Le Quattro Giornate di Napoli: A Glorified Insurrection

“Applaudite!, Applaudite!” is what was shouted to over 7,000 Neapolitans,

who were forced at gunpoint to watch the execution of an innocent young sailor

while applauding and crying at the site of a burning University.1 Despite the

armistice and the encroaching American troops, the Nazis nevertheless bitterly and

systematically besieged their former allies with a barbaric degree of vengeance. The

Four Days of Naples is the glorified story of the Neapolitan insurrection that

successfully forced the Germans to retreat from Naples. Accented by chaotic

guerrilla warfare and the contribution of nearly every social group, this

spontaneous collective effort has not only been glorified as a heroic national event

of Naples, but has been represented and portrayed through various mediums,

particularly that of film, photography, and literature. Le Quattro Giornate di Napoli

is hailed as a glorified spontaneous insurrection through the authentic, yet tragic

portrayal of a guerrilla style revolt against the Nazi enslavement of Neapolitans in

the eyes of film director Nanni Loy, as a resistance fought and won by the scugnizzi

of Naples who bravely took arms against the Germans, and as a male-dominated

retaliation against Nazism led by young idealistic heroes. These mediums of film,

photography and literature fit together to construct a romanticized and glorified

tale of the successful Neapolitan insurrection that became a precedent for future

resistance in a post armistice Italy.

1 Other Italy 35

Praised for historical accuracy and cinematic brilliance, Nanni Loy’s “Le

Quattro Giornate di Napoli” coherently merges the psychology and physicality of

urban warfare in Naples in an effort to reproduce the same rage and patriotism once

felt by the Neapolitans of 1943 in the minds of its viewers. This is achieved

primarily through the pointed use of panoramic cinematography, emotionally latent

scenes and chaotic guerrilla battles. The film opens with the jubilant outcries of

Neapolitans as they flood the streets shouting ironically, “We've lost the war!”2 This

hints that the events to come are not out of conventional patriotism, instead they

are birthed through the resentment of the oppressed. Clarence Peterson of the

Chicago Tribune contends that Nanni Loy employs a series of “hit and run shots of a

city in celebration and revolt” to embody the chaotic atmosphere of the resistance

itself.3 Loy deliberately spends more time building tension than constructing a plot

in order to transcend the psychological tension of Neapolitans to the minds of his

audience. As the Nazis enact the forced migration of all inhabitants within 300

meters of the sea line, Loy fixates on the distress and frustration of a mother

attempting to provide and keep track of four young children amongst a chaotic

crowd of migrating Italians. This is the beginning of a cinematographic technique

used to progressively intensify the suspense and distress of the situation as the

confinements of the Nazi siege take an increasing toll on the Neapolitan inhabitants,

ultimately sparking spontaneous revolts.

2 Nowell3 Peterson

After the Nazis systematically detonate several industrial structures on and

along the coastline, the Nazi commander of Naples, Col. Scholl, called for all males

born between 1910 and 1925 to report for obligatory labor, so that they may be

transported to German labor camps in the north. Loy makes sure that his audience

is the first one to hear this rumor. Instead of portraying the announcement as words

from the Nazi commanders, Loy proceeds to follow this development through the

continued hit-and-run technique by tracking the spread and reaction to this rumor

via word-of-mouth. He makes it clear that Nazis showed an utter disregard for social

class, political affiliation or age when recruiting men for labor. Even a returning

Italian war veteran, suffering from wounds, is pried away from his child and wife to

join the other hundreds of men forcefully extracted from their homes by German

soldiers.4 To stress the psychological dismay even further, Loy redirects us to the

element of starvation, as we are forced to relate with the pitiful and almost tragic

scene of a mother refusing to eat once again for the sake of her children. This

coupled with the massacre of Neapolitans attempting to escape by boat, build

tensions to the breaking point of the first insurrection during which men under

gunpoint are able to overcome several German soldiers with the help of a few hand

grenades in the Plaza. During this spontaneous battle, two of the men are shot and

killed, allowing the Partisans to use their bodies as patriotic symbols of recruitment

as the fighters attempt to solicit the remaining Neapolitans in revolt. From this

moment forward, the pace of the movie nearly doubles, conveying the spontaneity

of the violent uprisings that occurred against the Germans across several sections of

4

Naples. DeBlasio states clearly that, "there were no generals or politicians to lead

the Neapolitans, no plan of attack, just the feeling that they could stand no more."5

The spontaneity of this insurrection is precisely what Loy attempts to underscore

through his deliberate and rapid camera scenes as the tension builds and erupts.

The infamous photographer Robert Capa also captured this heroic

insurrection authentically via the photographs he took on an assignment for LIFE

magazine. Capa accompanied the American troops during the invasion of Sicily in

July and August of 1943. He took several photographs following the American

advancement from Sicily to the mainland Italy, producing a couple of iconic photos

that captured the liberation and aftermath of a post rebellious Naples. Upon

entering Naples, Capa encountered the funeral of twenty schoolboys from the

Vomero district of Naples who were led by their teacher to rebel against the

Germans. Photos of this funeral and other scugnizzi were exclusively the subject of

Robert Capa's portfolio for Naples and therefore helped to produce a bias

representation of the events. Robert Capa did an excellent job of capturing the

mourning and emotion of Neapolitan mothers who lost young boys during the

insurrection. This coupled with a fixation on the scugnizzi of the rebellion made it

seem to readers of LIFE magazine as though “gangs of young boys forced the

Germans out of Naples.”6 Though his selectivity caused inaccurate assumptions

about the events that took place, Capa nevertheless manages to capture the

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authentic emotion and reality of the tragic fight Neapolitans endured to rid

themselves of the Germans.

One of his images captures the anger and sadness of a group of Neapolitan

mothers flashing the photo of a young boy recently killed during the rebellion.

Another photo fixates on the coffin of a fallen schoolboy, whose feet over extend the

size of the coffin. Robert admits that, “these children's feet were my real welcome to

Europe, I who had been born there.”7 It is clear that Capa, being a Hungarian, related

on a personal level with the sacrifices made by these children against the Germans.

As a result he only took pictures of the scugnizzi and those who mourned for the

deceased patriots, forgetting to include the rest of the rebel participants and their

sacrifices. This selective representation of the insurrection as a rebellion led by the

children of Naples serves as one of the most common interpretations of the event,

due to the widespread audience these photos were immediately delivered to via

publishing in LIFE magazine. Consequently, many Italians and Americans believed

that the revolt was exclusively that of the scugnizzi’s successful attempt to force the

Germans out of their city.

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