SPIKE LEE - SPIKE LEE TANGLES WITH ITALIAN REPORTERS

SPIKE LEE TANGLES WITH ITALIAN REPORTERS

Director Spike Lee and Miracle at St. Anna screenwriter James McBride refought the Second World War Monday with Italian journalists who accused the pair of presenting historical inaccuracies in their movie. At first, McBride sounded apologetic as he reminded reporters at a Rome news conference that the story was fiction and then remarked, "I am very sorry if I have offended the [anti-fascist] 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 Lee would have none of it. "I am not apologizing for anything," he said. "I think these questions are evidence that there is still a lot about your history during the war that you [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." The movie has fared no better with critics in Italy, where it is due to open on Friday, than it did with critics in America. Marcia Yarrow, writing in the English-language The American, calls the plot heavy-handed and suggests that it caricatures the Italians, especially the character played by Valentina Cervi, whom Yarrow describes as the "I'm Italian, so just-let-me-just-take-off-my-clothes partisan."

30/09/2008