Butch, Sundance, and Mussolini

Watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid last night with Ben and A. I thought I’d seen it, but I guess that was only because you hear so much about certain scenes, such as the conclusion, and see pictures from it. I was a little disappointed, although not in Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who were fantastic. Robert Redford’s occasional cold killer eyes blew my mind–not a persona I’m used to seeing him as. Though of course the character is vulnerable as always. And Paul Newman was completely charming. The connection between the two of them was wonderful, the dialogue between the two of them funny and revealing. But the movie as a whole seemed more like a storyboard to me than a real movie.

I’m back to reading the diaries of Count Ciano. I’ve reached Nov 11 1941 and he is definitely disillusioned with Mussolini, though showing no signs of doing anything about it. This is such a fascinating journal, a long slow evolution of someone, almost an Everyman I think even though he was a fascist, who signs on with an idea and then lives in cognitive dissonance until everything blows.

I noticed an evolution in how he criticizes Mussolini. First, he is admiring, when Mussolini says or does something stupid–Ciano believes and admires the bluster. When things go wrong, as they always do in a way that can only be Italian (sorry, all you Italians, but modern Italian history can be awfully funny, as when the Italian air force attacked the Italian navy for 2 hours and sank a bunch of ships. As opposed to recent American history, which is depressing), he criticizes other people, generals, other politicians, etc. Then, you notice that Ciano seems to be recording the same blustery things said after the same stupid moves, with less expression of admiration. Then he goes through a long period of recording conversations with other people who are very critical. At first he criticizes the critics, then he records their remarks without comments. The criticisms recorded become more scathing. My favorite is this one: “Bottai is increasingly pessimistic. His judgment of the Chief is now violently bearish. He said ‘…I remember that [Balbo] called Mussolini a product of syphilis, and that I used to object to his words. I wonder now if this judgment on Mussolini wasn’t correct, or at least very close to the truth. The Duce has decayed intellectually and physically. He doesn’t attract me any more. He is not a man of action; he is presumptuous and ambitious, and expects only to be admired, flattered, and betrayed.'”

The little I’ve read about Ciano has been dismissive–he was an aristocratic playboy who married Mussolini’s daughter and became his right hand man, was loathed by many people. But he was the right man at the right time in terms of history. His diary, with its record of Mussolini’s thoughts and speeches, its evolving change of mind about Mussulini, is right there in the thick of things. Not in the thick of the real world–he is a bureaucrat and a politician, noting issues like mass starvation in terms of its impact on the government–but in the thick of the peculiar world peopled by politicians. Knowing what you know about what was happening as Ciano wrote, then reading what the polticians were saying, thinking, and doing, you are appalled. Because it is so typical. Because it happens over and over.

There is such an amazing disconnect between world events and the politician world (and language). After a major defeat of the Italian navy by the English, Ciano reports somberly that Mussolini is “depressed and irritable.” Mussolini’s responses to various defeats, along with the ominious indications that Germany plans to take Italy itself over in the long run, is to bluster “I never forget injuries. I am adding this to my list. In the end they will pay.”

Mussolini is so fascinating in that he was really all talk. He appealed to a certain kind of person because he talked about glory, manliness, power. But he did no real … managing. Throughout the book you see him creating for himself and others a world of words, that is all. Again, it is appalling, because this sort of thing still goes on.