Among the quarter of a million people who gathered in Rome
yesterday to mourn the death of Alberto
Sordi, many carried banners expressing their love. “Yesterday
an American in Rome,” read one, “today a Roman in heaven.”
The reference was to one of the actor’s greatest roles, as the
star of Un Americano a Roma (1954). In that film Sordi
plays Nando Moriconi, a young Italian man obsessed with New World
music and popular culture. He walks in a bow-legged swagger that
seems a parody of John Wayne, sports a baseball cap, and dreams of
being the next Gene Kelly.
The film is no polished gem, but Sordi’s performance is. His
“American”-sounding babble, like his hilariously “bad” dancing, is
the kind of thing that only a master can make look easy. The sight
of him in a policeman’s cap and wind goggles, riding a motorcycle
and calling himself the “Sheriff of Kansas City,” is alone worth
the price of the DVD.
The ultimate joke is that the real Americans whom Nando
encounters are nothing like the straight-shooting stereotypes he
knows from Hollywood westerns and musicals. They are either rich
young bohemians or starchy imperial overlords. (The actor playing
the U.S. consul actually appears to be an Englishman.)
Despite such disappointments, Nando holds on to his Quixotic
illusions. Though he more than once takes a literal beating at
American hands, he never stops trying to be an American
himself.
The film’s attitude toward Americans is hardly less affectionate
than the protagonist’s. We are objects of good-natured fun, but in
no way sinister or oppressive, and it’s clear that Nando brings all
his trouble onto himself. Which is astonishing, when you think
about the context in which the movie was made.
Half a century ago, the end of World War II was as fresh a
memory as, say, the Oklahoma City bombing is today. Italy had yet
to experience its “economic miracle,” and was more or less a Third
World country under unmistakable U.S. dominance. You can see this
in the film, when an Italian police inspector automatically doffs
his hat in the presence of an American embassy attaché. Yet
there is no hint of resentment.
Even today in Italy, except on the extreme left and right,
feelings toward the United States are overwhelmingly favorable.
People who know about Germany tell me the same is true there.
(Never mind what you’ve read about the recent peace marches. Most
people in these countries oppose a war against Saddam Hussein not
because they are afraid of American “hyperpower” — that’s a French
expression, and a French sentiment — but because they’re convinced
that nothing good can come from war. Given their 20th-century
experience, it’s not hard to understand why they think so, even if
they have war to thank for their freedom from Fascism.)
It may seem only just that Japan, Germany and Italy (today the
world’s third, fourth and eighth largest economies) should be
grateful to America, whose financial help and military protection
made possible their post-war success. Whatever else the United
States manages to accomplish in its tenure as the sole superpower,
its magnanimity in victory will go down as one of its most glorious
legacies.
Yet people tend to feel the opposite of love for those to whom
they owe a debt. Somehow the U.S. has managed to defy this law of
human nature. Maybe the reason is that America, a nation of
immigrants, exemplifies ideals to which all nations feel they can
aspire. Which is also why millions like Nando Moriconi love a
country that they will never even see.
