Certain epic poems, despite their brilliance and exceptionally vibrant relationship to companions in the genre, are scarcely heard of anymore. Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered can be counted among these. Set towards the end of the First Crusade, its got warfare and lust and psychological drama in spades. And its depiction of reason and passion at loggerheads, along with its portrayal of the Other in the context of religious conquest, make it a particularly relevant piece of literature to explore and digest. But for all that, Tasso’s epic undoubtedly accrues more dust on a library shelf than a good many other works of world literature.
It has, however, maintained a lively afterlife in the hands of composers and artists, principally in the form of operas and paintings. But as far as film versions go, that’s a different story; its presence on the screen is nearly non-existent. There is, though, a 1957 film that, for all its comical acting, flaws, and misconstruals, is still worth watching.
Directed by Carlo Ludvoci Bragaglia, La Gerusalemme liberata stays relatively close to outlines of Tasso’s poem. It follows Godfrey of Bouillon and his Christian knights — namely Rinaldo and Tancred — as they fight against Muslim forces in a resolute attempt to regain Jerusalem. Their obstacles are not limited to military ordeals, but internal ones as well. Various tensions within the Christian camp lead to a moment a fatal chaos, and the amorous passions of Rinaldo and Tancred — who become entangled in the lives of female pagans, both foe and friend — drive the story just as much as do scenes of battle.
On the surface, the film can seem like a reasonably faithful presentation of Tasso’s epic. Examined more closely, however, it feels like a bumbling mess.
The problem lies not in any major deviations from the plot, nor in the couple of instances in the film where a relatively ambiguous spot in the poem is played out a certain way. (A degree of artistic license is to be fully expected, especially when a complex epic poem doesn’t naturally lend itself to the confines of a ninety-minute movie.) The problem, rather, is the way it plays fast and loose with the psychological drives of one too many characters. At times, it turns certain figures into almost fundamentally different beings than the ones found in the pages of Tasso’s epic.
In the poem Jerusalem Delivered, the Christian knights frequently go astray: they lose sight of their ultimate goal; they quarrel with each other in sometimes violent ways; they let misguided passions stampede over reason and duty. Tancred, for instance, becomes head over heels for Clorinda — a formidable, business-like pagan warrioress — which causes him to behave, at times, foolishly and indeed recklessly. Rinaldo, the other main Christian knight, becomes so sucked into the world of sensuality and leisure that when two knights come to rescue him from the seductress Armida’s palace, they use a shield as a mirror in order to show Rinado the unrecognizable figure that he has become.
In other words, Tancred and Rinaldo are flawed, sinful, and frequently the cause of their own — and the Christian forces’s — fraught situations. While some of this comes through in the film, much of it does not. Rinaldo, for example, is seen not as succumbing to the temptations of the sorceress, but instead valiantly resisting. Whatever the motives for this kind of portrayal and other instances like it, it’s sharply different from Tasso’s epic.
A closely related problem is that some of the female protagonists also are turned into considerably different psychological beings. While Armida fairs quite well, Clorinda — who plays more of a major role in the film — does not. In the poem she’s reserved, collected, and fully dedicated to battle; in the film she’s sometimes these things but at other times she’s more like a giddy schoolgirl on a first date. In fact, the vibe of the movie sometimes feels less like (that of) a medieval crusade and more like a scene of lovers from rival high schools sneaking around at the half-time of a big game in order to see each other. It makes for some fluffy romance and grinning amusement — perfectly reasonable things for a film to strive for — but it becomes something quite different in substance from Tasso’s great epic.
Should you still watch it? Yes, keeping the above in mind. And, to be sure, parts of the film stay much more true to the spirit of the poem. There’s a brief scene early on that shows Clorinda interested in the plight of two Christian lovers, who are just about to be put to death. She persuades Aladine, king of Jerusalem, to call it off. It’s one of the relatively few instances where the depiction of Clorinda is captured in a way that is congruent with the poem.
Watch the film also for the reason that there’s something mildly enthralling about a movie made in the ‘50s, based on a Renaissance epic which takes as its subject matter the First Crusade. Perhaps its not altogether surprising that the film diverges sharply from Tasso’s work in certain ways. Historical events — and the creative poems, novels, and dramas told about them (let alone retellings of those works) — cross over centuries affecting readers and viewers in myriad — and sometimes startlingly different — ways. Watch the movie to form your opinion about its merits as a film, but more than anything read Tasso’s deliciously good epic.
Spectatio 