{"id":3686,"date":"2017-03-28T21:59:13","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T21:59:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3686"},"modified":"2017-04-03T20:16:59","modified_gmt":"2017-04-03T20:16:59","slug":"elio-petri-todo-modo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/reviews\/elio-petri-todo-modo\/","title":{"rendered":"Elio Petri: Todo Modo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy
\n1976
\nProduced by Daniele Senatore for\u00a0 Cine Vera
\nDirector: Elio Petri
\nStory: Based on the novel \u2018Todo Modo\u2019 by Leonardo Sciascia
\nScreenplay: Elio Petri, Berto Pelosso
\nCinematography: Luigi Kuveiller
\nMusic: Ennio Morricone
\nEditor: Ruggero Mastroianni
\nArt director: Dante Ferretti
\nCameraman:
\nRelease dates & running times: Italy (30\/04\/76), France (19\/01\/77, 133 mins), Germany (139 mins)
\nFilmed:
\nItalian takings:
\nCast: Gian Maria Volont\u00e9 (\u2018M\u2019<\/i>), Marcello Mastroianni (don Gaetano<\/i>), Mariangela Melato (Giacinta, \u2018M\u2019s wife<\/i>), Ciccio Ingrassia (Voltrano<\/i>), Franco Citti (a chauffeur<\/i>), Cesare Gelli (Arras, deputy judge<\/i>), Tino Scotti (the chef<\/i>), Adriano Amidei Migliano (Capra-Porfiri<\/i>), Giancarlo Badessi (Ventre<\/i>), Mario Bartoli (Lombo<\/i>), Nino Costa (a young priest<\/i>), Guerrino Crivello (speaker on close circuit TV<\/i>), Marcello Di Falco (Sacc\u00e0<\/i>), Giulio Donnini (Bastante<\/i>), Aldo Farina (Restrero<\/i>), Giuseppe Leone (Martellini<\/i>), Renato Malavisa (Michelozzi<\/i>), Rccardo Mangano (Cardinal Beccaris<\/i>), Piero Mazzinghi (Caprarozza<\/i>), Lino Murolo (Mozio<\/i>), Piero Nuti (Schiav\u00f2<\/i>), Loris Perera Lopez (Lombo Sr.<\/i>), Riccardo Satta (Lomazzo<\/i>), Luigi Uzzo (Aldo Lombo<\/i>), Luigi Zerbinati (Caudo<\/i>), Renato Salvatori (Dr. Scalambri<\/i>), Michel Piccoli (\u2018him\u2019<\/i>)<\/p>\n

\"Todo<\/a>
Todo modo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Petri\u2019s tendency towards obfuscation stepped up yet another gear with Todo modo<\/b> (76), which is\u00a0 one of the strangest films ever made. Set in the near future, it delineates an Italian society that is run by a coalition between powerful industries, the \u2018party\u2019 and \u2013 above all – the Catholic Church.\u00a0 Of course, what this has ended up meaning is that a small group of industrialists, politicians and priests have become dominant, whilst the masses struggle on with the business of survival (as always).\u00a0 In the background hovers the threat of a \u2018virus\u2019, the effects of which are never clearly explained (could it be revolution?), and which seems to be spreading through the country.<\/p>\n

A selection of the aforementioned elite gathers at an isolated and highly secure, modernist monastery.\u00a0 They are there ostensibly to practice the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola (founder of the Jesuits), under the guidance of the charismatic Bishop Gaetano (Marcello Mastroianni).\u00a0 The purpose of this is unclear, but it\u2019s suggested that most of the attendees are really there for the networking opportunities.\u00a0 Among their number is \u2018M\u2019 (Gian Maria Volont\u00e9), the \u2018Chairman\u2019, a career politician who just happens to be impotent (poor old Volont\u00e9 seems to play sexually dysfunctional characters in all of his Petri films).<\/p>\n

Things get really bizarre when assorted guests start turning up dead.\u00a0 The police investigate without success, but \u2018M\u2019 comes up with an astounding theory: the delegates are being killed, he suggests, in ways that mirror the religious exercises they\u2019re supposedly performing.\u00a0 In the meantime, the virus is getting closer to the monastery, and the identity of the killer is still unknown.<\/p>\n

As the seventies had progressed, Petri\u2019s films became more baffling, and this definitely sees him at his most enigmatic.\u00a0 It\u2019s the type of thing that leaves you certain that you\u2019ve only understood a fraction of the narrative (let alone the subtexts).\u00a0 However, you\u2019re also left with the suspicion that this obliqueness doesn\u2019t actually mask hidden depths, but more the cinematic doodlings of someone with an absurdist eye and a wicked sense of humor.\u00a0 Whatever, despite its drawbacks \u2013 most notably a lack of cohesion, self-indulgence and being typically overlong \u2013 this is, in many ways, Petri\u2019s most memorable work.<\/p>\n

As with The <\/b>10th Victim<\/b>, Todo modo<\/b> uses the science fiction genre as a means of exploring social and political themes.\u00a0 There are also echoes of Pasolini\u2019s Salo<\/b> (75) (group of old pervs ship up in a castle and indulge in their excesses) and, more particularly, Poe\u2019s Mask of the Red Death (group of aristocrats ship up in a castle in order to (unsuccessfully) hide from the plague).<\/p>\n

The main targets of the piece are the Italian Christian Democratic Party and the Catholic Church.\u00a0 Petri loathed the Democrats, whom he denounced as capitalists who had \u2018Americanised\u2019 the country, and had intended to make a satire about them since the mid-sixties.\u00a0 The assorted \u2018party\u2019 representatives portrayed here are a pretty reprehensible bunch, and the film\u2019s treatment of them is relentlessly (but enjoyably) harsh.\u00a0 The Church also comes off rather badly, being shown to side with the wealthy and to be more concerned with its own economic survival than any kind of religious idealism.\u00a0 Apart, that is, from the surface gloss of fire-and-brimstone sermonising and insane devotional practices as encouraged by Gaetano.<\/p>\n

Leaving the \u2018meanings\u2019 aside, Todo modo<\/b> succeeds because it is simply a very well made film.\u00a0 Once again, a large part of this is to do with the sets and art direction.\u00a0 The monastery is a bizarre construction, mixing long hotel-like corridors with catacombs, hidden altars and ever-present CCTV cameras.\u00a0 Scattered among all of these are impressionist sculptures of biblical characters (again bringing to mind The <\/b>10th Victim<\/b>), which only adds to the disorientation caused by the already bewildering plot.\u00a0 The surrealist touches are very striking: the guests striding up and down a hall in a pointless form of masochistic meditation, the weird deaths (why do the victims seem to lose their trousers?\u00a0 What are those chattering false teeth??).<\/p>\n

Best of all, though, is the superb climax.\u00a0 No, it doesn\u2019t make any sense at all, but it involves a memorable tableau of distorted corpses, paper trails of incriminating documents and inexplicable figures dancing through the woods.\u00a0 It all ends bleakly, of course, and without a proper sense of closure \u2013 but by now if you haven\u2019t learned to expect that from Petri you probably deserve to be flummoxed.<\/p>\n

\"Gian<\/a>
Gian Maria Volonte in Todo Modo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Added to this are another range of great performances.\u00a0 Volont\u00e9 is simply magnificent; by turns obsequious, craven and desperate (just like your normal politician, really).\u00a0 His performance and character were modeled on Aldo Moro, the then head of the Italian Christian Democratic Party, someone who Petri considered to be a dangerous \u2018sweet talker\u2019 who had used his diplomatic skills (as well as the aura of carrying an almost unbearable burden) to undermine his left wing opposition. Moro, by the by, was kidnapped and executed by the Red Brigades in 1978. \u00a0In supporting roles, Mastroianni is charismatic, Michel Piccoli unrecognizable and Franco Citti sinister.\u00a0 Surprisingly, the performer who really grabs the attention is Ciccio Ingrassia, better known for a serious of hugely populr (in Italy, anyway) slapstick films with his comedic partner, Franco Franchi.\u00a0 Here he\u2019s extremely malevolent as a pedophile priest who ends up stuffed into a bin-liner with a whole load of women\u2019s panties!\u00a0 It does have to be said, though, that whatever horrors may be documented on the screen during the unfolding of Todo modo<\/b>, nothing is quite as alarming as the sight of Ciccio whipping his own barenaked, skinny ass.\u00a0 Brrrr.<\/p>\n

Considering its contentious nature, its hardly surprising that Todo Modo<\/b> experienced a rather troubled transition from script to the screen.\u00a0 Initial producer Alberto Grimaldi quit after proving unable to attract potential French or Italian distributors.\u00a0 His successor, Daniele Senatore, managed to reach an unlikely agreement with Warner Brothers (mainly thanks to the high quality cast), but there were still difficulties with Cinecitt\u00e0 (which was reluctant to make a studio available for the shoot) and a shadowy group called Unione Uomo-Natura, who attempted to prosecute the film for defaming the Italian chief of State.\u00a0 Things weren\u2019t helped by the fact that it was eventually released just prior to elections which were largely based around Moro\u2019s attempts to reach consensus with the Communist Party, thus giving weight to accusations of its being a piece of pure polemic.\u00a0 As a result, the critical establishment used every opportunity to vent its spleen, and rumors even circulated that Petri, Mastroianni and Volont\u00e9 had been blacklisted as a result of their participation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elio Petri\u2019s tendency towards obfuscation stepped up yet another gear with Todo modo (76), which is one of the strangest films ever made. Set in the near future, it delineates an Italian society that is run by a coalition between powerful industries, the \u2018party\u2019 and \u2013 above all – the Catholic Church. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1212,8],"tags":[812,68,902,994,150,1139,1142,632],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686"}],"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=3686"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4602,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3686\/revisions\/4602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thewildeye.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}