   La Presa di Roma is supposed by some to be Italy's first dramatic film. More certainly it is Italy's first film with a map, and is the earliest film I have found from any country where a map is opened up, pointed at, discussed and then folded away. We can't make out the map itself, but I suppose General Carchidio has brought a map of Rome on which to point out to General Kanzler the Papal Army's defensive weaknesses, as he urges him to surrender. (See here for a discussion of other early maps in films.)       As befits a film that opens with the geographically vague title 'Somewhere in France, 1916', The Road to Glory pays no close attention to the maps in its establishing décor. Its climax, however, turns on a blinded officer and his father at an advanced observation post communicating the range of an artillery barrage back to the gunners who then plot the distances, presumably with reference to a map:        This fuller view of the map of Europe is coyly withheld for the first half of the film, avoiding that part of Europe to which the allegory most applies (i.e. Germany and Czechoslovakia) until the threatened war breaks out. Until this point we see only fragments of the map, showing Western Europe and the Mediterranean:              Several cinemaps are used to illustrate advances in the campaign, but there is also footage of interested parties consulting maps, as here:  
(Second from the right is Rohmer himself.) |
