During the Spring of ’46, work on the film Cronaca nera (director Giorgio Bianchi) was abruptly brought to a halt. The news ended up on the front pages of all the newspapers: Maria Denis, fresh-faced actress, Italy’s naive and virtuous fiancée, was imprisoned under accusations of being a collaborationist. We are facing one of many dark times, during a period when, as the actress says today, “all Italians showed the worst of themselves”. With great clear-sightedness, Maria Denis recalls the episode in the autobiography Il gioco della verità, where she makes clear her relationship with ill-famed Pietro Koch (“a man whose name has remained synonymous with infamy”), the pains she went to and the wrongs she withstood to free from imprisonment the man she had fallen fatally in love with, Luchino Visconti. The actress remembers little of Cronaca nera, even doubting whether she ever saw it: “Right after I was absolved, I left for Paris. My sister had given me the name of a psychoanalyst, and I went, even if until that time I had thought I would be capable of overcoming those painful events on my own”. Years later, her wounds have not completely healed: “I don’t feel that I have anything to blame myself for. I always acted with courage and honesty. I haven’t forgiven yet, but my going back over those events today is not an asking  for compassion. I want to clarify what happened, the wrongs that were done to me, once and for all”. At the time, the documentary Le sue prigioni was a reconstruction of what happened: “But the human and professional disgrace I was covered in – states the actress – is something else entirely”. Maria Denis entered into cinema by chance, and she remained there by stubbornness. Starting in 1933, she was the good girl with many successes that are unjustly snubbed still today: “ On the other hand, forgetting fast is one of the flaws of the Italian culture. We have a tendency to get enthusiastic for a brief period of time, without stopping and going further in depth”. The actress worked with Genina (L’assedio dell’Alcazar), Carlo Ludovico Bragaglia (Pazza di gioia), Alessandrini (Seconda B), Gallone (Le due orfanelle), Palermi, Poggioli’s favorite (Addio, giovinezza!, Sissignora). She worked under the direction of Pietro Bianchi, “a perfect director and a wonderful man”, in La maestrina: “Life is hard for everyone, even today; the cinema of those years was a way of spending a few moments, not so much in a dream world, but in a calmer environment. Then came the time of disdain for those films, the neo-realism that intended upon showing tragedies to educate the people. Things only have value, though, when put into context. If you take those films out of the era in which they were made, it’s impossible to understand their meaning”. The bright career of Maria Denis was interrupted with violence and slandering. Upon her return from Paris, in 1949 she acted in La fiamma che non si spegne by Cottafavi. The film was devastated by accusations of fascist leanings: “In reality it was a story of pure heroism. I would have like to have organized a showing for the Italian Communist Party, to ask them what they found to be so fascist about it”. Disgusted, Maria Denis left the cinema.

Andrea Meneghelli