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Italian veterans angry at Spike Lee
Variety reports that Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna” is raising historical hackles in Italy, where the WWII drama — which links an antifascist Italian partisan resistance group to the 1944 Nazi massacre of 560 Italian civilians — is being blasted as a misrepresentation of the facts.
The film’s press screening in Rome Monday, Sept. 30, saw Lee and scriptwriter James McBride forced onto the defensive over the movie’s linking of an antifascist Italian partisan resistance group to the 1944 Nazi massacre of 560 Italian civilians.
Miracle at St Anna suggests that a partisan named Rodolfo collaborated with the Nazis, indirectly sparking the slaughter. Not so, say veteran organizations, who fear the film could cause history to be rewritten.
“This is a fictional story,” McBride said. “The real question for me was how to make ‘St. Anna’ a reveal, because that is the craft of fiction. I am very sorry if I have offended the partisans. I have enormous respect for them. As a black American, we understand what it’s like for someone to tell your history, and they are not you. But unfortunately, the history of World War II here in Italy is ours as well, and this was the best I could do.”
For his part, Lee was a little less conciliatory:
“I am not apologizing for anything,” Lee said. “I think these questions are evidence that there is still a lot about your history during the war that you (the Italians) have got to come to grips with. This film is no clear picture of what happened. It is our interpretation, and I stand behind it.”
Lee has said that his previous comments about director Clint Eastwood’s omitting stories of black soldiers in “Flags of our Fathers” and “Letters from Iwo Jima” could hurt the film’s chance at an Oscar. “Miracle at St Anna” was a minor box office hit last weekend.
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