CINEASTE STYLE SHEET - Elio Petri · Marriage in the Movies by Jeanine Basinger. New York: Alfred...
3
Elio Petri: Writings on Cinema & Life by Elio Petri; edited by Jean A. Gili; translated by Camilla Zamboni and Erika Marina Nadir. New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2013. 402 pp., illus. Paperback: $25.95. “To speak to an elite of intellectuals is like speaking to nobody,” said Italian director Elio Petri (1929–82) in a 1973 interview pub- lished in Cineaste (Vol. VI, No. 1) to back up his criticism of the turn toward “intellectual- ism” in Jean Luc-Godard’s latest work. Asserting his “great admiration for Godard,” Petri nevertheless pointed out that he didn’t believe “one can make a revolution with cin- ema.” Yet Petri was steadfast in his dedica- tion that “a dialectical process should be ini- tiated among the great masses—through film and any other possible means.” With his own work, Petri tried to make a contribu- tion: “I, on the contrary, believe in main- stream culture. My film should be seen by people who laugh and cry, and who will talk about the film,” he is quoted in the welcome new volume, Elio Petri: Writings on Cinema & Life, edited by French film historian Jean A. Gili, a renowned Italian cinema specialist. In that quote, Petri referred to his gleeful- ly perverse, almost Punch-and-Judy-style deconstruction of capitalism, La proprietà non è più un furto (Property is No Longer Theft, 1973). But he could be talking about any of his films. The brightest disciple of Giuseppe De Santis (a communist who tried to forge mass enlightenment out of the legacy of neorealism), Petri saw cinema similarly— as a popular art that allowed for encouraging thought-provoking social analysis. Pushing the Brechtian Volksstück into baroque, often supremely sardonic pop-art territory, Petri became one of Italy’s internationally renowned auteurs. His confidently stylized, blistering paranoia smash Indagine su un cit- tadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investiga- tion of a Citizen Above Suspicion, 1970) even received the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film (and netted Petri and frequent cowriter Ugo Pirro a screenplay nomination) after winning the Grand Prix at Cannes. Hardly Petri’s only festival triumph during a heyday for politicized Italian cinema—his follow-up La classe operaia va in paradiso (The Working Class Goes to Heaven, 1971) shared the Palme d’Or with Francesco Rosi’s Il caso Mattei (The Mattei Affair, 1972)—Investigation also caused considerable political controversy in Italy. But critically, Petri’s acidic studies of social mechanisms and subjection, usually served up in grand genre guise, met with con- siderable resistance at home. In the book’s introduction, Gili relates a disastrous screen- ing of La classe operaia at the film festival “Il cinema libero” in Poretta Terme in 1971: protesters accused Petri of reformism, and French colleague Jean-Marie Straub was at hand to propose burning the reels of the film. Called “reactionary” and a “fascist,” Petri was of course anything but. Actually, his increas- ingly dark vision—if La classe operaia is an angry attack on industrial dehumanization that managed to offend all sides, his master- work Todo modo (1976) seems deliberately fashioned to fulfill that very purpose—has been proven sadly right by Italy’s political and cinematic fate. This may have helped the ongoing recon- sideration of Petri’s work, who by now stands out as one of Italy’s finest directors during the Sixties and Seventies. Hired to do research for De Santis’s fact-based neorealist key work Roma ore 11 (Rome 11 O’Clock, 1952), Petri became a close collaborator as cowriter and assistant director for various projects, directed his first short in 1954, and graduated to features with the remarkably assured character study L’assassino (The Assassin, 1961), starring Marcello Mas- troianni as a murder suspect. Later, Petri considered this his only contribution to the then-voguish (from Fellini to Antonioni) films dealing with psychological alienation. But Petri’s follow-up I giorni contati (Num- bered Days, 1962) proved a breakthrough toward something like existentialist real- ism—and a stance that allowed the director to study alienation “not as a psychological phenomenon, but as a social fact.” With his fourth film, the allegorical science fiction extravaganza Il decima vittima (The Tenth Victim, 1965), Petri fully turned toward genre material. Subsequently, his Sicily-set Leonardo Sciascia adaptation A ciascuno il suo (We Still Kill the Old Way, 1967) served as an international breakthrough and inau- gurated many key relationships, most notably with Gian Maria Volonté, who went on to deliver astonishing (anti-)star turns for Petri in Investigation, La classe operaia, La proprietà, and Todo modo. Unmistakably portraying prime minister Aldo Moro (although the character’s name is just given as “M.”) in the latter, Volonté’s ingeniously executed ballet of evasive gestures and looks is in itself a full expression of what Petri sought to expose by reshaping another philosophical Sciascia crime plot as a direct attack on the Christian Democratic Party “that governed Italy for thirty years, and shipwrecked the country politically and cul- turally,” as he points out in an intriguing essay on his Sciascia adaptations in the newly translated book. A seemingly eclectic but actually very helpful selection of such hard-to-find Petri pieces, the aptly titled Writings on Cinema & Life is posited in Gili’s introduction as homage to “a man that was like a big broth- er to me, a brother who had a lot to teach and pass down.” The result definitely serves as a touching tribute, showing Petri as an enormously educated and gifted writer graced with a remarkable sense of humor, but just as capable of well-reasoned and sound analysis as of occasional bon mots. (“The artistic maturity of the director is manifested through the medium of a perfect and almost nauseating naturalism,” he remarks apropos of Elia Kazan’s A Streetcar Named Desire. ) Meanwhile, the selection spans almost Petri’s entire career, also allow- ing for an appreciation of the breadth and depth of his interests. The first chapter com- bines pieces written in 1957–58 for the dissi- dent communist magazine Città aperta, on which he served as a member of the editorial board. Politicized in his early years, Petri had broken with Italy’s communist party, the PCI (though clearly not with commu- nism), after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian Revolution. Reflections on cine- ma and political engagement figure promi- nently here, whether he’s assessing certain directors (Pietro Germi, Juan Antonio Bar- dem, Kazan), taking stock of Soviet cinema in the light of Ilya Ehrenburg’s recent reflec- tion of the first years of Khrushchev’s Thaw, or presenting an outline for a cheap film, whose production would “never be tolerat- ed.” (In a way, with Todo modo, Petri man- 68 CINEASTE, Fall 2013 BOOK REVIEWS 68 BOOK REVIEWS_CINEASTE STYLE SHEET 8/20/13 7:33 PM Page 68
Transcript of CINEASTE STYLE SHEET - Elio Petri · Marriage in the Movies by Jeanine Basinger. New York: Alfred...
Elio Petri:Writings on Cinema & Lifeby Elio Petri; edited by Jean A. Gili; translated
by Camilla Zamboni and Erika Marina Nadir.
New York: Contra Mundum Press, 2013.
402 pp., illus. Paperback: $25.95.
“To speak to an elite of intellectuals is likespeaking to nobody,” said Italian directorElio Petri (1929 –82) in a 1973 interview pub-lished in Cineaste (Vol. VI, No. 1) to back uphis criticism of the turn toward “intellectual-ism” in Jean Luc-Godard’s latest work.Asserting his “great admiration for Godard,”Petri nevertheless pointed out that he didn’tbelieve “one can make a revolution with cin-ema.” Yet Petri was steadfast in his dedica-tion that “a dialectical process should be ini-tiated among the great masses—throughfilm and any other possible means.” With hisown work, Petri tried to make a contribu-tion: “I, on the contrary, believe in main-stream culture. My film should be seen bypeople who laugh and cry, and who will talkabout the film,” he is quoted in the welcomenew volume, Elio Petri: Writings on Cinema& Life, edited by French film historian JeanA. Gili, a renowned Italian cinema specialist.
In that quote, Petri referred to his gleeful-ly perverse, almost Punch-and-Judy-styledeconstruction of capitalism, La proprietànon è più un furto (Property is No LongerTheft, 1973). But he could be talking aboutany of his films. The brightest disciple ofGiuseppe De Santis (a communist who triedto forge mass enlightenment out of the legacyof neorealism), Petri saw cinema similarly—as a popular art that allowed for encouragingthought-provoking social analysis. Pushingthe Brechtian Volksstück into baroque, oftensupremely sardonic pop-art territory, Petribecame one of Italy’s internationallyrenowned auteurs. His confidently stylized,blistering paranoia smash Indagine su un cit-tadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investiga-tion of a Citizen Above Suspicion, 1970) evenreceived the Oscar for Best Foreign LanguageFilm (and netted Petri and frequent cowriterUgo Pirro a screenplay nomination) afterwinning the Grand Prix at Cannes. HardlyPetri’s only festival triumph during a heydayfor politicized Italian cinema—his follow-upLa classe operaia va in paradiso (The WorkingClass Goes to Heaven, 1971) shared the Palmed’Or with Francesco Rosi’s Il caso Mattei (TheMattei Affair, 1972)—Investigation alsocaused considerable political controversy inItaly. But critically, Petri’s acidic studies ofsocial mechanisms and subjection, usuallyserved up in grand genre guise, met with con-siderable resistance at home. In the book’s
introduction, Gili relates a disastrous screen-ing of La classe operaia at the film festival “Ilcinema libero” in Poretta Terme in 1971:protesters accused Petri of reformism, andFrench colleague Jean-Marie Straub was athand to propose burning the reels of the film.Called “reactionary” and a “fascist,” Petri wasof course anything but. Actually, his increas-ingly dark vision—if La classe operaia is anangry attack on industrial dehumanizationthat managed to offend all sides, his master-work Todo modo (1976) seems deliberatelyfashioned to fulfill that very purpose—hasbeen proven sadly right by Italy’s politicaland cinematic fate.
This may have helped the ongoing recon-sideration of Petri’s work, who by nowstands out as one of Italy’s finest directorsduring the Sixties and Seventies. Hired to doresearch for De Santis’s fact-based neorealistkey work Roma ore 11 (Rome 11 O’Clock,1952), Petri became a close collaborator ascowriter and assistant director for variousprojects, directed his first short in 1954, andgraduated to features with the remarkablyassured character study L’assassino (TheAssassin, 1961), starring Marcello Mas-troianni as a murder suspect. Later, Petriconsidered this his only contribution to thethen-voguish (from Fellini to Antonioni)films dealing with psychological alienation.But Petri’s follow-up I giorni contati (Num-bered Days, 1962) proved a breakthroughtoward something like existentialist real-ism—and a stance that allowed the directorto study alienation “not as a psychologicalphenomenon, but as a social fact.” With his
fourth film, the allegorical science fictionextravaganza Il decima vittima (The TenthVictim, 1965), Petri fully turned towardgenre material. Subsequently, his Sicily-setLeonardo Sciascia adaptation A ciascuno ilsuo (We Still Kill the Old Way, 1967) servedas an international breakthrough and inau-gurated many key relationships, mostnotably with Gian Maria Volonté, who wenton to deliver astonishing (anti-)star turnsfor Petri in Investigation, La classe operaia,La proprietà, and Todo modo. Unmistakablyportraying prime minister Aldo Moro(although the character’s name is just givenas “M.”) in the latter, Volonté’s ingeniouslyexecuted ballet of evasive gestures and looksis in itself a full expression of what Petrisought to expose by reshaping anotherphilosophical Sciascia crime plot as a directattack on the Christian Democratic Party“that governed Italy for thirty years, andshipwrecked the country politically and cul-turally,” as he points out in an intriguingessay on his Sciascia adaptations in thenewly translated book.
A seemingly eclectic but actually veryhelpful selection of such hard-to-find Petripieces, the aptly titled Writings on Cinema &Life is posited in Gili’s introduction ashomage to “a man that was like a big broth-er to me, a brother who had a lot to teachand pass down.” The result definitely servesas a touching tribute, showing Petri as anenormously educated and gifted writergraced with a remarkable sense of humor,but just as capable of well-reasoned andsound analysis as of occasional bon mots.(“The artistic maturity of the director ismanifested through the medium of a perfectand almost nauseating naturalism,” heremarks apropos of Elia Kazan’s A StreetcarNamed Desire.) Meanwhile, the selectionspans almost Petri’s entire career, also allow-ing for an appreciation of the breadth anddepth of his interests. The first chapter com-bines pieces written in 1957–58 for the dissi-dent communist magazine Città aperta, onwhich he served as a member of the editorialboard. Politicized in his early years, Petrihad broken with Italy’s communist party,the PCI (though clearly not with commu-nism), after the Soviet suppression of theHungarian Revolution. Reflections on cine-ma and political engagement figure promi-nently here, whether he’s assessing certaindirectors (Pietro Germi, Juan Antonio Bar-dem, Kazan), taking stock of Soviet cinemain the light of Ilya Ehrenburg’s recent reflec-tion of the first years of Khrushchev’s Thaw,or presenting an outline for a cheap film,whose production would “never be tolerat-ed.” (In a way, with Todo modo, Petri man-
68 CINEASTE, Fall 2013
BOOK REVIEWS
68 BOOK REVIEWS_CINEASTE STYLE SHEET 8/20/13 7:33 PM Page 68
aged to make that film after all.) There’s alsoa pointed, clearly autobiographicallyinspired short story about the regularhumiliation of a scriptwriter begging for hispay, who muses during the negotiations that“Mussolini would have been perfect as aproducer for these types of film.”
The second chapter elaborates on “TheDebate About Italian Cinema,” serving as ashort guide to the challenges faced by anengaged, uncompromising filmmaker likePetri during two turbulent decades. Charac-teristically skeptical, he concludes the open-ing 1962 questionnaire to “new” directorswith: “Very few people, in our country, trulylove democracy.” Despite intermittent asser-tions of his belief in Italian cinema, the sec-tion’s final text, published only monthsbefore Petri’s death in 1982, comes to aresigned conclusion: “The Left Is Indifferentto Our Cinema.” At that point, Petri hadbeen facing increasing production difficul-ties after Todo Modo, which the ChristianDemocratic Party’s Bartolo Ciccardino hadcondemned on television after seeing a clip:“Petri is like Goebbels, this film is like Süssl’ebreo.”
Petri’s last period of activity up to Buonenotitzie (Good News, 1979), a film that hap-pened almost by accident, is the focus ofchapter four, combining Petri’s Sciascianotes with two (sometimes overlapping)interviews on Todo modo, and a real find—Petri’s long internal memo for state televi-sion RAI on his internationally unreleasedfour-hour TV adaptation of Sartre’s Le manisporche (Dirty Hands, 1978). The Frenchphilosopher was a key figure for Petri’s artis-tic development, and the director delivers aclear-headed, lengthy analysis of Sartre’spolitical thought, as well as adding his Ital-ian perspective in typically exacting (“bor-dering on neurotic,” Gili correctly remarkson another occasion) prose.
No less typical, Petri opens with generalconsiderations on the role of television andits (ab)use as a medium for complacency; hissharp wit showcases a critically minded andcomprehensively knowledgeable as well asimmensely pleasurable writer. So do his dis-cussions of two painters—Picasso and Clau-dio Bonichi—in the penultimate chapter,highlighting an important but often neglect-ed influence on his work: Petri was an artcollector, who had, for example, collaboratedwith pop artist Jim Dine to school his leadactor Franco Nero in painting for the tragi-comic protohorror experiment Un tranquilloposto a campagna (A Quiet Place in the Coun-try, 1968). The final chapter consists only ofthe flash drama “Brief Encounter,” a touch-ing farewell, in which cinema appears as acamera trying to lure an exhausted directorback to work. “What about Antonioni?” thecamera taunts: “He’s no child, yet he contin-ues to think and say that he can’t live with-out me.” To which the director replies:“That’s because he can’t grow up. A wonder-ful illness, yet increasingly rare.”
This one exchange superbly summarizesPetri’s seemingly supreme disillusionment,as well as his innate gifts as an insightful,iconoclastic entertainer with a special pen-chant for Italian grotesque. (Immediatelyafterward, the camera inquires about Fellini,only to be told, “He cheats on you withCinecittà.”) Indeed, despite Petri’s alternate-ly melancholy and corrosive worldview,there was also a flamboyant side to him,excitedly animating his films even in theirdarkest moments and perfectly expressed inthe third chapter, hitherto ignored: “Nuovacucina” assembles the “culinary film criti-cism” Petri wrote in 1980 for the epony-mous food magazine of Ugo Tognazzi.“Apocalypse Now begins where a lunchwould end,” Petri quips in the first pan,clearly having fun with the format. “Coppo-la sacrifices gastronomic precision in favorof beauty and the marketing of images,” hecomplains cheekily to arrive at valid criti-cism of this “gastronomic (and otherwise)apocalypse”—“An enormous napalm barbe-cue for those who no longer believe insteak.” Brilliant and hilarious, these light-hearted, yet laser-sharp pieces show Petri athis height, mounting a full-scale deconstruc-tion of Fellini’s hang-ups via a tongue-in-cheek protocol of all the instances of foodand drink (and sex) ostentatiously not con-sumed in La città delle donne (City ofWomen, 1980) or turning Kramer vs.Kramer’s reactionary, but effective, tear-jerking inside out in a delicious discussionof a drama “that is indeed a gastronomicalone, which at the end reaches a true cathar-sis and is built around a French toast thatbecomes the symbol of familial unity.”
—Christoph Huber
I Do and I Don’t: A History ofMarriage in the Moviesby Jeanine Basinger. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 2012. 395 pp., illus.
Hardcover: $30.00.
I Do and I Don’t is about a film genrethat doesn’t officially exist—the marriagemovie. This is the situation Jeanine Basingerhopes to correct. Basinger, a respected andversatile film scholar who is as comfortableand informative writing about the Westernsof Anthony Mann as she is about women’sfilms, sets out to trace the history of themarriage movie from its beginnings in silentfilms (some carrying irresistibly brazen titleslike Married Flirts, The Marriage Playground,Restless Wives, Flapper Wives, and Lubitsch’sinimitable The Marriage Circle), through thetalkies of the studio era, which disguised andmarketed marriage movies as domestic dra-mas or love stories, up to the present day,where marriage movies flourish on cableand in indie cinema (Married Life, The KidsAre All Right, Blue Valentine).
En route, Basinger discovers the domi-nant, “bipolar” structure (I do and I don’t).“I do” films represent marriage in whatBasinger calls “the popular moving-forward,active mode (young couple get married,things go wrong, all ends well).” The “Idon’t” films are disobliging, refusing to lookforward for hope or relief. They typically are“told backwards as a flashback (everythinghas gone wrong after a young couple gotmarried and things have so far not endedwell).” This structure has proved remarkablysturdy and adaptable. It upholds Cecil B.DeMille’s (whom Basinger feels should beregarded as the Father of the American Mar-riage Movie) For Better or Worse and TheCheat but also the Coen brothers’ Fargo (an“I do” and “I don’t” marriage movie col-lapsed into one).
Studios thought in terms of such simpleformulae and Basinger tries to think as theydo to explain why marriage movies took theforms and expressed the (predictably con-ventional) attitudes they did. Studios, sheargues, were cautious in representing mar-riage on screen. Their business, as they sawand tried to protect it, was to entertainmovie audiences with escapist fantasiesabout couples surmounting all obstacles totheir enduring happiness or to caution themwith tales of soul-killing incompatibility,ugly divorce, even marital homicide. Butthey also wanted to make sure that thevision of marriage they presented, whetherlighthearted or dark-spirited, did not appearto undermine the institution itself. If theyfailed to “reassure everyone one that mar-ried domesticity was a useful and rewardingenterprise,” Basinger argues, they riskedalienating and losing their core audiences.
This account of studio thinking is basednot only on Basinger’s extensive research
CINEASTE, Fall 2013 69
Gian Maria Volonté (left) stars in Elio Petri’sInvestigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion.
68 BOOK REVIEWS_CINEASTE STYLE SHEET 8/20/13 7:33 PM Page 69
Copyright of Cineaste is the property of Cineaste and its content may not be copied oremailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express writtenpermission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
