Spike Lee film angers Italy's surviving partisans
- From: ":))" <bennypooh0@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 13:46:49 -0700
Wednesday October 1 12:46 PM ET
Film director Spike Lee has set off a storm in Italy with a movie
about black American soldiers fighting alongside Italian partisans in
World War Two.
Surviving members of the resistance to the Nazi occupation of Italy
have taken issue with "Miracle at St. Anna" ahead of the film's
Italian release on Friday, distributing protest flyers and accusing
Lee of distorting history.
Lee has said he wanted to set the record straight about the role
played by black U.S. soldiers in the war. The film is based on a novel
by James McBride and focuses on the all-black 92nd Buffalo Division
which helped liberate Italy in 1944-45.
At the heart of the dispute is the film's depiction of an infamous
1944 massacre in the Tuscan town of Sant'Anna di Stazzema, where Nazi
troops rounded up and killed 560 civilians.
In the film, the massacre is portrayed as a response to the actions of
resistance fighters, with one of them betraying the town and colluding
with the Nazis -- a version of events that has angered surviving
partisans.
Lee, who is in Italy promoting the film, has responded to the
criticism in his characteristically feisty manner.
"I would not allow anybody to tell me how to make a film, be it a
partisan or the president of the United States," Lee told a news
conference in Florence on Wednesday after a preview screening,
according to Italian media.
"This simply shows that in Italy the wound is still open. ... It is up
to Italians to come to grips with their past, not up to me or James
McBride or the film," he said.
Members of the ANPI association of resistance fighters were not
amused.
"For Spike Lee the partisans who 'hit and then ran away' were
responsible for the Sant'Anna di Stazzema massacre," ANPI said on its
website.
"Before shooting his film, the director should have read the truth
about that horrible slaughter," it said, posting a copy of the 2005
verdict of an Italian military tribunal which convicted 10 ex-Nazi
officers for the murders.
(Reporting by Silvia Aloisi)
Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited All rights reserved.
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