{"id":3679,"date":"2016-05-20T20:32:56","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T20:32:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3679"},"modified":"2016-05-09T20:33:24","modified_gmt":"2016-05-09T20:33:24","slug":"elio-petri-investigation-of-a-citizen-above-suspicion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/elio-petri-investigation-of-a-citizen-above-suspicion\/","title":{"rendered":"Elio Petri: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Investigation<\/a>
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aka Enqu\u00eate sur un citoyen au-dessus de tout soupcon (Fr), Ermittlungen gegen einen \u00fcber jeden Verdacht erhabenen B\u00fcrger (West Germany), Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (It)
\nItaly
\n1970
\nProduced by Daniele Senatore & Marina Cicogna for Vera Film
\nDirector: Elio Petri
\nStory & screenplay: Elio Petri, Ugo Pirro
\nCinematography: Luigi Kuveiller
\nMusic: Ennio Morricone, conducted by Bruno Nicolai
\nEditor: Ruggero Mastroianni
\nArt director: Carlo Egidi
\nCameraman: Ubaldo Terzano
\nRelease dates & running times: Italy (09\/02\/70), France (70, 95 mins), West Germany\u00a0 (13\/11\/70, 115 mins), US (70, 112 mins)
\nFilmed: Incir-De Paolis Studios (Rome)
\nItalian takings: 1.883.000.000 lire
\nCast:Gian Maria Volont\u00e9 (the \u2018inspector\u2019<\/i>), Florinda Bolkan (Augusta Terzi<\/i>), Gianni Santuccio (the judge<\/i>), Orazio Orlando (\u2018Biglia\u2019<\/i>), Sergio Tramonti (Antonio Pace<\/i>), Arturo Dominici (Mangani<\/i>), Massimo Foschi (Terzi<\/i>), Vittorio Duse (Canes<\/i>), Aldo Rendine (Nicola Panunzio<\/i>), Aleka Paizy (the \u2018Inspector\u2019s maid<\/i>), Pino Patti, Giuseppe Licastro, Filippo De Gara (police interrogator<\/i>), Fulvio Grimaldi (Paese Sera journalist<\/i>), Ugo Adinolfi (an agitator<\/i>), Gino Usai (an agitator<\/i>), Franco Marletta, Giacomo Bellini, Giuseppe Terranova, Roberto Buonanni, Vincenzo Falanga (Pallottella<\/i>) and with Salvo Randone (the plumber<\/i>)
\nIMDB credits: Guido Buzzelli, Roberto Bonanni<\/p>\n

For his next film, 1969\u2019s Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion<\/b>, Petri turned his eye to the then nascent urban crime thriller, a genre that reflected \u2013 and some would say preyed upon \u2013 the political and economic uncertainties rife in Metropolitan Italy at the time. Many of those working in the area \u2013 Enzo Castellari and Umberto Lenzi, for instance – were happy to provide a roller-coaster ride of car chases, gun fights and assorted street scum having the bejesus beaten out of them.\u00a0 With this film, however, Petri joined a smaller and more thoughtful cadre of directors \u2013 most particularly Damiano Damiani and Carlo Lizzani \u2013 who found the developing narrative conventions of the genre to be rich ground for their trademark combination of populism and polemic.<\/p>\n

He certainly hit a profitable seam: this became \u2013 by some distance – his biggest domestic box office success.\u00a0 It also won critical plaudits around the world, including an Oscar (for best foreign language film) and assorted awards at the Golden Globes and Cannes.<\/p>\n

\"Florinda<\/a>
Florinda Bolkan in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The plot revolves around \u2018the inspector\u2019 (Gian Maria Volont\u00e9), a police commissioner who\u2019s just been promoted from his job in homicide to a new position as the \u2018chief of political intelligence\u2019.\u00a0 Which makes it very strange that he murders his girlfriend, Augusta (Florinda Bolkan), and makes sure to leave as many incriminating clues \u2013 fingerprints, footprints, a razor blade – in her apartment as possible.\u00a0 What\u2019s his game?\u00a0 Well, he\u2019s testing whether he has reached such a level in society that he has become, through the innate corruption of the system, \u2018above suspicion\u2019.\u00a0 And as the investigating officer \u2013 it\u2019s his last case before moving on – it seems that he\u2019s going to succeed.<\/p>\n

The police blunder about hopelessly, their initial suspect being Augusta\u2019s homosexual ex-husband (Massimo Foschi).\u00a0 The Inspector, however, has a different game in mind.\u00a0 Unwilling to allow an innocent man to be convicted, he diverts suspicion onto someone he feels to be guilty: a rather obnoxious anarchist, Antonio Pace (Sergio Tramonti), who also happened to be a lover of the dead woman\u2019s.\u00a0 Nobody, of course, thinks that the Inspector could be the guilty party: his fingerprints are dismissed because he was in the apartment after the murder.\u00a0 He even goes so far as to confess his crime, but everybody he tells is reluctant (or afraid) to believe a policeman could be responsible.<\/p>\n

Co-scripted by Ugo Pirro (7), this stands simultaneously as being both one of Petri\u2019s most complex and one of his simplest works.\u00a0 The idiosyncratic narrative is fairly straightforward; a tightly constructed, albeit twisted, mystery that features little in the way of his trademark surrealistic asides (apart, perhaps, from the bizarre ending).\u00a0 Many of Petri\u2019s films do feature a giallo element \u2013 from The <\/b>Assassin<\/b> through to Good News<\/b> – but often this aspect sits way down in the mix.<\/p>\n

\"Gian<\/a>
Gian Maria Volont\u00e8 in Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dig a little deeper, however, and a whole mass of themes become clear.\u00a0 The central character of \u2018The Inspector\u2019 \u2013 who remains unnamed throughout \u2013 is, in some ways, a typical protagonist for the director: a middle aged man going through a crisis and burdened by self doubt.\u00a0 Of course, he\u2019s also very different in that he\u2019s a power-crazed megalomaniac (a notional insanity shared with A Quiet Place in the Country<\/b>\u2019s Leonardo and Todo Modo<\/b>\u2019s Bishop Gaetano).\u00a0 Despite symbolizing the excesses of fascist-style \u2018authority\u2019, the character is also sympathetic in that the awful acts he commits have a dreadful kind of logic, so much so that he ends up as much a victim of his own machinations as anybody else.<\/p>\n

Technically, Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion<\/b> is a very accomplished film.\u00a0 It features one of Morricone\u2019s best soundtracks, smooth editing and some astonishing cinematography.\u00a0 The art direction is more restrained than in The <\/b>Tenth Victim<\/b> or A Quiet Place in the Country<\/b>, but Augusta\u2019s flat and wardrobe stand as a testament to excess.\u00a0 Most importantly, Volont\u00e9\u2019s performance is astonishing: veering from coy to chummy, from pathetic to murderous, his \u2018Inspector\u2019 is one slippery character it\u2019s quite impossible to get a proper hold of. Hardly ever off the screen, this was the film that muscled him into the position of torch-holder for the Italian left; a role he maintained with some aplomb throughout the 70s.<\/p>\n

(7)\u00a0Ugo Pirro had worked on many films in the early sixties prior to his involvement with Petri, and had forged a fruitful collaboration with Carlo Lizzani on films such as Attention! Bandits!<\/b> (Achtung! Banditi!, 51<\/i>), The <\/b>Hunchback of Rome<\/b> (Il gobo, 60<\/i>) and Wake Up and Kill<\/b> (Svegliati e uccidi, 66<\/i>) before writing We Still Kill the Old Way<\/b>.\u00a0 He went on to win plaudits for work such as The <\/b>Garden of the Finzi-Continis<\/b> (Il giardino dei Finzi-Continis, 70<\/i>), but is probably most notable for fans of cult cinema as one of the key figures in the genesis of the Italian crime film, scripting key sixties films such as Mafia<\/b> (Il giorno della civetta, 68<\/i>) and Sardinia Kidnapped<\/b> (Sequestro di persona, 68<\/i>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For 1969\u2019s Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion, Elio Petri turned his eye to the then nascent urban crime thriller, a genre that reflected \u2013 and some would say preyed upon \u2013 the political and economic uncertainties rife in Metropolitan Italy at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1212,8],"tags":[1135,68,1137,994,1136,1126,233],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3679"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4308,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3679\/revisions\/4308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}