IL DELITTO MATTEOTTI (THE MATTEOTTI AFFAIR/THE ASSASSINATION OF MATTEOTTI)

Italy, 1973, 120 minutes, Colour.
Franco Nero, Maria Adolph, Ricardo Cucciolla, Damiano Damiani, Vittorio de Sica, Gastone Moschin, Umberto Orsini.
Directed by Floristano Vancini.

The Matteotti Affair is a film about the early years of Italian fascism, the 1920s. German actor Mario Adolph (who had also played Don Camillo on German television) is very strong as Mussolini. He captures the personality of the dictator and shows him in action and the way that he ruled the country. Franco Nero is Giacomo Matteotti, who was abducted. The film has a number of Italian character actors as well as two prominent directors, Damiano Damiani and Vittorio de Sica in the cast.

1. The quality of this film and its impact? Range of interest, Italian history, political history?

2. The film as designed for an Italian audience? Presuppositions, information, attitudes and historical emphases and influences presumed? The impact for a non-Italian audience? How important was knowledge of the people and situations, a feeling for them? How important the gaining of knowledge and feeling from the film itself?

3. The production values: colour, re-creation of Rome in the twenties, the city, fascism, politics? Music? The importance of the stars and the use of so many prominent Italian directors in acting roles?

4. Audience response to the fascist setting: Mussolini himself and his background, his aims and ambitions for Italy and for himself, his material achievement, political stances? The atmosphere of the twenties? Italian pride and nationalism? The people and their support of Mussolini? The advances that he made and popular confidence in him? The means that he used? Response to the politics of the twenties and the comparison with other fascist states in Europe?

5. The film's portrait of Mussolini as Duce? As visualized, the sequences in which he appeared, his parliamentary performance, his devious use of power behind the scenes? As a character, as a type? The film’s anti-Mussolini attitude?

6. The portrait of the Italian fascists: how credible were they in their characters, beliefs, emotional reactions, morals and lack of scruple? Their hold on the Italian people?

7. The contrast with the socialists as in opposition, parliamentary performance, newspapers? The varying stances of the socialists? The ideological differences from the fascists?

8. The film's presentation of Matteotti within this context? As a socialist, his prestige and personality, his political acumen? His skills and a threat to the fascists? Why did they consider him dangerous?

9. The film's detailed presentation of the fascist plots and plans: the organizers, the assassins and the thugs employed? Dumini and his influence? Mussolini's tacit approval, the various officials and their knowledge, newspaper propaganda?

10. The portraits of the criminals, their style and backgrounds? Their violence? The importance of the cover-up techniques to cloak what they had done?

11. The atmosphere for the crime itself, atmosphere, plans? Matteotti and his innocence and his being victimized? The skill with the car, the violence of the killing? The panic, the witnesses, the quick burial of Matteotti?

12. The film’s detailed attention to the steps in the investigation, national uproar, parliamentary reaction, the stances of the people involved, the attack of the socialists, the cover-up techniques?

13. The importance of the discovery of the body, the gradual building up of details and information, the reconstruction of the crime?

14. The impact of Matteotti’s death in the Italy of its time? The fascists and their gaining from this, the blow to the socialists? How much insight into Italian character, Italian tradition of history and politics, Italian fascism?

15. The film as a proper exploration of political and national values? Understanding of the present through this exploration of the past?