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(film whirring)
- [Ernest] Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honor
to be with you tonight and to discuss my new book.
The book came to me in a sort of a haze
in Harry's Bar in Venice.
(gentle music) (bird squawking)
- [Narrator] Ernest Hemingway is a legendary figure
associated with Cuba and Paris, with world and civil wars,
adventurous African safaris and fascinating women
who were, in turn, fascinated by his charisma.
The writer built himself a reputation
as a soldier of fortune, a larger than life figure,
a man and a myth, confusing the life he lived
with the imaginary lives of his characters.
It all seemed so simple which is why discovering
the unknown and private aspects of his character
makes the silence regarding the fragility of this tough guy
even more deafening.
(dramatic music)
(typewriter clacking)
(insects and birds chirping)
(gentle music)
It is June 1918 towards the end of the first world war.
Theodore Brombach, a colleague on the Kansas City Star,
convinces the 18-year-old Ernest to volunteer
as an ambulance driver for the American Red Cross
at the front.
(energetic band music)
After a crossing on the steam ship, Chicago,
which takes him from New York to Bordeaux,
he pauses for two days in Paris.
From there, he takes the train to Milan.
Professor Gianni Moriani
of the Venice International University confirms this.
- [Narrator] The great war is almost coming to an end
and, on the Italo-Austrian front,
the Italian army is recovering from defeat
at Ortigara in June 1917 and at Caporetto in October
of the same year.
(gun firing)
One June 10th 1918, in the waters of the Adriatic,
Count Luigi Rizzo sinks the battleship Santo Stefano,
the flagship of the Austro-Hungarian navy.
It is a historic date for Italian morale.
It is followed by the Battle of the Piave River.
The Austrian attack from the sea on the Veneto Plain fails
and, although they managed to cross the Piave,
they are driven back across the river.
The budding writer arrives in the area, the Veneto,
in northeast Italy on the eve of this famous battle.
- [Narrator] The headquarters of the American Red Cross
is in Schio, north of Vicenza in the Cazzola Wool Mill,
ironically renamed the Schio Country Club.
It is very close to the Pasubio Front and Ortigara,
but the 50 or so Americans stationed there
spend most of their time playing baseball,
sunbathing and swimming in a nearby river.
War rages just around the corner,
yet it seems much further away.
(haunting music)
- [Narrator] Every day Hemingway drives to the slopes
of the mountains in a large Fiat 14 ambulance
ready to receive his daily load of suffering.
It was a routine job, safe,
that also left him with a great deal of free time.
He began writing for an American newspaper called Ciao
providing them with articles in the form of letters.
After three weeks of drinking in the Cantarano Tavern
and the (speaking in foreign language) in Schio,
where his writer friend, John Dos Passos,
comes to visit him, Hemingway has had enough
of life behind the lines.
He asks to be transferred, wanting to see
the horrors of war firsthand.
Hemingway's impatience and frustration
are documented in several photos,
the only one surviving from this period
in which he and some friends
act out an ironic military maneuver
wearing uniforms and weapons seized from the Austrians.
- [Narrator] Finally, Hemingway is sent
to work in the trenches.
He distributes cigarettes, chocolate and postcards
to the men on the frontline.
(explosion booming) (dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Covered in blood, not all of it his,
and surrounded by the dead,
under fire from the Austrian artillery,
Hemingway is given up for dead.
But, instead, he would be remembered
for a heroic gesture that made headlines.
(suspenseful music)
- [Narrator] Hemingway suffers a night of pain.
At dawn, he is moved to a small field hospital.
In the ward, he meets Don Giuseppe Bianchi,
who baptizes him a Catholic,
although he has been brought up as a Protestant.
30 pieces of shrapnel are removed from his leg,
but hundreds more remain in his body.
He will have to be moved to Milan.
One of the four nurses continuously buzzing around him
is Agnes von Kurowsky, a fellow American,
seven years older than Ernest.
- [Narrator] The young woman had bewitched Ernest
and the attraction was definitely mutual.
This is confirmed by Renzo Vedovo,
a photographer from Torre di Mosto
in the province of Venezia and a Hemingway fan.
Vedovo recognized his hometown
in several photographs at the time
that clearly document the relationship
between Agnes and Ernest.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile, the story of how Hemingway
was wounded spreads across the world.
The American papers talk of 227 pieces of shrapnel
in his legs and two bullets, one in the kneecap
and one in his right foot.
- Latest football score!
- [Narrator] After an operation and a long period
of rehabilitation, he is awarded
the Italian Silver Medal of Bravery.
Despite it all, he wants to return to hear the roar
of the cannon or, perhaps, he wants to stay close to Agnes
who has since been transferred to the front.
He manages to do both in October,
but it proves to be a very brief encounter.
- [Narrator] Agnes and Hemingway
begin to correspond regularly.
The girl is deeply Catholic and old-fashioned.
She writes to the young Ernest every night.
Hemingway is genuinely attracted to this woman
who is more mature and confident than he is,
much more than he would like to admit.
As soon as he is fit, he goes to join her.
(speaking in foreign language)
Meanwhile, Austria and Hungary have asked for an armistice
and signed a truce with France, England and Italy.
(speaking in foreign language)
The war is over and Hemingway finds the countryside
and the towns he passes through on his way to see Agnes
littered with rubble.
- [Narrator] The Red Cross nurse with the hypnotic gaze
is Hemingway's first true love
so much so that he begs her to wait for him.
Ernest wants to return to America to make a bit of money
and quickly.
That way he can come straight back and get her.
He wants to marry her.
(energetic band music)
- [Narrator] Returning to New York in January 1919
aboard the steamship, Giuseppe Verdi,
Hemingway is greeted as a hero in the United States.
It is the budding writer's first taste
of celebrity and high society.
Chicago goes crazy for him
especially the sizeable Italian community
and he is still only 20 years old.
He is inundated with offers of work
and demonstrates a talent for writing.
Then, in March, a letter arrives.
Agnes has written to break off the engagement.
She is going to marry someone else.
At her age, she cannot afford to wait.
Ernest is plunged into despair and Agnes
will become inspiration for the character of Catherine
in A Farewell to Arms.
- [Narrator] Having recovered from his broken heart,
Hemingway begins working regularly
for the Toronto Star Magazine and meets his first wife,
Hadley Richardson, a pianist eight years his senior.
They return to Europe together in 1922.
(train engine rumbling)
- [Narrator] In April 1922, Ernest and Hadley
hitchhike across the Alps, reach Milan
and then continue on to the Veneto region.
- [Narrator] On the one hand,
the houses destroyed in the war have been replaced
by a brash, new architecture.
On the other, a new phenomenon is emerging
which will soon spread to the rest of Europe
and the world with consequences that are as unpredictable
as they are tragic, fascism.
- [Narrator] Meanwhile, war breaks out
between Turkey and Greece.
Hemingway's paper sends him to the front
while his wife, Hadley, is pregnant
with their first child, John, and waits for him in Paris.
When he returns from the Bosphorus,
the two leave once more for Italy.
(train horn whistling)
They are guests of Ezra Pound in Rapallo
and tour Tuscany before reaching Cortina d'Ampezzo.
(dramatic music)
Hemingway feels an urgent need to return to the places
where he had his first important experiences of war and love
to take a deeper look at his memories and his suffering.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] I did not love Catherine Barkley
nor had any idea of loving her.
This was a game like bridge in which you said things
instead of playing cards.
Like bridge, you had to pretend you were playing for money
or playing for some stakes.
Nobody had mentioned what the stakes were.
It was all right with me.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] A Farewell to Arms
is Hemingway's first important work
and is the product of a long and difficult gestation period,
a continuous excavation of his memories and his life
during the first world war.
It was to take him nearly 10 years to complete the work
and the extent to which he had to face his insecurities
and the image he projected of himself
is clear from the original typescripts
housed in the JFK Library in Boston.
There you can find no less than 47 endings
that Hemingway had typed searching for the perfect one.
- [Narrator] In the end, it's better not to remember things
or put an end to life.
Now, it is all over.
But you don't.
The sun and the spring, in the end, it's better,
not even remember things.
The fact is that you can't do anything.
It's good if you believe in God and love God.
That was the last moment of the kind that I can remember.
Now, it's all over.
The sun and the spring and nothing was finished.
(waves lapping)
- [Narrator] The '20s and '30s are crucial,
both for Hemingway's career and for his life.
Ernest lives through the failure of three marriages
as well as the world wide success of his first novels,
A Farewell To Arms and For Whom The Bell Tolls.
(gun firing)
- [Narrator] Meanwhile, totalitarianism continues
to gain ground in Europe.
Civil war breaks out in Spain.
Hemingway visits the front several times,
but he no longer puts himself at risk
as he did when he was younger.
Then the second world war breaks out
and, again, the writer feels the need to return
to the frontline, just like 25 years earlier.
He goes as a special correspondent
to cover the Normandy landings,
has a unique experience as a partisan leader in France
and, finally, enlists as a spy in the fledging CIA in Cuba
in order to counter the infiltration of a Nazi Fifth Column
on the island.
(wind roaring)
It is September 1948 when, 20 years after his last visit
to Tuscany, Hemingway returns to Italy with Mary,
his fourth wife.
(somber music)
- [Narrator] The whole of the Italian press
acclaims him as the greatest living writer
and the Hotel de la Posta in Cortina
becomes one of the most famous places
associated with Hemingway.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Hemingway's time here is important
because it reveals that after the tumultuous years
of adventures and travels that flew by in a flash,
he feels the need to settle down for a while.
He needs some peace.
He has aged and is famous but has not written for a while.
He needs to recover his inspiration, his motivation,
and his taste for writing.
- [Narrator] During his long stay in Cortina,
Hemingway fell in love with the Alps and the Dolomites
with their beautiful scenery.
He and his wife, Mary, met Count Federico Kechler
and his wife, Maria Luisa.
They were to remain two of his most loyal friends.
In October, Hemingway returns to Venice
via Fossalta di Piave, visiting it for the third time.
He buries a thousand-lira banknote
in the exact location where he was severely wounded.
(gentle guitar music)
From the Dolomites to the lagoon,
he is once again fascinated by the Veneto,
its places and its people.
And they like him,
like Carlo Guarienti, a painter who moved
in the same aristocratic circles as Hemingway.
- [Narrator] It is during this time that Hemingway
discovers two of his favorite places to write,
drink and have fun, the Locanda Cipriani in Torcello,
where he moved for about a month in November of 1948
enjoying the happiest period
of his relationship with his wife, Mary,
and the ever popular Harry's Bar which opened in 1931,
where Hemingway spends his day sipping dry martinis
and observing the faces of tourists from all over the world.
But he was the man of the moment
and he was certainly more looked at than looking.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Narrator] Both places are owned
by Giuseppe Cipriani from Verona who introduces the writer
to a wine from his hometown, Amarone,
along with Valpolicella, the wine will become
one of Hemingway's passions.
- [Narrator] Along with the Hotel Gritti Palace,
where Hemingway was to stay
in all subsequent visits to Venice
and which he would praise for its risotto with scampi,
these places become famous.
These legends are still living, tangible symbols
of Venice around the world.
More and more places boast of having been mentioned by,
discussed or lived in by Hemingway
and associate his name with theirs.
It gave rise to a global marketing phenomenon,
the like of which had never been seen
and demonstrates how much Hemingway
was a powerful iconic figure.
- [Narrator] Hemingway indulges all his passion for food
and especially for wine.
His frequent tours around Venice take him to Verona
at the (speaking in foreign language)
Apostoli owned by Giorgio Gioco.
(birds chirping)
- [Narrator] In early December 1948,
the brother of Count Federico Kechler, Charles,
took Hemingway to hunt ducks in a reserve
near Caorle halfway between Venice and Trieste,
owned by Baron Raimondo Franchetti known as Nanuk.
Dino Bonollo is the last surviving boatman
employed by the baron to remember the writer in that period.
- [Narrator] Hemingway does not make
a great impression as a hunter.
His aim is apparently pretty poor
and he seems more interested in his surroundings
than the object of the hunt.
(bird squawking)
- [Narrator] The legend of Hemingway,
the hunter and tough guy, seems to veer
between statements like these and the numerous photos of him
posing with rifles and trophies.
But, in truth, it is nature and the silent landscapes
that fascinate him.
Hunting is only a means to show off to the outside world
when what he is really looking for is something
to bring him inner peace, that reminds him
of his native land of Michigan where we see him
thanks to these rare images.
- [Narrator] Hemingway writes a lot,
inspired by the silence of the lagoons,
the call of the migrating birds,
by the rivers running through the empty countryside,
by the local people and a genuineness,
a simplicity that is never intrusive.
- [Narrator] Gianni Prevarin didn't know
the writer personally.
His is the opinion of a writer who loves his region
and is a keen observer of the passion that Hemingway
developed for the Veneto and Friuli lagoon
and the crucial influence that both the countryside
and its characters had on him.
While he was driving to the hunting grounds
with Carlo Kechler, faith dictated that he was to have
an encounter that would leave a lasting impression
on his personal life.
We are on the bridge over the Tagliamento River
between Veneto and Fruili.
- [Narrator] Adriana Ivancich is the daughter of Dora
who Hemingway met in Cortina in 1923.
This encounter is fundamental for both of them.
With Adriana, the writer also partially loses his reputation
as a man who never had to ask.
- [Narrator] She is 19 years old, aristocratic and Catholic,
from a prominent family of land owners,
diplomats and intellectuals
originally from (speaking in foreign language)
in Istria.
Ernest feels immediately attracted to Adriana
and she to this sophisticated man of the world.
- [Narrator] The first time they meet,
Hemingway looks through the trees
and glimpses the ruins of Villa Ivancich
where Adriana lives.
The house had been almost completely ruined by bombs in 1944
when the Allies were trying to destroy the bridge
over the Tagliamento.
The scene provides the title for the masterpiece
Across The River and Into The Trees
that Hemingway decides to set
between Harry's Bar and the Hotel Gritti,
among the plains, lagoons and rivers
of the eastern Veneto and Friuli.
The writer had found his long-sought inspiration
where he wanted to find it,
in the places that inspired A Farewell To Arms
between the wars and almost 10 years after his last success,
For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- [Narrator] In April 1949, Hemingway leaves by sea
from Genoa for the United States and then Cuba
where he lives in his famous estate Finca Vigia.
In January of 1950, he is back in Cortina
with his wife, Mary, but Venice is like a magnet.
- [Narrator] In Venice, Hemingway lived alone
because Mary, who had broken her ankle skiing,
stayed in Cortina.
So, he was able to see Adriana as much
and as often as he liked.
- [Narrator] Adriana has bewitched
the older, famous Hemingway.
They spend many hours together in long talks and walks.
Through Adriana, Hemingway also gets to know
her brother, Gianfranco Ivancich,
who becomes his close friend and confidant.
(upbeat band music)
- [Narrator] The Kechlers, the Franchetti
and the usual friends spoiled Hemingway
who, to some extent, lived the life of a bachelor.
And he who loved wine and the beef ribs
of Giorgio Gioco in Verona,
the fish from the lagoons of Caorle and Murano,
was in his element.
(energetic music)
- [Narrator] Dino Bonollo and Tarsillo Veronese,
at the time both working for Baron Franchetti and his family
on the San Gaetano Estate of the Valley,
got to know Hemingway very well.
They believe that he probably spent the happiest time
of his life in the area.
But as always in these cases,
the clouds are already gathering on the horizon.
Adriana Ivancich created the cover illustration
for Across The River and Into The Trees
and then she went with Hemingway to Paris at Le Havre
where the steamship, the Ile de France,
was waiting to take him to Cuba on the 22nd of March.
- [Narrator] When he arrived in Cuba on the 7th of April,
Hemingway already found three letters from Adriana
waiting for him.
His wife Mary was very annoyed.
In Italy too the relationship between the 50-year-old man
and the 20-year-old woman had not gone unobserved.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] According to Hemingway's famous maxim
of the time, loving more than one woman at the same time
is not a sin, merely bad luck.
Adriana is, perhaps, Hemingway's last great love,
a probably plutonic love like that for the nurse, Agnes,
who did not want to consummate the love before the wedding.
A love that brings out the doubts
and the fragility in Hemingway in striking contrast
to the macho image that the media had created for him.
And just as with Agnes, Hemingway based one
of his characters on Adriana, Renata,
In Across The River and Into The Trees.
(echoing)
- [Narrator] And look at Renata's eyes, he thought.
They are probably the most beautiful
of all the beautiful things she has,
with the longest, most honest lashes I have ever seen.
And she never uses them for anything
except to look at you honestly and straight.
What a damned wonderful girl
and what am I doing here anyway?
It is wicked.
She is your last and true and only love, he thought.
And that's not evil.
It is only unfortunate.
No, he thought.
It is damned fortunate.
And you are very fortunate.
- [Narrator] Adriana goes to join Hemingway in Cuba
in the autumn of 1950 with her mother Dora
and brother Gianfranco.
Adriana and Dora stay for a few months
while Gianfanco remains in Finca Vigia until 1953.
The two witness the coup d'etat by Fulgencio Batista.
That year Hemingway publishes his masterpiece,
The Old Man and the Sea, inspired by the island.
Adriana also provides the cover illustration for this novel.
(waves roaring)
In 1953, Hemingway organizes his second safari in Africa
with his wife, Mary.
The two grow closer again.
Adriana seems forgotten,
but shortly before returning from Kenya,
disaster happens.
After two plane crashes and a fire in the camp on safari,
Hemingway is given up for dead by all the media.
(waves lapping)
- [Narrator] Having lost 10 kilograms
and weakened by internal bleeding, Hemingway takes refuge
at the Hotel Gritti with Mary.
(gentle music)
Ernest then goes to see Federico Kechler on his estate
and, together, they go to visit the Baron Franchetti.
Once more, his friends try to cheer him up,
friends and those who knew him and remember him.
- [Narrator] He is no longer Hemingway
the (speaking in foreign language) of the past,
the once carefree adventurer and nature lover, fun-loving.
- [Narrator] The African experience affected him
deeply in body and spirit and his relationship with alcohol
changes from being one of inspiration and histrionics
and becomes that of a temporary relief from the pain.
According to Dino Bonollo, an eyewitness,
it became a real problem.
- [Narrator] The sorties in search of good food and wine
of previous years are just a memory.
Due to his poor physical condition,
Hemingway increasingly ends up taking refuge
within the walls of the Hotel Gritti.
Even Adriana Ivancich rushes to his bedside.
The girl is now a woman and 24 years old.
She is disturbed by the change in Hemingway
like everyone else.
- [Narrator] It is all supposition, obviously.
But let's try and look deeper into the drama
that is unfolding inside Hemingway.
- [Narrator] On May 5th 1954, the Ivancich family
organize a farewell dinner for Hemingway
in their Venetian palazzo.
Hemingway continues the party at the Gritti
with his friends.
It was to be his last night out.
(dramatic opera music)
Hemingway is increasingly tired and takes refuge again
in Cuba with his poor aching body
and it is there on the 28th of October 1954,
that he hears the news of the greatest recognition
he has ever received,
the Nobel Prize for Literature.
(switch snapping)
- [Ernest] The hero if he can be called a hero
of this book is a young colonel, 18 years old.
He is a fanatic at shooting at all things
including objects floating down the Grand Canal in Venice.
In Harry's Bar, he meets an Italian or rather should we say
a Venetian countess.
The action of the book, ladies and gentlemen,
only takes place during a period of 48 days
during which the colonel is continuously drunk.
This, in a quick resume, is the story of my new book
and I hope that everyone will buy it, three dollars.
I thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your patience.
(horn bellowing)
- [Narrator] Hemingway spends his last few years
in his home of Ketchum in Idaho.
His visits to psychiatric hospitals become more frequent.
He is also subjected to a treatment
then considered to be effective,
but that we now regard with horror, electroshock therapy.
On the evening of July the 1st 1961,
according to his wife, Mary, she and Hemingway talked about
Cortina and Venice, Count Kechler and also Adriana.
Hemingway went to bed encouraged, almost happy.
The next morning, early, he found the keys
to the gun cabinet on the windowsill.
Mary had forgotten to hide them.
(somber music)
(gun firing)
- [Narrator] Hemingway was not only an author.
He was a work of art in himself,
a real rockstar before his time.
A large part of his life was spent on a perpetual holiday,
meticulously documented and a continuous source
of inspiration.
Hemingway was a precursor of the modern celebrity.
He had already understood that it does not matter so much
what you are willing to show of yourself,
but if you are willing to show it all or not.
He was with all those adventures
what most people can never experience for themselves.
But, in the end, he found himself a victim
of the icon that he had become,
the need not to expose his weaknesses
which were becoming increasingly obvious.
(gentle piano music)