Elio Petri Revisited
May 7–10, 2006

To celebrate the arrival of a well-researched and entertaining documentary on the prolific Italian filmmaker Elio Petri, one of the preeminent political and social satirists of 1960s and early 1970s Italian cinema, the Department of Film and Media reconnects with its 2001 retrospective of the director by presenting his masterpiece, Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), a so-called stiletto satire.

Organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, Department of Film and Media; and Antonio Monda, Professor, New York University. With grateful thanks to The Italian Cultural Institute, New York.

Elio Petri. Appunti su un Autore (Elio Petri. Notes on a Filmmaker). 2005. Italy. Directed by Federico Bacci, Stefano Leone, Nicola Guarneri. The film career of Elio Petri, who died in 1982 at fifty-three, is explored through interviews with directors, actors, collaborators, and other admirers of “Capoccione” (“the Brain”), the nickname given to him by Marcello Mastroianni. Introduced by the filmmakers. In Italian and English, English subtitles. 70 min.
Sunday, May 7, 3:00; Wednesday, May 10, 8:00. T2

Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto (Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion). 1970. Italy. Directed by Elio Petri. Screenplay by Petri, Ugo Pirro. With Gian Maria Volonté, Florinda Bolkan. In this iciest of film noirs, a respected police commissioner murders his mistress and plants evidence pointing to his guilt. Being “above suspicion,” he is not himself accused. Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1970. Courtesy Columbia Pictures. In Italian, English subtitles. 112 min.
Sunday, May 7, 5:00; Monday, May 8, 8:00. T2

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