Spanish Civil War
In 1937, Hemingway left for Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War for the North American Newspaper Alliance (NANA), despite Pauline's reluctance to have him working in a war zone.[89] He and Dos Passos both signed on to work with Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens as screenwriters for The Spanish Earth.[90] Dos Passos left the project after the execution of José Robles, his friend and Spanish translator,[91] which caused a rift between the two writers.[92]
Hemingway was joined in Spain by journalist and writer Martha Gellhorn, whom he had met in Key West a year earlier. Like Hadley, Martha was a St. Louis native, and like Pauline, she had worked for Vogue in Paris. Of Martha, Kert explains, "she never catered to him the way other women did".[93] In July 1937 he attended the Second International Writers' Congress, the purpose of which was to discuss the attitude of intellectuals to the war, held in Valencia, Barcelona and Madrid and attended by many writers including André Malraux, Stephen Spender and Pablo Neruda.[94] Late in 1937, while in Madrid with Martha, Hemingway wrote his only play, The Fifth Column, as the city was being bombarded by Francoist forces.[95] He returned to Key West for a few months, then back to Spain twice in 1938, where he was present at the Battle of the Ebro, the last republican stand, and he was among the British and American journalists who were some of the last to leave the battle as they crossed the river.[
The Spanish Earth is a 1937 anti-fascist film made during the Spanish Civil War in support of the democratically elected Republicans, whose forces included a wide range from the political left like communists, socialists, anarchists, to moderates like centrists, and liberalist elements. The film was directed by Joris Ivens, written by John Dos Passosand Ernest Hemingway, narrated by Orson Welles and re-recorded by Hemingway (with Jean Renoir doing the narration in the French release), with music composed by Marc Blitzstein and arranged by Virgil Thomson.
Description[edit]
The film opens in the village of Fuentidueña de Tajo (called "Fuentedueña" in the movie), showing the villagers trying to scratch a living from the dry soil and explaining the importance of bringing water to irrigate the fields so more crops can be produced and embattled Madrid can be fed. A map shows the position of the village on the Madrid-Valencia road, which must be kept open at all costs so the capital can be defended. The scene moves to Madrid, with another map showing the front line running west of the city, with a rebel salient in the Ciudad Universitaria, which the loyalists are shown attacking.
At the end of the film, the loyalists have driven off the rebel attack on the bridge over the Jarama, keeping the road open, and the water is shown flowing to the fields: the irrigation has succeeded.[2]
Production[edit]
In December 1936, several literary figures, including Lillian Hellman, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, and Archibald MacLeish, formed and funded a company they named Contemporary Historians, Inc., to back a film project proposed by Dutch filmmaker Joris Ivens. Hellman and MacLeish collaborated on the story.[3] Ernest Hemingway was a major contributor as well.[4] The film's backers specifically meant the film to demonstrate support for the Republican forces and the Americans of the Abraham Lincoln Battalion who fought against the Nationalists, unlike Hollywood's only other effort on the subject, the apolitical 1937 film, The Last Train from Madrid.[5] A later film, Blockade (1938), was also sympathetic to the Republicans.
Orson Welles, who starred in Archibald MacLeish's verse play, Panic (1935), and had recently performed the role of narrator in his CBS Radio verse play, The Fall of the City, recorded the narration for The Spanish Earth in May 1937. An additional English-language release is narrated by Ernest Hemingway. A French-language version is narrated by Jean Renoir.[6]: 617 [7]: 333, 337 [8]
President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt invited Hemingway and Ivens to show the film at the White House in advance of its premiere.[9] The version screened for the Roosevelts on July 8, 1937, was narrated by Orson Welles.[8]
Reception[edit]
A review in The New York Times found Hemingway's narration "a definitely propagandist effort" and preferred the camera work that "argues gently and persuasively, with the irrefutable argument of pictorially recorded fact, that the Spanish people are fighting, not for broad principles of Muscovite Marxism, but for the right to the productivity of a land denied them through years of absentee landlordship."[10] The same reviewer in a longer essay concluded that: "Contemporary Historians, Inc...are Ivens' employers and it is their right to dispose of his product as they see fit. They have used it as a violent outcry against fascism. Ivens might have made it lasting art as well."[11]
Ten years later, Bosley Crowther wrote: "The best film we've yet seen on the Spanish tragedy is still Joris Ivens' long-released The Spanish Earth.[12]
Preservation status[edit]
George Eastman House has preserved the film, which was shown on Turner Classic Movies on December 14, 2011. This version has the narration read by Orson Welles.
Directed byJoris IvensWritten byProduced byHerman ShumlinNarrated by- Orson Welles
(English language version) - Ernest Hemingway
(English language version) - Jean Renoir
(French language version)
- John Ferno
- Joris Ivens
- July 11, 1937
Spanish
German
- Spain in Flames (1937)
- España 1936 (1937)
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