I still remember the impact of Curzio Malaparte's novels Kaputt (1944) and La Pelle = The Skin (1949) when released in Spanish translation in Buenos Aires in the early fifties. Even if translations were hasty and incomplete, both books, especially The Skin became instant best sellers, in spite of (or because) their condemnation by the Catholic Church.
The Skin begins in 1943, with Italy freshly exited from the Axis Powers and Allied forces consolidating their control of the devastated, bombed out and utterly impoverished city of Naples; there is no food outside the black market, no gainful employment except prostitution, extortion and theft and people die daily of malnutrition or of curable diseases without medical aid. Although not at the top of the literary heap, The Skin had enduring success and became something of a legend, perhaps because it showed the American occupying army in a vastly different (and probably more realistic) light than Life and Selections of the Reader's Digest.
If noting else, The Skin is a book difficult to forget once read. It influenced many writers, among them Joseph Heller in Catch-22 (1961). Conversely, this movie, released in 1981 brings frequently to mind the 1970 Catch-22 movie.
I did not particularly like the movie. It is too long, it puts episode after episode on screen without special relief and seems to take pride in the atrocious and the gory for no reason I can see except to cement Cavani's reputation as a shocking director earned in The Night Porter (1974). Some characters (like General Clark or Mrs. Wyatt) are made of clichés. Fine actors (Mastroianni, Lancaster, Cardinale) are around but only the first is used to the measure of his skills.
As to the copy I streamed, obviously one would expect Americans and Italians speak their own language among them but my device offered only one option: all Italian, subtitled. One misses Lancaster's real voice.
