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27. Modernity, Mafia Style: Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso

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Mafia Movies
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As we know, many movies about the mafia are not, in fact, about the mafia. Directors often use the figure of the mafia to talk about something else. This is certainly true of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), which the director stressed is not about the mafia but rather about the fam-ily and capitalism. And it is also true of Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso (1962). Lattuada’s film mimics and deconstructs the stereotype of the Sicilian mafia in order to offer a dark commentary on the nature of modern capitalism. A key part of this critical and aesthetic project involves both drama-tizing and dismantling stereotypes about the north and south of Italy. The stereotype of the Sicil-ian mafia is, if you will, embedded in the stereotype of Italy’s south. Because received ideas about the mafia and the south are deeply interwoven, to deconstruct one entails deconstructing both.Mafioso is relatively unknown today  – a ‘forgotten classic,’ indeed  – so it is worth taking a moment to rehearse its plot. The protagonist, played by the great Italian comic actor Alberto Sordi, is a Sicilian emigrant named Antonio Badalamenti (nicknamed Nino), who has made a successful career and life for himself in Milan. He has a good job as a floor supervisor in a factory, and he has married a beautiful, blond Milanese woman, with whom he has raised two beautiful, blond daughters. The film recounts the trip he takes back to Sicily with his family for a summer vaca-tion. At the start, Antonio is overwhelmingly excited about taking his wife and daughters back to his homeland, but his wife is doubtful. During the course of their two-week visit, however, their feelings about Sicily are reversed. She (and her daughters) grows to love it there, and for him the sojourn becomes a nightmare. Antonio is unwillingly drafted by the mafia into committing a murder, for which he is sent all the way to New York, and by the end of the film he is desperate to return to Milan. The film closes with Antonio back on the factory floor, having returned to his successful and civilized life in the north.One of Lattuada’s chief aims in the film is to play with and deconstruct the traditional dichot-omy between a modern, civilized north and a traditional, backwards south. Pictorial master that he is, Lattuada does this through images and sequences that are beautiful, dramatically compel-ling, and rich with conceptual content. As we will see later in the discussion, he employs both diegetic sounds and non-diegetic music for the same effect as well. As the credits roll at the start of the film, we see the interior of a factory in Milan, with close-ups of machinery performing highly precise operations. After a few minutes, Antonio appears in a white laboratory coat, pen and clip-board in hand. He wears a serious, focused expression on his face as he supervises the machinery on the factory floor. The overall function of this opening sequence is to establish the familiar 27Modernity, Mafia Style: Alberto Lattuada’s Mafiosonelsonmoe
© 2019 University of Toronto Press, Toronto

As we know, many movies about the mafia are not, in fact, about the mafia. Directors often use the figure of the mafia to talk about something else. This is certainly true of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), which the director stressed is not about the mafia but rather about the fam-ily and capitalism. And it is also true of Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso (1962). Lattuada’s film mimics and deconstructs the stereotype of the Sicilian mafia in order to offer a dark commentary on the nature of modern capitalism. A key part of this critical and aesthetic project involves both drama-tizing and dismantling stereotypes about the north and south of Italy. The stereotype of the Sicil-ian mafia is, if you will, embedded in the stereotype of Italy’s south. Because received ideas about the mafia and the south are deeply interwoven, to deconstruct one entails deconstructing both.Mafioso is relatively unknown today  – a ‘forgotten classic,’ indeed  – so it is worth taking a moment to rehearse its plot. The protagonist, played by the great Italian comic actor Alberto Sordi, is a Sicilian emigrant named Antonio Badalamenti (nicknamed Nino), who has made a successful career and life for himself in Milan. He has a good job as a floor supervisor in a factory, and he has married a beautiful, blond Milanese woman, with whom he has raised two beautiful, blond daughters. The film recounts the trip he takes back to Sicily with his family for a summer vaca-tion. At the start, Antonio is overwhelmingly excited about taking his wife and daughters back to his homeland, but his wife is doubtful. During the course of their two-week visit, however, their feelings about Sicily are reversed. She (and her daughters) grows to love it there, and for him the sojourn becomes a nightmare. Antonio is unwillingly drafted by the mafia into committing a murder, for which he is sent all the way to New York, and by the end of the film he is desperate to return to Milan. The film closes with Antonio back on the factory floor, having returned to his successful and civilized life in the north.One of Lattuada’s chief aims in the film is to play with and deconstruct the traditional dichot-omy between a modern, civilized north and a traditional, backwards south. Pictorial master that he is, Lattuada does this through images and sequences that are beautiful, dramatically compel-ling, and rich with conceptual content. As we will see later in the discussion, he employs both diegetic sounds and non-diegetic music for the same effect as well. As the credits roll at the start of the film, we see the interior of a factory in Milan, with close-ups of machinery performing highly precise operations. After a few minutes, Antonio appears in a white laboratory coat, pen and clip-board in hand. He wears a serious, focused expression on his face as he supervises the machinery on the factory floor. The overall function of this opening sequence is to establish the familiar 27Modernity, Mafia Style: Alberto Lattuada’s Mafiosonelsonmoe
© 2019 University of Toronto Press, Toronto

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xv
  4. Part One. Setting the Scene
  5. 1. The Corleones at Home and Abroad 1
  6. 2. Gender and Violence: Four Themes in the Everyday World of Mafia Wives 26
  7. Part Two. American Mafia Movies and Television: The Corleones at Home and Abroad
  8. 3. Wallace McCutcheon’s The Black Hand: A Different Version of a Biograph Kidnapping 41
  9. 4. ‘Most Thrilling Subjects’: D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Revenge Films 46
  10. 5. Ethnicity and the Classical Gangster Film: Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar and Howard Hawks’s Scarface 52
  11. 6. Playing Good Italian/Bad Italian on ABC’s The Untouchables 58
  12. 7. Prelude to The Godfather: Martin Ritt’s The Brotherhood 64
  13. 8. Michael Corleone’s Tie: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather 70
  14. 9. Nihilism and Mafiositá in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets 76
  15. 10. Thematic Patterns in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II 82
  16. 11. The Sexual Politics of Loyalty in John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor 87
  17. 12. Between Postmodern Parody and Generic Hybridization: The Gangsters of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables 93
  18. 13. The Bandit, the Gangster, and the American Army Shorts: Michael Cimino’s The Sicilian 98
  19. 14. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas: Hybrid Storytelling between Realism and Formalism 103
  20. 15. Redemption in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III 109
  21. 16. Narrating the Mafia, Las Vegas, and Ethnicity in Martin Scorsese’s Casino 114
  22. 17. ‘Nothing Romantic about It’: Gender and the Legacy of Crime in Abel Ferrara’s The Funeral 120
  23. 18. Inside the Mafia: Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco 126
  24. 19. Family Therapy: Harold Ramis’s Analyze This and the Evolution of the Gangster Genre 132
  25. 20. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, or the Quest for a Departed (Ethnic) Identity 138
  26. 21. When Words Can Kill: David Chase’s The Sopranos 145
  27. 22. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, Don’t Stop …’: (De)Structuring Expectations in the Final Season of The Sopranos 151
  28. 23. ‘History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme’: Fictionalizing History in Boardwalk Empire 157
  29. 24. Mob Wives: Exploitation or Empowerment? 163
  30. Part Three. Italian Mafia Movies and Television: Resistance and Myth
  31. 25. Which Law Is the Father’s? Gender and Generic Oscillation in Pietro Germi’s In the Name of the Law 171
  32. 26. The Visible, Unexposed: Francesco Rosi’s Salvatore Giuliano 177
  33. 27. Modernity, Mafia Style: Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso 183
  34. 28. Francesco Rosi’s Hands over the City: A Contemporary Perspective on the Camorra 188
  35. 29. Prototypes of the Mafia: Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard 194
  36. 30. The Failure of the Intellectual: Elio Petri’s Filming of Leonardo Sciascia’s To Each His Own 200
  37. 31. Damiano Damiani’s The Day of the Owl: A Western Flirtation 206
  38. 32. Smaller and Larger Families: Lina Wertmüller’s The Seduction of Mimi 212
  39. 33. Deconstructing the Enigma: Logical Investigations in Francesco Rosi’s Lucky Luciano 218
  40. 34. Power as Such: The Idea of the Mafia in Francesco Rosi’s Illustrious Corpses 224
  41. 35. Marco Risi’s Forever Mary: Desperate Lives Converge in Sicilia ‘Non Bedda’ 230
  42. 36. Threads of Political Violence in Italy’s Spiderweb: Giorgio Ambrosoli’s Murder in Michele Placido’s A Bourgeois Hero 236
  43. 37. Sacrifice, Sacrament, and the Body in Ricky Tognazzi’s La scorta 242
  44. 38. Pasquale Scimeca’s Placido Rizzotto: A Different View of Corleone 247
  45. 39. Marco Tullio Giordana’s The Hundred Steps: The Biopic as Political Cinema 253
  46. 40. Roberta Torre’s Angela: The Mafia and the ‘Woman’s Film’ 259
  47. 41. Organized Crime and Unfulfilled Promises in Gabriele Salvatores’ I’m Not Scared 265
  48. 42. Growing Up Camorrista: Antonio and Andrea Frazzi’s Certi bambini 271
  49. 43. Lipstick and Chocolate: Paolo Sorrentino’s The Consequences of Love 277
  50. 44. The In(di)visibility of the Mafia, Politics, and Ethics in Bianchi and Nerazzini’s The Mafia Is White 283
  51. 45. Marco Turco’s Excellent Cadavers: An Italian Tragedy 289
  52. 46. Dispatches from Hell: Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah 294
  53. 47. From Comedy to Commemoration: Pierfrancesco Diliberto’s La mafia uccide solo d’estate 300
  54. 48. Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s Salvo: The Sound of Redemption in an Infernal Landscape 306
  55. 49. Of Renegades and Game Players: Shifting Sympathies in Gomorra: la serie 312
  56. Part Four. Italy’s Other Mafias in Film and on Television: A Roundtable
  57. 50. Introduction – The Banda della Magliana, the Camorra, the ’Ndrangheta, and the Sacra Corona Unita: The Mafia On Screen beyond the Cosa Nostra 321
  58. 51. Historicizing Italy’s Other Mafias: Some Considerations 329
  59. 52. Romanzo criminale: Roma Caput Violandi 334
  60. 53. Romanzo criminale: la serie 338
  61. 54. Toxic Tables: The Representation of Food in Camorra Films 342
  62. 55. The New Mafia in Una vita tranquilla 346
  63. 56. Soap Operas 349
  64. 57. Response #1 353
  65. 58. Response #2 355
  66. 59. Response #3 357
  67. 60. Conclusion 359
  68. Part Five. Double Takes
  69. The Godfather
  70. 61. The Godfather: Performance and Stardom 363
  71. 62. The Godfather: Adaptation 365
  72. 63. The Godfather: Gender 367
  73. 64. The Godfather: Scene Analysis – Don Vito’s Office 369
  74. 65. The Godfather: Scene Analysis – The Baptism/Murder 371
  75. 66. The Godfather: Scene Analysis – The Finale 373
  76. The Sopranos
  77. 67. The Sopranos: Antiheroic Masculinity 375
  78. 68. The Sopranos: Gender 377
  79. 69. The Sopranos: (Sub)Urban Space 379
  80. 70. The Sopranos: Episode 1.01, ‘The Sopranos’ 381
  81. 71. The Sopranos: Episode 1.05, ‘College’ 383
  82. 72. The Sopranos: Episode 2.04, ‘Commendatori’ 385
  83. Romanzo criminale
  84. 73. Romanzo criminale: Performance and Stardom 387
  85. 74. Romanzo criminale: Adaptation/Transmedia 389
  86. 75. Romanzo criminale: Gender 391
  87. 76. Romanzo criminale: Politics and Terrorism 393
  88. 77. Romanzo criminale: Scene Analysis – The Aldo Moro Kidnapping 395
  89. 78. Romanzo criminale: Scene Analysis – The Bologna Bombing 397
  90. Gomorrah
  91. 79. Gomorrah: Gender 399
  92. 80. Gomorrah: Metacinematic References 401
  93. 81. Gomorrah: Urban Space 403
  94. 82. Gomorrah: Scene Analysis – Opening Sequence 405
  95. 83. Gomorrah: Scene Analysis – The Initiation of Totò 407
  96. 84. Gomorrah: Scene Analysis – The Finale 409
  97. Filmography 411
  98. Selected Bibliography 417
  99. Contributors 425
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https://doi.org/10.3138/9781487510466-028

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents vii
  3. Acknowledgments xv
  4. Part One. Setting the Scene
  5. 1. The Corleones at Home and Abroad 1
  6. 2. Gender and Violence: Four Themes in the Everyday World of Mafia Wives 26
  7. Part Two. American Mafia Movies and Television: The Corleones at Home and Abroad
  8. 3. Wallace McCutcheon’s The Black Hand: A Different Version of a Biograph Kidnapping 41
  9. 4. ‘Most Thrilling Subjects’: D.W. Griffith and the Biograph Revenge Films 46
  10. 5. Ethnicity and the Classical Gangster Film: Mervyn LeRoy’s Little Caesar and Howard Hawks’s Scarface 52
  11. 6. Playing Good Italian/Bad Italian on ABC’s The Untouchables 58
  12. 7. Prelude to The Godfather: Martin Ritt’s The Brotherhood 64
  13. 8. Michael Corleone’s Tie: Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather 70
  14. 9. Nihilism and Mafiositá in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets 76
  15. 10. Thematic Patterns in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part II 82
  16. 11. The Sexual Politics of Loyalty in John Huston’s Prizzi’s Honor 87
  17. 12. Between Postmodern Parody and Generic Hybridization: The Gangsters of Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables 93
  18. 13. The Bandit, the Gangster, and the American Army Shorts: Michael Cimino’s The Sicilian 98
  19. 14. Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas: Hybrid Storytelling between Realism and Formalism 103
  20. 15. Redemption in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III 109
  21. 16. Narrating the Mafia, Las Vegas, and Ethnicity in Martin Scorsese’s Casino 114
  22. 17. ‘Nothing Romantic about It’: Gender and the Legacy of Crime in Abel Ferrara’s The Funeral 120
  23. 18. Inside the Mafia: Mike Newell’s Donnie Brasco 126
  24. 19. Family Therapy: Harold Ramis’s Analyze This and the Evolution of the Gangster Genre 132
  25. 20. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed, or the Quest for a Departed (Ethnic) Identity 138
  26. 21. When Words Can Kill: David Chase’s The Sopranos 145
  27. 22. ‘Don’t Stop Believin’, Don’t Stop …’: (De)Structuring Expectations in the Final Season of The Sopranos 151
  28. 23. ‘History Doesn’t Repeat Itself, but It Does Rhyme’: Fictionalizing History in Boardwalk Empire 157
  29. 24. Mob Wives: Exploitation or Empowerment? 163
  30. Part Three. Italian Mafia Movies and Television: Resistance and Myth
  31. 25. Which Law Is the Father’s? Gender and Generic Oscillation in Pietro Germi’s In the Name of the Law 171
  32. 26. The Visible, Unexposed: Francesco Rosi’s Salvatore Giuliano 177
  33. 27. Modernity, Mafia Style: Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso 183
  34. 28. Francesco Rosi’s Hands over the City: A Contemporary Perspective on the Camorra 188
  35. 29. Prototypes of the Mafia: Luchino Visconti’s The Leopard 194
  36. 30. The Failure of the Intellectual: Elio Petri’s Filming of Leonardo Sciascia’s To Each His Own 200
  37. 31. Damiano Damiani’s The Day of the Owl: A Western Flirtation 206
  38. 32. Smaller and Larger Families: Lina Wertmüller’s The Seduction of Mimi 212
  39. 33. Deconstructing the Enigma: Logical Investigations in Francesco Rosi’s Lucky Luciano 218
  40. 34. Power as Such: The Idea of the Mafia in Francesco Rosi’s Illustrious Corpses 224
  41. 35. Marco Risi’s Forever Mary: Desperate Lives Converge in Sicilia ‘Non Bedda’ 230
  42. 36. Threads of Political Violence in Italy’s Spiderweb: Giorgio Ambrosoli’s Murder in Michele Placido’s A Bourgeois Hero 236
  43. 37. Sacrifice, Sacrament, and the Body in Ricky Tognazzi’s La scorta 242
  44. 38. Pasquale Scimeca’s Placido Rizzotto: A Different View of Corleone 247
  45. 39. Marco Tullio Giordana’s The Hundred Steps: The Biopic as Political Cinema 253
  46. 40. Roberta Torre’s Angela: The Mafia and the ‘Woman’s Film’ 259
  47. 41. Organized Crime and Unfulfilled Promises in Gabriele Salvatores’ I’m Not Scared 265
  48. 42. Growing Up Camorrista: Antonio and Andrea Frazzi’s Certi bambini 271
  49. 43. Lipstick and Chocolate: Paolo Sorrentino’s The Consequences of Love 277
  50. 44. The In(di)visibility of the Mafia, Politics, and Ethics in Bianchi and Nerazzini’s The Mafia Is White 283
  51. 45. Marco Turco’s Excellent Cadavers: An Italian Tragedy 289
  52. 46. Dispatches from Hell: Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah 294
  53. 47. From Comedy to Commemoration: Pierfrancesco Diliberto’s La mafia uccide solo d’estate 300
  54. 48. Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza’s Salvo: The Sound of Redemption in an Infernal Landscape 306
  55. 49. Of Renegades and Game Players: Shifting Sympathies in Gomorra: la serie 312
  56. Part Four. Italy’s Other Mafias in Film and on Television: A Roundtable
  57. 50. Introduction – The Banda della Magliana, the Camorra, the ’Ndrangheta, and the Sacra Corona Unita: The Mafia On Screen beyond the Cosa Nostra 321
  58. 51. Historicizing Italy’s Other Mafias: Some Considerations 329
  59. 52. Romanzo criminale: Roma Caput Violandi 334
  60. 53. Romanzo criminale: la serie 338
  61. 54. Toxic Tables: The Representation of Food in Camorra Films 342
  62. 55. The New Mafia in Una vita tranquilla 346
  63. 56. Soap Operas 349
  64. 57. Response #1 353
  65. 58. Response #2 355
  66. 59. Response #3 357
  67. 60. Conclusion 359
  68. Part Five. Double Takes
  69. The Godfather
  70. 61. The Godfather: Performance and Stardom 363
  71. 62. The Godfather: Adaptation 365
  72. 63. The Godfather: Gender 367
  73. 64. The Godfather: Scene Analysis – Don Vito’s Office 369
  74. 65. The Godfather: Scene Analysis – The Baptism/Murder 371
  75. 66. The Godfather: Scene Analysis – The Finale 373
  76. The Sopranos
  77. 67. The Sopranos: Antiheroic Masculinity 375
  78. 68. The Sopranos: Gender 377
  79. 69. The Sopranos: (Sub)Urban Space 379
  80. 70. The Sopranos: Episode 1.01, ‘The Sopranos’ 381
  81. 71. The Sopranos: Episode 1.05, ‘College’ 383
  82. 72. The Sopranos: Episode 2.04, ‘Commendatori’ 385
  83. Romanzo criminale
  84. 73. Romanzo criminale: Performance and Stardom 387
  85. 74. Romanzo criminale: Adaptation/Transmedia 389
  86. 75. Romanzo criminale: Gender 391
  87. 76. Romanzo criminale: Politics and Terrorism 393
  88. 77. Romanzo criminale: Scene Analysis – The Aldo Moro Kidnapping 395
  89. 78. Romanzo criminale: Scene Analysis – The Bologna Bombing 397
  90. Gomorrah
  91. 79. Gomorrah: Gender 399
  92. 80. Gomorrah: Metacinematic References 401
  93. 81. Gomorrah: Urban Space 403
  94. 82. Gomorrah: Scene Analysis – Opening Sequence 405
  95. 83. Gomorrah: Scene Analysis – The Initiation of Totò 407
  96. 84. Gomorrah: Scene Analysis – The Finale 409
  97. Filmography 411
  98. Selected Bibliography 417
  99. Contributors 425
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