{"id":3665,"date":"2017-05-24T20:49:32","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T20:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3665"},"modified":"2017-05-25T20:32:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-25T20:32:58","slug":"elio-petri-investigation-of-a-filmmaker-above-suspicion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/performers-directors\/elio-petri-investigation-of-a-filmmaker-above-suspicion\/","title":{"rendered":"Elio Petri: Investigation of a Filmmaker Above Suspicion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Elio<\/a>
Elio Petri and Franco Nero take a breather during filming for A Quiet Place in the Country<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For some reason, Elio Petri is a filmmaker who seems to have slipped off the cultural (and counter-cultural) radar.\u00a0 To the art-house crowd, Italian cinema is composed of the giants – Rossellini, Visconti, Bertolucci, Pasolini – with very little else getting a worthwhile look in.\u00a0 Among those with a taste for more exploitative fare, you\u2019re more likely to hear discussion of Batzella\u2019s The Devils Wedding Night <\/b>(Il pleniluno delle virgini, 73<\/i>) or Bianchi\u2019s Strip Nude for your Killer<\/b> (Nude per l\u2019assassino, 75<\/i>) than Property is No Longer Theft<\/b> (La propriet\u00e0 non \u00e8 pi\u00f9 un furto, 73<\/i>).<\/p>\n

Some have argued that this is because of repression; Petri was the most political of directors, and his work couldn\u2019t fail but antagonize the authorities in his own homeland.\u00a0 This is probably a conspiracy too far, though, with it being more likely that the very \u2018unclassifiability\u2019 of his films makes them more difficult to pigeonhole within a traditional critical perspective.\u00a0 Too populist for high culture, too arty for low, he sits with a small group of mavericks \u2013 Valerio Zurlini, Carlo Lizzani, Giuliano Montaldo, Damiano Damiani \u2013 who attempted to use genre frameworks as a means of conveying their socio-political ideologies.\u00a0 It could also be something to do with his comparatively early death, in 1982 – at the age of 53 – of cancer, which robbed him of the opportunity to become one of the elder statesmen of Italian cinema.<\/p>\n

This relative obscurity is a shame, as his work includes much to interest the casual observer, the cult fanatic and the traditional cineaste.\u00a0 Oscar nominated for best screenplay in 1972 for Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion<\/b> (Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto, 70<\/i>), Golden Palm winner at Cannes for The Working Class Goes to Heaven<\/b> (La classe operaia va in paradise, 71<\/i>), he regularly scored highly on the festival circuit at the time.\u00a0 Beyond this, however, his work includes an effective giallo (We Still Kill the Old Way<\/b> (A ciascuno il suo, 67<\/i>)), a ghost story (A Quiet Place in the Country<\/b> (Un tranquillo posto di campagna, 69<\/i>)) and a number of science fiction pieces (The Tenth Victim<\/b> (La decimal vittima, 65<\/i>),\u00a0Todo Modo<\/b> (76)).\u00a0 That so little of this is available to date on DVD is frankly criminal, and it can only be hoped that the situation is remedied before too long.<\/p>\n

Born Eraclio Petri on January 29th, 1929 in Rome, he grew up in the traditional working\u2013class area of the city, where his father worked as a coppersmith.\u00a0 He became a committed communist at an early age, which led to his expulsion from Catholic school, and soon found work as a cultural coordinator for the youth arm of the Communist Party.\u00a0 Like many left-wing Italians he found it difficult to reconcile his socialist beliefs with the reality of Stalin\u2019s Soviet Union, and he left the party after the Hungarian uprising in 1956. By this time he\u2019d made friends with Gianni Puccini(1) (who would go on to make Ballata da un miliardo<\/b> (67) and The Fury of Johnny Kid<\/b> (Dove si spara di pi\u00f9, 69<\/i>)), who introduced him to Giuseppe De Santis, the respected director of neo-realist classic Bitter Rice<\/b> (Riso amoro, 49<\/i>). Petri was soon acting as a scriptwriter and assistant to De Santis on Giorni d\u2019amore<\/b> (54) and Uomini e lupi<\/b> (56), an experience which went on to have a profound influence upon his later directorial career.<\/p>\n

The filmography of Elio Petri:<\/p>\n