Filmography
- Buone
notizie, Le (1979) (screenplay) (story)
... aka Good News
- Propriet?non
?pi?un furto, La (1973) (writer)
... aka Property Is No Longer a Theft (International:
English title)
... aka Propri閠? c'est plus le vol, La (France)
- Classe
operaia va in paradiso, La (1971) (writer)
... aka Lulu the Tool
... aka The Working Class Goes to Heaven
- Indagine
su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970)
(writer)
... aka Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (UK)
(USA)
... aka Investigation of a Citizen... Above Suspicion
(USA: poster title)
... aka Investigation of a Private Citizen
- Tranquillo
posto di campagna, Un (1969) (screenplay) (story)
... aka A Quiet Place in the Country
... aka Un coin tranquille ?la campagne (France)
- A
ciascuno il suo (1967) (writer)
... aka We Still Kill the Old Way (USA)
- Decima
vittima, La (1965) (writer)
... aka Dixi鑝e victime, La (France)
... aka The 10th Victim
... aka The Tenth Victim (UK)
- Alta
infedelt?/a> (1964) (segment "Peccato nel pomeriggio")
... aka Haute infid閘it?(France)
... aka High Infidelity (USA)
- Mostri,
I (1963) (story and screenplay) (as Petri)
... aka 15 from Rome (USA: short version)
... aka Monstres, Les (France: dubbed version)
... aka Opiate '67 (USA: dubbed version)
- Giorni
contati, I (1962) (writer)
- Assassino,
L' (1961) (screenplay) (story)
... aka Assassin, L' (France)
... aka The Assassin (USA)
... aka The Ladykiller of Rome (USA: dubbed version)
- Impiegato,
L' (1960) (writer)
- Carro
armato dell'8 settembre, Il (1960) (story)
- Gar鏾nni鑢e,
La (1960/I) (writer)
- Gobbo,
Il (1960) (story)
... aka Bossu de Rome, Le (France)
... aka The Hunchback of Rome
- Notti
dei Teddy Boys, Le (1959) (writer)
- Vlak
bez voznog reda (1959) (writer)
... aka Train Without a Timetable (International: English
title)
- Ettaro
di cielo, Un (1959) (writer)
... aka Piece of the Sky (International: English title)
- Vento
del Sud (1959) (story)
... aka South Wind (International: English title: literal
title)
- Strada
lunga un anno, La (1958) (writer)
... aka Cesta duga godinu dana (Yugoslavia: Serbian
title)
... aka The Year Long Road (International: English title)
- Uomini
e lupi (1956) (screenplay) (story)
... aka Hommes et loups (France)
... aka Men and Wolves (USA)
... aka The Wolves
- Quando
tramonta il sole (1955) (screenplay) (story)
- Giorni
d'amore (1954) (story and screenplay)
... aka Days of Love (International: English title)
... aka Jours d'amour (France)
- Donne
proibite (1954) (writer)
... aka Angels of Darkness (USA)
- Marito
per Anna Zaccheo, Un (1953) (writer)
... aka A Husband for Anna (USA)
- Roma
ore 11 (1952) (uncredited)
... aka Onze heures sonnaient (France)
... aka Roma ore undici
... aka Rome 11:00 (USA)
- Sette
contadini, I (1949) (screenplay)
- Buone
notizie, Le (1979)
... aka Good News
- Mani
sporche, Le (1978) (TV)
- Todo
modo (1976)
... aka Todo Modo (France)
- Propriet?non
?pi?un furto, La (1973)
... aka Property Is No Longer a Theft (International:
English title)
... aka Propri閠? c'est plus le vol, La (France)
- Classe
operaia va in paradiso, La (1971)
... aka Lulu the Tool
... aka The Working Class Goes to Heaven
- Indagine
su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (1970)
... aka Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (UK)
(USA)
... aka Investigation of a Citizen... Above Suspicion
(USA: poster title)
... aka Investigation of a Private Citizen
- Tranquillo posto di campagna, Un (1969)
... aka A Quiet Place in the Country
... aka Un coin tranquille ?la campagne (France)
- A
ciascuno il suo (1967)
... aka We Still Kill the Old Way (USA)
- Decima
vittima, La (1965)
... aka Dixi鑝e victime, La (France)
... aka The 10th Victim
... aka The Tenth Victim (UK)
- Alta
infedelt?/a> (1964) (episode "Peccato nel pomeriggio")
... aka Haute infid閘it?(France)
... aka High Infidelity (USA)
- Nudi
per vivere (1964) (as Elio Montesti)
- Maestro
di Vigevano, Il (1963)
... aka The Teacher from Vigevano (International: English
title)
- Giorni
contati, I (1962)
- Assassino,
L' (1961)
... aka Assassin, L' (France)
... aka The Assassin (USA)
... aka The Ladykiller of Rome (USA: dubbed version)
- Sette
contadini, I (1949)
- Giorni d'amore
(1954) (first assistant director)
... aka Days of Love (International: English title)
... aka Jours d'amour (France)
- Roma
ore 11 (1952) (assistant director)
... aka Onze heures sonnaient (France)
... aka Roma ore undici
... aka Rome 11:00 (USA)
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wikipedia
Elio
Petri (January 29, 1929 - November 10, 1982) was a political
Italian filmmaker.
Contents
[hide]
1 Early Life
2 Early Films
3 Director
4 Final Years
5 External links
Early Life
Elio Petri was born in Rome on January 29, 1923 into a modest
family, his father being a coppersmith. As the only son,
he grew up in the working-class area of the city before
attending school where he was noted for his intelligence.
After
being expelled for political reasons from San Giuseppe di
Merode, a school run by a priest on the Piazza di Spagna,
he embarked on a career combining political militancy, film-journalism
and the coordination of cultural activities for the youth
organization of the Italian Communist Party. He wrote for
L'Unità and for Gioventù nuova as well as for Città aperta.
He left the party in 1956 after the Hungarian rising.
A friend
of Gianni Puccini, he was introduced through him to Giuseppe
De Santis and became Assistant to the director of Bitter
Rice. He collaborated, without being credited for it, on
Rome 11 O'Clock (1952), one of the least known post-war
neo-realist movies, based on an actual tragedy; a staircase
collapse with dozens of women job seekers who showed up
in response to an advertisement by a doctor seeking a secretary.
Early Films
Mr. Petri carried out the preliminary inquiry among the
real-life protagonists of the drama. The inquiry was published
in book form in 1956. There followed the collaboration with
De Santis, both as script-writer and as director's assistant,
on La Fille sans homme (1953), Jour d'amour (1955), Homme
et luops (1956), La strada lungo un anno (1958) and La Garconniere
(1960). During the period, Petri also wrote scripts for
Giuliano Puccini, Aglauco Casadio and Carlo Lizzani. Nevertheless,
it was his collaboration with the film-director from Fondi
which was decisive when it came to learning the tools of
the film-directing trade as well as developing an autonomous
cultural and political outlook.
Director
All his life, Petri remained deeply attached, both politically
and personally, to Beppe De Santis. After two shorts, Nasce
un campione (1954) and I sette contadini (1959), which gave
him the opportunity to broaden his knowledge of film-making
'on the job' as was the usual course in those days, Petri
made his debut as a director with L'assassino (The lady
killer of Rome) based on a script co-authored with Tonino
Guerra in 1961. Already in this film, Petri's gift for portraying
alienated characters, for conjuring up a Kafkaesque thriller
mood, is evident.
I giorni
contati (1962), his second film, again co-authored with
Tonino Guerra sets the pattern: Petri's filmic world is
political by allusion and dominated by the themes of exclusion
and divided lives. After two somewhat lesser films Il maestro
di Vigevano, (1963) and the sketch Sin in the afternoon,
included in High Infidelity, 1964, Petri directed The 10th
Victim (1965), a film with futuristic overtones also co-authored
with Tonino Guerra. In 1967, he shot We still Kill the old
Way (adapted from the homonymous novel by Leonardo Sciascia),
one of the most poignant of his works dealing with the individual's
inability to cope with realty. The film also marked Gian
Maria Volonte's entry into Petri's expressive world and
the beginning of the collaboration with the script-writer
Ugo Pirro which was to last until 1973.
With
A quiet place in the country, the last of his film to be
co-authored with Guerra, he tackles the subject of solitude
and the artist's romantic agony. He then directed four films
which showed that he was one of the most acute, lucid and
despairing analysts of the schizophrenia of our time. These
films constitute, as it were, a portrait of all the facets
and contradictions of Italian society: Investigation
of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), the subject
of which is the police-force; The
Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971), on the worker's
condition; Property is no longer a theft (1973), about the
role of money in our society and how power destroys the
individual: Todo Modo (1976), adapted from the homonymous
novel by Leonardo Sciascia is about the warped psychic structure
of the power moguls among the Christian Democrats. Pointing
out as it does all the danger of conformism in politics,
culture and communications technology, Petri's work increasingly
came up against production obstacles. The ideological violence
of Investigation of a citizen above suspicion almost caused
the film to be definitely banned.
In 1978,
putting aside those topics that were direct reflections
on contemporary Italian society, Petri directed for the
television a remarkable version of Sartre's play Dirty Hands,
in which, once again, Marcello Mastroianni gave an exceptional
performance. For the reason of copyright the film has not
been released outside Italy.
With
Buone Notizie (1979), which Petri himself produced together
with Giancarlo Giannini, the main character in the film,
Petri reached an impasse: the joint inability of the artist
and his character to convey their suffering and dismay.
At a
time when sociopolitical and psycoanalytical methods were
converging in an attempt to better define the crisis in
western societies, Petri tries to interpret the field of
the unconscious. More in the line of Sigmund Freud and Wilhelm
Reich than Karl Marx, he is one of the directors who have
done most to renew the political approach to man's problems,
to his social insertion. Ranging from neuroses to schizophrenia,
Petri's world is one of the most coherent and stimulating
where a film-director's commitment to his implicit audiences
is involved. The work, however, took its toll on Petri.
Final Years
Like his own characters, he was a constant prey to existential
doubts and anguish. The last years of Petri's life were
overshadowed by the difficulty he experienced in getting
a new film-project under way, and by the onset illness.
In 1981, Petri went to Geneva to produce Arthur Miller's
new play The American Clock. It was to be his sole incursion
into the theatre domain. Work on another film, Chi illumina
la grande notte was well advanced: the takes were scheduled
for September 1982 and Marcello Mastroianni was to play
the leading role. But his illness too was far advanced:
Elio Petri died prematurely of cancer on November 10, 1982.
He was 53 years old.
External
links
Elio
Petri web-site
IMDb
entry
(See
here)
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