Final Analysis

‘It is not difficult to imagine being slammed face first into that wall’

Roger Hicks considers… Three members of the Guardia Civil from photo essay ‘Spanish Village’, 1950, by W. Eugene Smith

The Second World War had been over for half a decade, yet here in 1950 we see three fascists, in fascist uniforms. The fascist regime under which they served would not begin to disappear until the death of Francisco Franco in 1975.

As was so often the case with fascism, there is a comic-opera dimension to their militaristic uniforms, especially those extraordinary shiny tricornio hats. The Guardia Civil of that era was however notoriously ruthless and much feared, and Smith captured this very well.

To begin with, they are lit very harshly indeed: not difficult, admittedly, under a hard, bright Spanish sun. It echoes, however, the way they worked: a dark force, the natural habitat of which was the shadows both literal and figurative. From the shadows they would explode mercilessly; to shadow they would return.

The skin tones are dark and bronzed: partly a matter of exposure and partly a matter of printing. The darkness of the uniforms (dark green since 1943) can be attributed to the same causes, but a further effect is that the bodies of all three men seem to merge together as a single, threatening, amorphous mass, albeit with intimidating highlights of buckles, leather straps and insignia.

Deep suspicion

Thanks to the shadows, their faces are not clearly seen. The most conventionally good-looking of them, nearest the camera, is still rendered sinister by the lighting. He is looking beyond the photographer, but the other two appear to be regarding Smith with deep suspicion. This is not entirely unjustified: he was no fan of Franco’s repressive, primitive, priestridden regime. The strange, hooded, narrowed eyes of the man at the back seem to be saying, ‘I’m not going to forget you, and you’d better not forget me either.’ Then there’s that rough-cast, cracked, grubby wall behind them. It is not difficult to imagine being slammed face first into that wall, as the preliminary to an interrogation.

Or is all this all pure paranoia on my part, based on a little too much knowledge of history and assisted by a lingering sympathy for the Republican cause? Were they in fact perfectly charming, kind and gentle fellows, with whom one might have enjoyed a drink? Of course it’s entirely possible. But that wasn’t the reputation of the Guardia Civil. And it certainly wasn’t the way that Gene Smith photographed them.

Could you, with the right actors, reconstruct this picture? Possibly. But they’d need to be very good actors. And trying to find the right people, and to explain what you wanted, might be excessively interesting.