Mercury Pictures Presents

Ned calls Maria into his office. He offers her a significant pay raise, from $200 to $500 per week. Ned reveals that Artie’s job will go to Ned’s son, Adam. When Maria asks why he did not consider her for the role, he replies that he would be “laughed out of town” if he appointed a female executive.

When Maria is noncommittal, Ned attempts to blackmail her with Vincent’s photo album. He shows her the passport photo with the name Nino Picone and tells her he will not give it back until he receives the signed contract.

Maria furiously confronts Vincent about the photo album. She blames him for her father’s continued exile in San Lorenzo.

She meets her mother and great-aunts for lunch and asks for their advice about her situation. Her aunts persist in their assumption that Artie and Ned are two suitors who vie for her hand. Annunziata recalls Maria saying that she wished she could understand her. For her part, Annunziata is proud that Maria has “gone beyond the reach of her help” (364). She recalls her garden at Lincoln Heights and the importance of cultivating the land for generations of her kinsfolk. Her advice is to “[g]et something no one can steal from under your feet” (365).

Maria arrives home and finds a postcard from Eddie.

Maria agrees to join Artie’s new outfit in exchange for a 25% stake and the title of executive producer. In addition, she asks that he have Vincent Cortese sent to Italy with the Signal Corps.

Artie writes his letter of resignation and discharges Maria from Mercury.

Vincent photographs a cow that the military parachutes down into San Lorenzo to feed soldiers on the front line. His fellow cameraman, Myles, loots art and ships it back to Manhattan for sale. He expects to be court-marshaled imminently.

The major summons the two photographers to a meeting. He asks them to make a film of the incursion into Castellalto in Southern Italy. All of the fighting is over, but the military wants a cinematic re-enactment for propaganda purposes. Their aim is to create a narrative of American heroism to rival the British Desert Victory. Vincent has few qualms about footage fabrication since he recalls how Robert Capa’s The Falling Soldier, which he now knows was staged, inspired him to attempt to travel to Spain and pursue a career as a war photographer.

When shooting The Liberation of Castellalto, Vincent creates an illusion of reality by foregrounding “the unsteady presence of the photographer's mortality” (377). At one stage, he allows the camera to fall to the ground as if combatants shot the photographer. At the end of the film, they stage the funeral of a young woman, who they hired from a local brothel. To Vincent’s surprise, a crowd assembles, and the onlookers are delighted to realize that the woman is still alive. Taking her sudden revival as a miracle, they begin to swamp the procession, grabbing at the woman. The soldiers open fire and shoot blanks at the spectators who feel they were party to another miracle. Two officials arrive, and the cameramen assume that they came to arrest Myles. Myles is incredulous when he realizes that it is Vincent they came for.

The narrative shifts back to the final days of Ferrando’s life. Bellino and Elisabetta moved him from the jail cell to the brothel for comfort. Bellino, who was just promoted to inspector, takes a day off work to read Sherlock Holmes stories to Ferrando.

He invites Concetta Cortese to visit him, and she brings him grapes, which he is unable to eat because he cannot chew. He confesses the truth about her son’s death and Nino’s theft of his identity. She is filled with anger and revulsion but also with pity for the dying man. She chews a grape up and feeds it to him.

Later, as he dies, Rocco remembers Michele.

Vincent is arrested because Ned reported him. Police drive him to San Lorenzo. The newly liberated village is in a state of chaos. He revisits the looted, ruined photography shop. He frames the passport photo he took of Maria and hangs it on the wall.

The army investigators find the report of Nino’s death. They decide to take Vincent to meet Concetta Cortese.

Concetta sits at home, recalling her lost children. She is supported by Father Mancuso, the local priest and father of multiple illegitimate children.

Concetta recalls how she longed to own and cultivate a little piece of land. All she managed to purchase were the small grave plots for her children.

A nine-year-old girl called Teresa witnesses the meeting between Nino/Vincent and Concetta.

Concetta looks at Nino and considers all the wrong he did to her and her son. When the officer asks if he is her son, she answers in the affirmative.

Teresa recalls this moment 50 years later when she lives in Melbourne and watches her great-granddaughter play.