Word: lee
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...Lee's version, that massacre is depicted as a response to the actions of the Italian resistance fighters and shows one partisan betraying the town in a secret meeting with the Nazis...
When it comes to history, Spike Lee isn't one to duck a fight. Last spring the New York filmmaker set off a nasty public showdown with Clint Eastwood, whom he criticized for not depicting African-American soldiers in his recent World War II films about Iwo Jima...
...Lee finds himself defending the historical accuracy of his own World War II movie, Miracle at St. Anna, and this time he is up against real-life fighters who may be even tougher than Dirty Harry. Surviving members of Italy's underground anti-Nazi resistance movement are angry over the film, a fictionalized account of the travails of the 92nd Infantry Division - the black GIs known as Buffalo Soldiers - as they helped liberate Italy. The film includes a portrayal of the Nazis' infamous 1944 slaughter of some 560 Italian civilians in the Tuscan town of Sant'Anna di Stazzema...
...ruling, an Italian military tribunal determined that the massacre was a premeditated plan by the Germans and was in no way provoked by the partisans. Moreno Costa, 82, who fought alongside the African-American unit, was among the former resistance fighters who waged that legal battle, and he met Lee last year before filming began. "He talked about commemorating the Buffalo troops, but he didn't say anything about this betrayal," said Costa, reached by phone in his hometown of Pietrasanta, some six miles from St. Anna. "We are indignant about this. I don't understand...
...Giovanni Cipollini, who heads Pietrasanta's local pro-resistance association, said he had offered to put Lee in touch with partisans who were present, but that the director refused. "This is very delicate," he says. "When a famous director makes a major movie about a chapter in history, people will believe that his version is the truth." Cipollini led a group distributing flyers of protest at Wednesday's screening in Viareggio, near the setting of the film...