss. As I'm essentially a timid boy, I don't want to watch any comedy performance with highly mounted tension. Besides, it's quite oxymoronic, a tension-mounted comedy. So the point is, as well as professional comedians who certainly have their own world where their audience come to think of everything in terms of their world, also clowns have their own unique world, and Anthony Quinn in The Secret of Santa Vittoria, as a clown, has definitely his own world too.
Anthony Quinn, as a clown, becomes quite an existence having pure
strength by the force of which whatever nears him will certainly be
sucked into his sphere, and organized in his own peculiar way.
There are, however, differences between comedians and clowns. Comedians sometimes become aggresive even when he seems to be acting in such a way all the laughs will be targeted at the comedians themselves. For, even in such a case, there might be real targets to which all the laughs are directed through the presence of the comedians. Conversely, clowns have never been critics. All the laughs targeted at them will definitely be absorbed within their presence, and, therefore, never reflect back to, or go through to, anywhere else. Ostensibly it might seem the strength of a clown is far weaker than the one of a comedian due to the fact clowns are rather passive as they absorb the laughs targeted at them. But it's not true. Because the fact all laughs are absorbed within them assures clowns of being independent of any external references. In short, he is on his own. Thus, once the audience are trapped in their world, all things will be sucked into their realm like everything is dragged into a black hole. Likewise, once Kruger is trapped in Quinn's realm, he will never win over Quinn. Furthermore, as a clown always makes things appear he is always on a weaker side, his audience mightn't even notice they are actually being trapped in his world. Another difference between comedians and clowns is, clowns can be everybody while comedians are comedians, never anyone else. In this movie, Quinn is always adopting someone else's opinion such as Giancarlo Giannini's or that wounded deserter's or even Niccol Machiavelli's. It might seem that having no opinion of his own suggests incompetence. But clowns magically turn the incompetence into competence. To put it another way, Quinn, as a clown, can become carte blanche on which anything can be drawn. By this blankness does he become quite an existence having pure strength by the force of which whatever nears him will certainly be sucked into his sphere, and organized in his own peculiar way. Thus he, like a vacuum cleaner, sucks not only his fellow villagers, but also his enemies; i.e. the Germans.
The Secret of Santa Vittoria has communal implications which we
can seldom find in recent movies.
Finally, really I would like to say the scenery of The Secret of Santa Vittoria is extremely beautiful, though, according to some source, all scenes were shot in Yugoslavia, not in Italy as it should be. Especially the aforementioned scene where all villagers are lining up in several lines from the wine cellar to the cave, and passing millions of bottles of wine down to the cave one by one and hand to hand is quite marvelous. Probably in my case, these bucolic atmosphere may have brought forth the ambiance of 1960s. Surely this movie mightn't be one of the best movies made by the hand of Stanley Kramer. Nevertheless I like it very much along with the scores written by Ernest Gold. Furthermore this movie certainly has communal implications in that it depicts villagers working cooperatively to hide the wine from the Germans led by Kruger. Among them, there are Anthony Quinn, Giancarlo Giannini, the deserter, Anna Magnani, and even Virna Lisi. These days, we can seldom find a drama movie having the element of communal relationships, for all recent drama movies seem to concentrate on quite personal matters (at best family issues), and never more, which seems to be reflecting the real life of modern days. Probably this also might be one of the reasons why I feel 1960s in this movie, for there still remained such an element in 1960s. Anyway, I can recommend this movie to everyone, though, as is often the case with Stanley Kramer's movies, the running time is on the long side (about 140 minutes).