Regia / Director: Roberto Rossellini, 1950
Storia / Story: Roberto Rossellini
Sceneggiatura / Screenplay: Sergio Amidei, Gian Paolo Callegari, Art Cohn & Renzo Cesana
Fotografia / Cinematography: Otello Martelli
Colonna sonora / Music: Renzo Rossellini
L'intertitolo di apertura – Primavera 1948 ...In uno dei campi di raccolta di stranieri che travolti dalla guerra si sono rifugiati in Italia... – è seguito da un'inquadratura notturna di un muro di cemento e di un recinto di filo spinato.
The opening intertitle – Spring 1948 …In one of the camps for foreigners who, overwhelmed by the war, took refuge in Italy… – is followed by a nighttime shot of a cement wall and a barbed wire fence.
Con uno specchio in mano, una donna si sta pettinando. “Mi presti la tua camicetta celeste?” chiede a un'altra, che risponde sprezzante, con un accento straniero: “Siete diventate tutte pazze voi da quando hanno messo i soldati dall'altra parte del campo”.
Sono nel dormitorio femminile.
Holding a mirror, a woman is combing her hair. “May I borrow your blue blouse?” she asks another, who replies scornfully, with a foreign accent, “You’ve all gone crazy since they put the soldiers on the other side of the camp.”
They’re in the women’s dormitory.
“Poveri uomini, sono stati prigionieri tanti anni. Ora che sono tornati hanno il diritto di divertirsi”.
Un'altra donna dice qualcosa in tedesco. La prima chiede: “Che cosa ha detto?”
“Ha detto che noi stiamo peggio perché non sappiamo che cosa è successo alle nostre famiglie e non abbiamo una casa dove andare”.
“Poor men, they were prisoners for so many years. Now that they’re back, they have the right to have fun.”
Another woman says something in German. The first asks, “What did she say?”
“She said we’re worse off because we don’t know what’s happened to our families and we have no homes to go to.”
Vediamo un gruppo di donne che chiacchierano. “Anche loro non sono qua per divertimento".
Una donna dice in italiano, con un accento spagnolo: “Il mio soldato sta ancora cercando sua madre e suo padre”.
“Povero ragazzo” – commenta un'altra donna in francese – “È così bello”.
“Vorrei che fosse il mio soldato!”
Ridono.
We see a group of women chatting. “They’re not here for fun either.”
A woman says in Italian, with a Spanish accent, “My soldier is still looking for his mother and father.”
“Poor boy,” comments another, in French. “He’s so handsome.”
“I wish he were my soldier!”
They laugh.
Si sente un uomo cantare in lontananza e una donna con una sigaretta chiede: “Karin? Senti il tuo innamorato?"
Qui sotto, in questo inferno, poveretti,
noi siamo condannati alla tirannia.*
Karin (Ingrid Berman) alza lo sguardo dal letto, dove sta giocando a solitario.
*“Canto di lavoro dei solfatai”
We hear a man singing in the distance, and a woman with a cigarette asks, “Karin? Do you hear your sweetheart?”
Here below, in this hell, poor things,
We are condemned to tyranny.*
Karin looks up from her bed, where she’s playing solitaire.
*“Work Song of the Sulphur Miners”
Lei sorride, annuisce e raccoglie le carte. Afferra un maglione e si alza. “Ci vediamo!”
Un crocifisso è appeso alla parete. In siciliano, il suo ragazzo canta una canzone popolare:
In questo inferno c'è un albero di rosa,
Non la toccate, che è la mia.*
*Nella “Canzone delle lavandaie” che canta ora, in realtà il testo è: “In questo cortile.” Così lui fa un collegamento tra le canzoni.
She smiles, nods, and gathers up her cards. Grabbing a sweater, she stands up. “See you!”
A crucifix hangs on the wall. In Sicilian, her sweetheart is singing a folk song:
In this hell there is a rose tree
Don’t touch it because it is mine.*
*In the “Song of the Washerwomen,” that he sings now, in fact the lyrics are: “In this courtyard.” In this way, he’s made a connection between the songs.
Le donne accompagnano Karin alla porta d'ingresso. Altre sono sedute fuori.
La sua amica dice: “Buona fortuna!”
“Lo spero”.
The women walk Karin to the front door. Others are sitting outside.
Her friend calls out, “Good luck!”
“I hope so.”
Karin attraversa il cortile, dove le donne passano il tempo in piccoli gruppi. Non c’è erba, ma ci sono alberi senza foglie.
Karin walks through the courtyard, where women pass the time in small groups. There’s no grass, but there are leafless trees.
Con aria preoccupata, Karin si dirige verso la voce.
Looking troubled, Karin moves toward the voice.
L'uomo è alla recinzione di filo spinato.
“Ciao”, dice lei in italiano.
“Buonasera”. Antonio (Mario Vitale), con i capelli scuri, tirati all'indietro, è un ex prigioniero di guerra.
The man is at the barbed wire fence.
“Hi,” she says, in Italian.
“Good evening.” Antonio, with dark hair, slicked back, is an ex-POW.
Lui le prende la mano attraverso la recinzione. “Che mi dici?”
“Fa freddo stasera”.
“Freddo? Invece di parole dolci, ti lamenti che fa freddo?”
Lei ride.
He takes her hand through the fence. “What’s new?”
“It’s cold tonight.”
“Cold? Instead of sweet words, you complain that it’s cold?”
She laughs.
Mentre lui sta infilando la testa attraverso il filo spinato per baciarla, passano dei soldati in uniforme. Parlano napoletano. “Ragazzi, andatevene! Qui non si può stare”.
Antonio risponde in siciliano. “Lasciatemi stare in pace”.
“Non voglio passare guai per voi”.
“Come se noi avessimo passato pochi guai! Va bene, ora me ne vado”.
As he’s squeezing his head through the barbed wire to kiss her, uniformed soldiers come by. They speak Neapolitan. “Guys, get out of here! You can’t be here.”
Antonio answers in Sicilian. “Leave me alone.”
“I’m not getting in trouble because of you guys.”
“Like we haven’t had a few troubles! All right, I’m leaving now.”
I soldati si spostano lungo la recinzione, dicendo a tutti gli uomini di andare via.
The soldiers move along the fence, telling all the men to leave.
Antonio accarezza i capelli di Karin e ricomincia a cantare la canzone che cantava prima:
Qui sotto, in questo inferno, poveretti,
siamo condannati alla tirannia.
Antonio strokes Karin’s hair and returns to the song that he had been singing first:
Down here, in this hell, poor guys
We are condemned to tyranny.
“Sai che mi piaci. Hai deciso? Mi prendi o mi lasci?”
“Non so. Che cosa vuoi dire?”
“O mi sposi o mi lasci?" Lei ride. “Perché ridi? Cosa c’è da ridere?”
“You know that I like you. Have you decided? Take me or leave me?”
“I don’t know. What do you mean?”
“Marry me or leave me?” She laughs. “Why are you laughing? What is there to laugh about?”
“Che pazzo! Tu non sai niente di me. Abbiamo parlato qualche volta dietro il filo spinato, e ora vuoi sposarmi?”
“Certo!”
“E se ti sbagli?”
“Tu mi piaci tanto! Sono pazzo di te!”
“You’re crazy. You don’t know anything about me. We’ve spoken a few times behind this barbed wire, and now you want to marry me?”
“Of course!”
“And if you’re making a mistake?”
“I like you so much! I’m crazy about you!”
“E se ti accorgi che sono differente da quello che pensi?”
“Conosco le donne. Se non ti comporti bene, ti faccio vedere io!” Agita la mano in aria.
“And if you find out that I'm different from what you think?”
“I know women. If you don’t behave, I’ll show you!” He shakes his hand in the air.
“Che cosa significa?” Lei imita il gesto. Poi mostra i diversi gesti italiani che ha imparato. “Conosco questo e quest'altro. Ma non so cosa significa questo”.*
*Per saperne di più sui gesti italiani, visitate la pagina del nostro blog intitolata La stanza di Père Jules. Lì troverete una guida a questi e altri gesti italiani, in gif tratte dal nostro cineracconto su Risate di Gioia. Per esercitarvi con i gesti, consultate il nostro esercizio, linkato in fondo all'ultima puntata del cineracconto Risate di Gioia.
"What does this mean?” She imitates the gesture. Then she shows the different Italian gestures she’s learned. “I know this one and this one. But I don’t know what this one means.”*
*For more on Italian gestures, go to our blog page called La stanza di Père Jules (Père Jules’ Room). There, you’ll see a guide to these and other Italian gestures, in gifs from our cineracconto on Risate di Gioia (The Passionate Thief). For practice with the gestures, see our exercise, linked at the bottom of the final installment of the Risate di Gioia cineracconto.
“Significa che te le do!”
“Oh, vuoi picchiarmi!” Lei ride.
“It means I’ll give it to you!”
“Oh, you want to beat me up!” She laughs.
Cercano di baciarsi di nuovo, ma il filo spinato li ostacola. “Mannaggia a questo affare!” si lamenta lui.
They try to kiss again, but the barbed wire is in the way. “Damn this thing!” he complains.
“Ti devi decidere” – insiste – “Non posso continuare a fare il lavativo per restare qua”.
“Se parli sul serio ti risponderò domani sera”.
“You have to decide,” he insists. “I can’t keep being a slacker to stay here.”
“If you really mean it, I’ll let you know tomorrow night.”
Karin torna al dormitorio con la sua amica, che sta ancora fumando. “È semplice e carino. Vive su un'isola nel Mediterraneo. Dice che è bellissima”.
“Ti piace?”
Con uno sguardo che esprime più delle parole, lei dice: “Parla uno strano dialetto. È divertente abbastanza, ma è un ragazzo”.
Karin goes back to the dormitory with her friend, who’s still smoking. “He’s simple and cute. He lives on an island in the Mediterranean. He says it’s beautiful.”
“Do you like him?”
With a look that expresses more than words, she says, “He speaks a strange dialect. He’s amusing enough, but he’s a boy.”
Entrano nel dormitorio. “Cosa farai?”
“Non lo so. Che posso fare? Vuole sposarmi. È pazzo. Vedrò domani. Tutto dipende dal mio visto per l'Argentina. Se non me lo danno, so quello che farò”.
They enter the dormitory. “What will you do?”
“I don’t know. What can I do? He wants to marry me. He’s crazy. I’ll see tomorrow. It all depends on my visa for Argentina. If they don’t give it to me, I know what I’ll do.”
FINE PARTE 1
Parte 2 of this cineracconto will be posted on Saturday, November 9. Subscribe to receive a weekly email newsletter with links to all our new posts.
NOTES ABOUT THE TRANSLATION:
The Italian text of this cineracconto (photo-story) has been carefully designed as a language-learning – and film appreciation – tool. Descriptions of scenes and comments on photography are crafted with the objective of giving readers an appreciation of the film, its themes, and cultural and historical context via a carefully written text.
For this film, Stromboli, terra di Dio, we have changed most of the Sicilian syntax and vocabulary to standard Italian. For example, we’ve translated the lyrics from the Siclian songs in Parte 1 – “Canto di lavoro di solfatai” (”Work Song of the Sulphur Miners”) and “Canzone delle lavandaie” (“Song of the Washerwomen,”) into standard Italian.
However, we sometimes maintain something of the Siclian syntax – or of the Italian syntax in the English translation – to give the reader more of a feel for the language. For example, in Parte 5, Aunt Rosaria says “A me casa,” rather than using the standard Italian “A casa mia” [At my house.]
Luckily for our readers, the main character, Karin (Ingrid Bergman) speaks a very basic Italian. Where she makes occasional errors, we’ve corrected them, so that the content is in correct, standard Italian. For instance, in parte 5, she says, “Sono diverso”. [I’m different.] We've changed that to “Sono diversa.”
We believe in translating ideas, not words, so that the target language (English in this case) sounds standard. For example, from Parte 1, we’ve translated “Se parli sul serio ti risponderò domani sera” [Literally: If you are speaking seriously, I’ll answer you tomorrow night.] as “If you really mean it, I’ll let you know tomorrow night.” And from the same installment, we’ve translated “Che mi dici?” [What do you say to me?] as “What’s new?” and “Ci vediamo!” [We’ll see each other!] as “See you!”
However, to assist with the language-learning aspect of the blog, we might occasionally be more literal in our English translation. For example, in Parte 4, Aunt Rosaria says, “Benedetto Dio.” Instead of the more colloquial English “Thank God,” we’ve translated literally, so that language learners can see the actual translation: “Blessed.”
We’ve made some changes in the original battute (lines) in order to make the cineracconto accessible to a wider range of language learners. This normally means using more basic vocabulary and more basic grammar – for example, limiting the use of congiuntivo. For example, in Parte 1, we’ve changed the word “caruccio,” – which is in fact Romanesco, though commonly used in Italy – to the word more known by students: “carino.”
Since our change in format in September 2021 with Ossessione, we’re less focussed on building vocabulary and more on making a smooth and pleasurable reading experience for the language learner, and so in our narrative in Parte 5, for example, we’ve used the description “a piedi nudi” instead of the equally common “scalzo” for barefoot.”
Then again, we sometimes do include a new word or a grammatical structure that is the best one or may be a good lesson, even though it might make the language learner stop and think. For example, in Parte 5, Karin asks “E che ne fai?” [Literally: And what do you do with it?”] We could have changed this to the clearer, “E che ne farai?” [And what will you do with it?”] But the present tense is so commonly used for the future in Italian, that we opted to stick with the original line. Likewise, we have not simplified Antonio’s line, “Oh! Ma che ti prende?” [What’s the matter?], since the reader should be able to figure it out from the context.
Where the instance of the congiuntivo is simple to follow – or is necessary – we have left it. For example we have maintained the following original line from Parte 3. The priest says, “Tanta gente di qui se n’è andata o aspetta di andarsene in Argentina, Australia, America, Francia, Inghilterra – ovunque abbia un parente che mandi i soldi per il viaggio”. [“Many people from here have gone away or are waiting to go away to Argentina, Australia, America, France, England – wherever they have a relative to send money for the trip.”]
However, we have changed the following Parte 3 line from the original with its tricky construction – “Appena ricevute le carte che ti ho mandato vi siete sposati subito, eh?” – to the simpler: “Appena hai ricevuto le carte che ti ho mandato, vi siete sposati subito, eh?” [You got married as soon as you got the papers I sent?]
Unlike subtitlers, we have the luxury of space and can include all the words we want. Readers will find the cineracconti helpful guides to following the dialogue when watching the films. Note that our transcriptions do not follow the subtitles, but rather rely on the actual spoken lines. Movie subtitles are often inaccurate, and not only for reasons of space. Frequently, though, either from inattention or an excess of creativity, the dialogue is totally transformed in the subtitles. So, except for the exceptions noted above, our Italian text generally reflects the exact words spoken by the actors, and so can be a useful tool to accompany a watch of the film without English subtitles on.
There is often no one correct way to translate a particular word or phrase. But context is everything, and we – as language teachers and language learners – have made careful choices, based on the goals of our work here at Li conoscevo bene.
BLOG TRANSLATION OVERVIEW: The first cineracconti in this series (up to The Southerner, June 2021) were at a more advanced level and included pretty much every scene and nearly all the dialogue verbatim from the films. The later cineracconti (starting with Ossessione, September 2021) are at a mid-intermediate level. In addition, they are shorter – up to about 1,000 words – so as to be more manageable for language learners. To that end, some scenes and dialogue from the film may be omitted.
To see the more advanced cineracconti, please go to the blog Welcome page: the Italian movies are listed on top (and also in the right hand column mid-way down the page); below that, a chronological listing includes both Italian and international films.
We love language and we sometimes spend a very long time debating the best way to translate a particular word or phrase. We’d be very happy to hear your thoughts about our translations. Write to us at info@liconoscevobene.net!