Le mani sulla città
Italy,
1963, 110 min
Shown in 1997
CREDITS
- dir
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Francesco Rosi
- prod
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Lionello Santi
- scr
-
Francesco Rosi, Raffaele la Capria, Enzo Provenzale
- cam
-
Gianni de Venanzo
- editor
-
Mario Serandrei
- cast
-
Rod Steiger, Salvo Randone, Guido Alverti, Angelo d’ Alessandro, Carlo Fermariello
- source
-
Cinecittà International, Via Tuscolana, 1055, 00173 Rome, Itoly. FAX: 39-6-722-862-33
-
COMMENTS
Francesco Rosi was the recipient of the Akira Kurosawa Award. He appeared in person.
OTHER
The structure of power and the facade of democracy are explored in this dryly sophisticated and cynical political exposé set against the Naples skyline and starring Rod Steiger. Following the fatal collapse of a tenement building, an investigation reveals where profits from municipal developments are landing; as the city’s businessmen and builders are also councilors in the right-wing ruling party, this is scandalous but not surprising. Still, the guilty developer, Nottola (Steiger), is cast out from his power base on the Right, only to make a triumphant comeback as a centrist “reformist.” “Rosi is a pragmatist where the Neorealists were romantics.... The film derives its tension not so much from the conflict between the parties as from the detailed observation of Nottola’s maneuverings and their effect on the bricks and mortar of the city. Rod Steiger is an actor with the right kind of intellectual fiber for the part, and his dry, controlled performance constantly fascinates in the way that watching any successful gambler fascinates” (Monthly Film Bulletin). In a brilliant coup, Rosi had actual Neapolitan town councilors play the deputies who wave their hands in the air, screaming “Our hands are clean.”
FACTOID #97
Actor Franchot Tone, the former husband of Joan Crawford, was the master of ceremonies at the first festival in 1957.
