In nome della legge – In the Name of the Law (Pietro Germi – 1949)
New magistrate arrives, and old one departs.
14 posts in Political
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Elio Petri – 1970)
Qualunque imposizione faccia su di noi, egli è servo della Legge e come tale sfugge al giudizio umano -Kafka
Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die (Philo Bregstein – 1981)
A lot has been written about Italy’s prominent, yet controversial film director, poet and journalist Pier Paolo Pasolini. This documentary film by Philo Bregstein offers a rare glimpse into the tumultuous life of Pasolini until his still unresolved murder circumstances in 1975.
Salvatore Giuliano (Francesco Rosi – 1962)
In this masterpiece classic director Francesco Rositells the story of Salvatore Giuliano, a famous Sicilian gangster that during the mid-40’s collaborated with a Sicilian separatist group, Movement for the Independence of Sicily (MIS), with close ties to the Mafia engaging with small-scale attacks on government and police targets.
Una giornata particolare – A Special Day (1977)
I consider this movie a masterpiece. Starting from the photography. The seppia/monocolor gives an impressive touch of visual art. I could spend 5 minutes observing each frame. And every single object, profile, thing, is just perfect. Do you remember when everybody leaves, and Sofia is sitting alone at the messed up table in the kitchen? what a picture. All those things. The cups, the comic-strip, the box where she put the left overs. And when she collect and drinks the leftover caffellatte from the cups. How can you think about some daily gestures like these.
The Three Brothers – I tre fratelli (1981)
The mother’s death gathers together the three brothers back to their youth home. Raffaele (Philip Noiret), the oldest, a successful famous judge, from Rome. Nicola (Michele Placido), a blue collar active in the union movement, dealing with his marriage crisis. Rocco, reserved and spontaneous, dedicated to help children in a correctional institute.
The Escort – La scorta (1993)
Ricky Tognazzi’s classic anti-mafia thriller is deeply grounded in reality. The film was made a year after judge Giovanni Falcone was murdered as he was on his way to Palermo airport. The judge, his wife, and three police bodyguards were killed. Interestingly the film is not about the judge or the case, but focuses on the four bodyguards and the close bonding they develop with his replacement prosecutor, an outsider sent from Rome strange to the Sicilian ways.
Hands Over the City – Le mani sulla città (Francesco Rosi – 1963)
The characters and events shown are imaginary The social and environmental context is real.
Swept Away – Travolti da un insolito destino nell’azzurro mare d’agosto (Lina Wertmüller – 1974)
Summertime and the living is easy…so why not enjoy a summer masterpiece from Lina Wertmüller who started her career as an assistant director in Fellini’s 1962 film 81/2? The film, is by no means your typical summer movie, weaves together issues of sex, politics, male-female, poor-rich, relationships into comedy turned drama.
La Ricotta (Pier Paolo Pasolini – 1962)
Right from the choice of the title - The Ricotta - Pasolini kicks off an onslaught of symbols to convey his dissatisfaction with the dull consumerism of Italian society during the economic boom of early 60’s. To his belief, the government along with the church banded together to exploit the poor. A prophet ahead of his time, but the way he expressed his ideas alienated people left and right, secular or religious. Pasolini and Welles on the set. Interestingly Welles at the time had no clue who Pasolini was.
Gli anni ruggenti – Roaring Years (Luigi Zampa – 1962)
I saw this charming Italian comedy the other night on YouTube projected on my big screen and tried to imagine some of the thoughts that ran through audiences' minds who saw it for the first time in Italian movie theaters in the early 60's.
1860 (Alessandro Blasetti – 1934)
As Italy celebrates its 150th year of unification (aka Risoregimento) this year, the Lincoln Film Society in New York chose to include this masterpiece by Alessandro Blasetti as part of their current festival: Open Roads: New Italian Cinema. I attended the screening and here are some of my impressions. Carmelo and Rosuzza his wife reunited against the backdrop of Italian Unification events: individual vs. collective story lines.
Cristo si è fermato a Eboli – Christ Stopped at Eboli (Francesco Rosi – 1979)
In this film, Francesco Rosi tells the story of painter Carlo Levi, an anti-fascist activist that was arrested in Turin in 1935 and was sent by Mussolini to the remote town of Gagliano (invented name) - in what is known today as Basilicata.
Mafioso (Alberto Lattuada – 1962)
It's that great excitement you get when you come across a truly rewarding film by a director you have never seen much of his work when everything seems to work exactly how you'd want it to be. And Mafioso by Neorealist director, Alberto Lattuada is simply that perfectly fun film. It's the same sad story, these cinematic gems have limited distribution anywhere and are hard to come by. Unless the film is within the programming roadmap of the great people at The Criterion Collection, which is the case here.