Misplaced Pages

#976023

128-926: Poliziotteschi ( Italian: [polittsjotˈteski] ; sg. : poliziottesco ) constitute a subgenre of crime and action films that emerged in Italy in the late 1960s and reached the height of their popularity in the 1970s. They are also known as polizieschi all'italiana , Italo-crime , spaghetti crime films , or simply Italian crime films . Influenced primarily by both 1970s French crime films and gritty 1960s and 1970s American cop films and vigilante films (among other influences), poliziotteschi films were made amidst an atmosphere of socio-political turmoil in Italy known as Years of Lead and amidst increasing Italian crime rates. The films generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car chases , vigilantism, heists , gunfights, and corruption up to

256-563: A TED Talk that she spoke to a "part-timer" with the Red Brigades who claimed that he used to sail between Lebanon and Italy during summers, ferrying Soviet weapons for a fee from the PLO to Sardinia where the weapons were distributed to "other organizations in Europe". Joe Strummer of The Clash frequently wore a Red Brigade shirt in the early punk rock period. He also wore the shirt in

384-643: A "liberal" or "weak" judiciary system as ineffectual in its treatment of criminals, the genre also suggests a more general distrust of authority, whether left-wing or right-wing, by portraying right-wing law enforcement, politicians and businessmen as hopelessly corrupt and manipulative. According to Bondarella, the "classic" poliziotteschi film reveals "almost universal suspicion of the very social institutions charged with protecting Italian society from criminal violence". With directors such as Fernando Di Leo and Umberto Lenzi and actors such as Maurizio Merli and Tomas Milian , poliziotteschi films became popular in

512-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for

640-422: A break from their past, were not sentenced for violent crimes and had started a new life. In 1998, Bordeaux 's appeal court decided that Sergio Tornaghi could not be extradited to Italy, on the grounds that Italian procedure would not let him be judged again, after a trial during his absence. In 2002, Paris extradited Paolo Persichetti , an ex-member of the Red Brigades who was teaching sociology, signalling for

768-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in

896-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to

1024-575: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),

1152-454: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,

1280-483: A factory foreman for Sit Siemens was held for around twenty minutes whilst pictures were taken of him wearing a placard declaring him to be a fascist. The foreman was then released unharmed. The BR's kidnappings were different from those in Latin American or European groups in that, apart from two major exceptions, they had been pursued not for immediate practical possibilities but for symbolic ritualism, where

1408-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that

SECTION 10

#1732772812977

1536-644: A firefight with a police patrol on a train at Castiglion Fiorentino station, near Arezzo. Galesi and Emanuele Petri (one of the policemen) were killed, and Lioce was arrested. On 23 October 2003, Italian police arrested six members of the Red Brigades in early-dawn raids in Florence, Sardinia , Rome and Pisa in connection with the murder of Massimo D'Antona. On 1 June 2005, four members of the Red Brigades-PCC were condemned to life sentence in Bologna for

1664-410: A genre of violent Italian murder-mystery thriller-horror films. Directors and stars often moved between both forms, and some films could be considered under either banner, such as Massimo Dallamano 's What Have They Done to Your Daughters? (1974). The poliziottesco subgenre gradually declined in popularity during the late 1970s. Screenwriter Dardano Sacchetti , who was unhappy with what he deemed

1792-492: A large number of arrests in 1980 when 12,000 far-left militants were detained while 300 fled to France and 200 to South America; a total of 600 people left Italy. Most leaders arrested including Faranda, Franceschini, Moretti, and Morucci either retracted their doctrine (as dissociati ) or collaborated with investigators in the capture of other BR members (as collaboratori di giustizia ), obtaining important reductions in prison sentences. The best-known collaboratore di giustizia

1920-491: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of

2048-684: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of

2176-401: A more multi-faceted, complex outlook on the political turmoil and crime waves of the time, as well as violence in general, with Bayman and author Roberto Curti in particular arguing that the genre generally used political conflicts and violence for largely apolitical tension-building and cathartic or emotional purposes rather than to promote any particular political agendas. Curti notes that

2304-503: A negotiated outcome. In his appeal to the BR, Pope Paul VI asked them to release Moro "without conditions". The specified "without conditions" is controversial; according to some sources, it was added to Paul VI's letter against his will, and the pope instead wanted to negotiate with the kidnappers. According to Antonio Mennini , Pope Paul VI had saved £ 10 billion to pay a ransom to the BR in order to save Moro. After holding Moro for 54 days,

2432-535: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as

2560-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in

2688-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to

SECTION 20

#1732772812977

2816-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following

2944-519: A strong reaction against the BR by the Italian law enforcement and security forces. The murder of a popular political figure also drew condemnation from other Italian left-wing militant formations and even the imprisoned ex-leaders of the group. The BR suffered a loss of support. Another crucial turning point was the 1979 murder of Guido Rossa, a member of the PCI and a trade union organizer. Rossa had observed

3072-419: A total of 75 people are thought to have been murdered by the BR. A majority of the murders were politically motivated, though a number of assassinations of random police and Carabinieri officers took place, as well as a number of murders occurring during criminal ventures such as bank robberies and kidnappings. Romanian defector Ion Mihai Pacepa claimed that the Red Brigades' primary foreign support came from

3200-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as

3328-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society

3456-678: Is not the President of the Republic speaking, but comrade Pertini. I knew [the real] red brigades: they fought with me against the fascists, not against democrats. For shame!" Formed in 1970, the Red Brigades sought to create a revolutionary state through armed struggle , and to remove Italy from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The organization attained notoriety in the 1970s and early 1980s with their violent acts of sabotage , bank robberies ,

3584-497: Is used generally to indicate every detective fiction production where police forces (Italian or foreign) are the main protagonists. Instead the term poliziottesco , a fusion of the words poliziotto ("policeman") and the same -esco desinence, has prevailed (over the more syntactically correct poliziesco all'italiana ) to indicate 1970s-era Italian-produced "tough cop" and crime movies. The prevalence of poliziottesco over poliziesco all'italiana closely follows

3712-640: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored

3840-868: The Czechoslovak StB and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Soviet and Czechoslovak small arms and explosives came from the Middle East via heroin traffickers along well-established smuggling routes. Pacepa further claimed logistic support and training were carried out directly by the Czechoslovak StB both in Prague and at remote PLO training camps in North Africa and Syria . Smuggled Czechoslovakian-made Škorpion submachine pistols were used by

3968-503: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as

Poliziotteschi - Misplaced Pages Continue

4096-609: The Italian government 's parliamentary majority, by attaining a Historic Compromise between the DC and the Italian Communist Party (PCI). A team of BR members, using stolen Alitalia airline company uniforms, ambushed Moro, killed five of his bodyguards and took him captive. The captors, headed by Moretti, sought the release of certain prisoners in exchange for Moro's safe release. The government refused to negotiate with

4224-777: The KGB , the Italian Communist Party lodged several complaints with the Soviet ambassador in Rome regarding Czechoslovak support of the Red Brigades, but the Soviets were supposedly either unwilling or unable to stop the StB. This was one of several contributing factors in ending the alleged covert relationship that the Italian Communist Party had with the KGB , culminating with a total break in 1979. According to Pacepa, support for

4352-624: The Tupamaros of Uruguay published by Giangiacomo Feltrinelli , which in the words of historian Paul Ginsborg became "a sort of do-it-yourself manual for the early Red Brigades". Other influences included the Algerian National Liberation Front and the Viet Cong . In the 1980s, the group was broken up by Italian investigators, with the aid of several leaders under arrest who turned pentito and assisted

4480-1045: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification

4608-490: The Years of Lead , while various judicial investigations also took place, headed by Guido Salvini and other magistrates. On 23 January 1983, an Italian court sentenced 32 members of the BR to life imprisonment for their role in the kidnapping and murder of Moro, among other crimes. Many elements and facts have never been fully cleared up, despite a series of trials, and this led to a number of other alternative theories about

4736-495: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed

4864-489: The kneecapping of certain industrialists, factory owners, bankers, and politicians deemed to be exploitative, as well as the kidnappings or murders of industrialists, prominent capitalists, politicians, law enforcement officials, and other perceived enemies of the working-class revolution. Nearly fifty people were killed in its attacks between 1974 and 1988. According to the Center for International Security and Cooperation ,

4992-770: The " Second Mafia War " of the early 1980s. Italian organized crime groups such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra , and especially the Roman Banda della Magliana were actively involved in both criminal and political activities during this time, carrying out bombings and kidnappings, making deals with corrupt politicians, and forming strong ties to extreme far-right groups and neo-fascist terrorist organizations. Accordingly, poliziotteschi films such as Execution Squad (1972) often featured political extremists and paramilitary or terrorist groups alongside or in addition to

5120-511: The 1,337 people convicted of belonging to the Red Brigades, 70% were workers, service sector employees or students. The fear of a far-right power grab in Italy, like the regime of the colonels in Greece and the military dictatorship of Chile led by Augusto Pinochet , in a country still scarred by its Italian fascist past, partly explains why far-left terrorism has developed in Italy more than in any other European country. Sergio Segio, one of

5248-612: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in

Poliziotteschi - Misplaced Pages Continue

5376-408: The 1970s American " vigilante films " of the same period, such as 1974's Death Wish , films by which the poliziotteschi genre was considerably influenced. In retrospect, despite contemporaneous claims in the 1970s of overly conservative or reactionary themes within the genre, film historians such as Louis Bayman and Peter Bondarella contend that, in fact, poliziotteschi films generally presented

5504-689: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed

5632-652: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of

5760-498: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into

5888-918: The Autonomia movement of being the political wing of the BR. Negri was charged with a number of offences including leadership of the BR, masterminding the kidnapping and murder of Moro and plotting to overthrow the government. At the time, Negri was a political science professor at the University of Padua and visiting lecturer at Paris ' École Normale Supérieure . Thus, French philosophers Félix Guattari and Gilles Deleuze signed in November 1977 L'Appel des intellectuels français contre la répression en Italie (The Call of French Intellectuals Against Repression in Italy) in protest against Negri's imprisonment and Italian anti-terrorism legislation . A year later, Negri

6016-402: The BR "continue to exist because we never proceeded to their funeral", calling for truth from every involved party in order to be able to turn the page. In October 2007, a former BR commander was arrested after committing a bank robbery while out of prison on good conduct terms. On 1 October 2007, Cristoforo Piancone, who is serving a life sentence for six murders, managed to steal €170,000 from

6144-523: The BR announced that they had set up a Communist Combatant Party to "guide the working class". Terrorist activities, especially against Carabinieri and magistrates , increased considerably in order to terrorize juries and cause mistrials in cases against imprisoned leaders of the organization. Also, since arrested members of the BR refused to be defended by lawyers, lawyers designated by the courts to defend them ( difensori d' ufficio ) were also targeted and killed. Amongst jurists, Professor Fausto Cuocolo

6272-608: The BR for the Italian security services. Curcio was freed from prison by an armed commando of the BR, led by his wife Cagol, but was rearrested sometime later. After 1974, the Red Brigades expanded into Rome , Genoa , and Venice , their numbers grew drastically and began to diversify in their criminal ventures. The BR operated some high-profile political kidnappings (e.g. Genoa judge Mario Sossi) and kidnapped industrialists (e.g. Vallarino Gancia) in order to obtain ransom money which (together with bank robberies ) were their main source of income. Its 1975 manifesto stated that its goal

6400-473: The BR realized that the government would not negotiate. Fearful of being discovered, they decided to kill their prisoner. They placed him in a car and told him to cover himself with a blanket. Moretti then shot him eleven times in the chest. Moro's body was left in the trunk of a car in Via Caetani, a site midway between the DC and PCI headquarters, as a last symbolic challenge to the police, who were keeping

6528-488: The BR was a "broadly diffused" terrorist group. Models for the BR included the Latin American urban guerrilla movements and the World War II era Italian partisan movement , which was itself a mostly leftist, anti-fascist revolutionary movement that the BR saw itself as a continuation of, and an example of a youthful anti-fascist movement using violent means for just ends. The group was also influenced by volumes on

SECTION 50

#1732772812977

6656-406: The BR were generally opposed by other far-left groups, such as Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio , and were isolated from the Italian political left , including by the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which they opposed for their Historic Compromise with Moro and Christian Democracy . With the kidnapping and murder of Moro, they were instrumental in blocking the PCI's road to government. In

6784-450: The BR's activities were denounced by far-left political groups, such as Lotta Continua and Potere Operaio , which were closer to the autonomist movement. Those like Lotta Continua shared the need for armed self-defence against police and fascist violence but were critical of terrorist actions, which they saw as elitist and counterproductive, and condemned the BR as a catalyst rather than an answer to repression. Lotta Continua questioned

6912-488: The BR's claim that eliminating individual capitalists would have strengthened class organization. After its dissolution, the Lotta Continua continuity paper headlined "neither with the state nor the Red Brigades". Frequent allegations of links between the BR and the intelligence services of Communist states were made but never proven, and were always rejected by the militants in books and interviews. In June 1974,

7040-522: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of

7168-794: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by

7296-568: The Hyperion language school, directed by Vanni Mulinaris. Simone de Beauvoir had also written a letter to Mastelloni, which has been kept in juridical archives. Some of those associated with the Hyperion School, which included Corrado Simioni, Vanni Mulinaris, and Duccio Berio, were accused by the Italian authorities of being the "masterminds" of the BR, although they were all cleared afterwards. After Mulinaris travelled to Udine and

7424-660: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and

7552-544: The Red Brigades in many of their attacks, including the ambush of Aldo Moro 's motorcade (and his later murder), the Acca Larentia killings , a 1982 ambush on an army patrol in Salerno , as well as the murders of Roberto Peci, Diplomat Leamon Hunt , and Commissioner Antonio Esposito. Russian defector Vasili Mitrokhin claimed that, aware of the involvement and fearing retaliation due to their own involvement with

7680-504: The Red Brigades killed two members of the Italian neo-fascist party, Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), during a raid on the MSI headquarters in Padua . In September 1974, Curcio and Franceschini were arrested by General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa , and sentenced to eighteen years in prison. The arrest was made possible by "Frate Mitra", alias Silvano Girotto, a former monk who had infiltrated

7808-402: The Red Brigades took place in the context of social struggles in the late 1960s. Workers' strikes shook factories, Pirelli and Siemens in particular, which led part of the labour movement to adopt "armed propaganda" as a method of struggle. The first actions, such as the destruction of foremen's vehicles or sequestration of executives, reflect the social composition of the armed groups. Among

SECTION 60

#1732772812977

7936-405: The Red Brigades was a major part of the operations of UDBA , the intelligence service of non-aligned communist Yugoslavia . Yugoslav connection with underground leftist movements in Italy began in the mid-1960s with the intent of destabilizing NATO, and ties were allegedly established with the Red Brigades immediately following the group's founding in 1970. The UDBA chief in charge of relations with

8064-533: The Red Brigades was, in Pacepa's account, Silvo Gorenc , a close associate of Josip Broz Tito , the leader of Yugoslavia. Gorenc was supposedly proud of Yugoslavia's close yet clandestine relationship with the Red Brigades, though he allegedly insisted the government could and would not attempt to influence the group to avoid executing Aldo Moro, despite Romanian leader Nicolae Ceaușescu 's pleas for Yugoslav intervention. Italian journalist Loretta Napoleoni said in

8192-722: The Red Brigades-PCC killed the ex-mayor of Florence Lando Conti . In March 1987, Red Brigades-UCC assassinated General Licio Giorgieri in Rome. On 16 April 1988, in Forlì , Red Brigades-PCC killed Italian Senator Roberto Ruffilli, an advisor of Italian Prime Minister Ciriaco de Mita . After that, the group activities all but ended after massive arrests of its leadership. The BR dissolved themselves in 1988. In 1985 some Italian members living in France returned to Italy. The same year, French President François Mitterrand guaranteed immunity from extradition to BR members living in France who had made

8320-469: The Red Brigades. The move was described as a turning point in French-Italian relations, with an advisor of French President Emmanuel Macron stating that "it was a way for us to show responsibility, recognise this part of Italian history and stop turning a blind eye to the violent acts perpetrated between the mid-60s and the 80s." A new group, with few links, if any, with the old BR, appeared in

8448-952: The Sociology Department of the Catholic University, the Reggio Emilia group (around Franceschini) included mostly former members of the Italian Communist Youth Federation (FGCI) expelled from the PCI for extremist views. In the beginning, the BR were mainly active in Reggio Emilia , in large factories in Milan (Pirelli, Sit-Siemens , and Magneti Marelli ) and in Turin ( Fiat ). Members sabotaged factory equipment and broke into factory offices and trade union headquarters. In 1972, they carried out their first kidnapping , in which

8576-516: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested

8704-461: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By

8832-465: The actual antagonists of the film to be right-wing reactionary, "tough-on-crime" ex-police officers and vigilantes rather than the initially suspected leftist militants. Rather than explicitly supporting violence or vigilantism, the genre just as often displayed a morally ambiguous or aloof position on these themes, or even presented vigilantism and violence as a no-win situation . Though poliziotteschi films have been viewed by some critics as condemning

8960-781: The authorities in capturing the other members. The group had a resurgence in the late 1990s to the 2000s. Although Italy was not the sole country to experience years of terrorism, the BR were the most powerful, largest, and longest-lived post-World War II left-wing terrorist group in Western Europe. Like-minded organizations were the Red Army Faction in Germany, the Irish Republican Army , and Basque's ETA . Countries hit by terrorism included France, Germany, Ireland, and Spain. Throughout their existence,

9088-488: The bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena with an accomplice. In August 2024 Leonardo Bertulazzi was arrested in Buenos Aires . He had been tried and convicted in absentia for the kidnapping of the naval engineer Piero Costa in 1977. According to Clarence A. Martin, the BR were credited with 14,000 acts of violence in the first ten years of the group's existence. According to statistics by Italy's Ministry of Interior ,

9216-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in

9344-601: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as

9472-538: The captors, while Italian political forces took either a hard line ( linea della fermezza ) or one open to negotiating ( linea del negoziato ). All major political forces except the Italian Socialist Party led by Bettino Craxi and the extra-parliamentary left took the hard line. From his captivity, Moro sent letters to his family, to his political friends and to the Pope Paul VI , pleading for

9600-430: The chain of power". Subsequently, they began targeting politicians. During the 1970s, the BR had carried out eight symbolic kidnappings. They all followed a similar path in which the victim was subjected to a summary trial, held in captivity for a period between 20 minutes to 55 days, and then released unharmed. Aldo Moro 's, the ninth of those symbolic kidnappings, was the only one to result in murder. During this time,

9728-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in

9856-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,

9984-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,

10112-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing

10240-680: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath

10368-441: The distribution of BR propaganda and had reported those involved to the police. He was shot and killed by the BR; this attack against a popular trade union organiser proved disastrous, totally alienating the factory worker base to which BR propaganda was primarily directed. In the words of Ezio Mauro of La Repubblica , the events were "Italy's 11th of September". It was the apogee of Italy's Years of Lead . Italian police made

10496-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,

10624-568: The entire nation, and Rome in particular, under strict surveillance. Moretti wrote in Brigate Rosse: una storia italiana that the murder of Moro was the last expression of Marxist–Leninist revolutionary action. Franceschini wrote that the imprisoned members did not understand why Moro had been chosen as a target. Moro was killed for his value as a symbolic representation of everything the BR opposed, rather than anything to do with his individual actions or beliefs. Moro's assassination caused

10752-462: The events to become popularized. Much of the BR was dismantled by the security services in the 1980s. On 17 December 1981, four members of the BR, posing as plumbers, invaded the Verona apartment of U.S. Army Brigadier General, James L. Dozier , then NATO deputy chief of staff at Southern European land forces. The men kidnapped Dozier and left his wife bound and chained in their apartment. He

10880-610: The far left (e.g. the Red Brigades ) and far right (e.g. the neo-fascist Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari ) engaged in kidnappings, assassinations, and bombings (such as the Piazza Fontana bombing and 1980 Bologna train station bombing ). At the same time, there was a period of especially violent conflict and disorder within the Sicilian Mafia , kicked off with the " First Mafia War " of the 1960s and culminating in

11008-516: The figures of the Years of Lead, said: "I grew up with the idea that they were planning a coup, like in Greece or Chile. And that they would have killed us. In fact, they had already started." Between 1969 and 1975, attacks and political violence were mainly attributable to right-wing groups (95% from 1969 to 1973, 85% in 1974, and 78% in 1975). While the Trento group around Curcio had its main roots in

11136-783: The first foreigner kidnapped by the BR. After Dozier's return to the US Army in Vicenza, he was congratulated by telephone by U.S. president Ronald Reagan on regaining his freedom. After the Abbé Pierre 's death in January 2007, Italian magistrate Carlo Mastelloni recalled in the Corriere della Sera that the Abbé had "spontaneously testified" in the 1980s in support of a group of Italian activists who had fled to Paris and were involved with

11264-425: The first time a departure from the "Mitterrand doctrine". In the 2000s, requests by Italian Justice for extradition from France involved several leftist activists, including Negri, Cesare Battisti , and others. This doctrine was based on the idea that the special laws (incarceration on the basis of mere suspicion, interrogations taking place without the presence of a lawyer, equal punishment for individuals belonging to

11392-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined

11520-462: The genre has been popular since the dawn of the sound era of film. Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned. Red Brigades The Red Brigades ( Italian : Brigate Rosse [briˈɡaːte ˈrosse] , often abbreviated BR ) was an Italian Marxist–Leninist armed terrorist guerrilla group. It

11648-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about

11776-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself

11904-710: The genre's "fascistic" undertones, credits himself for "destroying it from the inside", by making it evolve into self- parody . By the end of the decade, the most successful films associated with the genre were crime - comedy pictures, which gradually evolved towards pure comedy. Crime film Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres.  The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in

12032-444: The genre's protagonists often simultaneously displayed both right-wing and left-wing views, and protagonists were often working class while villains were often wealthy right-wing conservatives. The film Caliber 9 (1972), for instance, features protagonists of both right-wing and leftist ideologies and offers differing views on the causes of crime and the true antagonists of law-abiding Italian society, while Execution Squad reveals

12160-526: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for

12288-549: The highest levels. The protagonists were generally tough working class loners, willing to act outside a corrupt or overly bureaucratic system. In Italian, poliziesco is the grammatically correct Italian adjective (resulting from the fusion of the noun polizia , "police", and the desinence -esco , "related to", akin to the English "-esque") for police-related dramas, ranging from Ed McBain 's police procedural novels to forensic science investigations. Poliziesco

12416-537: The imprisonment without trial of Mulinaris, who was recognized as innocent some time afterwards. Mulinaris' treatment was, according to the Abbé, a "violation of human rights ". La Repubblica specified that Italian justice has recognized the innocence of all people close to the Hyperion School. By 1981, the BR had split into two factions: the majority faction of the Communist Combatant Party (Red Brigades-PCC, led by Barbara Balzerani ) and

12544-467: The kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro . The Red Brigades were formed in August 1970. Its founders were Renato Curcio and Margherita Cagol , who had met as students at the University of Trento and later married, and Alberto Franceschini . Franceschini's grandmother had been a leader of the peasant leagues, his father a worker and anti-fascist who had been deported to Auschwitz . The formation of

12672-544: The late 1960s, such as Bandits in Milan ( Banditi a Milano , 1968) by Carlo Lizzani , it was also strongly influenced by such rough-edged American police thrillers of the late 1960s and early 1970s as Bullitt , Dirty Harry , The French Connection , Magnum Force , and Serpico ; the 1970s wave of American vigilante films , including 1974's Death Wish ; the increase of cynicism and violence in French crime films;

12800-433: The late 1990s. The Red Brigades-PCC in 1999 murdered Massimo D'Antona  [ it ] , an advisor to the cabinet of Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema . On 19 March 2002, the same gun was used to kill professor Marco Biagi , an economic advisor to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi . The Red Brigades-PCC again claimed responsibility. On 3 March 2003, two followers, Mario Galesi and Nadia Desdemona Lioce, started

12928-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of

13056-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in

13184-450: The mid-1970s after the decline of Spaghetti Westerns and Eurospy genres. The subgenre lost its mainstream popularity in the late 1970s as Italian erotic comedy and horror films started topping the Italian box office. Although based around crime and detective work, poliziotteschi should not be confused with the other popular Italian crime genre of the 1970s, the giallo , which, to English-speaking and non-Italian audiences, refers to

13312-606: The minority of the Union of Combatant Communists (Red Brigades-UCC, led by Giovanni Senzani). In 1984, the group claimed responsibility for the murder of Leamon Hunt , United States chief of the Sinai Multinational Force and Observer Group. In the same year, Curcio, Moretti, Iannelli and Bertolazzi rejected the armed struggle as pointless. In the 1980s, the arrest rate increased in Italy, including that of Senzani in 1982 and of Balzerani in 1985. In February 1986,

13440-710: The more commonly featured apolitical mafiosi and gangster criminal elements found in Italian crime films. Due in part to the genre's often ostensibly negative portrayal of political activists and militants, especially leftist militants, and its seeming endorsement of vigilantism and "tough-on-crime" or " law and order " stances, some poliziotteschi films (such as 1976's The Big Racket ) were criticized by then-contemporaneous critics and accused of exploiting conservative fears of rising crime and political upheaval while containing reactionary , pro-violence, or even quasi- Fascist ideological elements in their overarching message. These critiques were similar to those levelled at

13568-444: The murder of Marco Biagi : Nadia Lioce , Roberto Morandi, Marco Mezzasalma and Diana Blefari Melazzi. Several figures from the 1970s, including philosopher Antonio Negri who was wrongly accused of being the mastermind of the BR, have called for a new analysis of the events which happened during the Years of Lead in Italy. On the other hand, BR founder Alberto Franceschini declared after his release from an 18-year prison term that

13696-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film

13824-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not

13952-610: The resurgence of mob films in the wake of The Godfather ; French and American noir and neo-noir films; and the rise of exploitation films in the late 1960s and 1970s. More generally, the genre was also heavily influenced by real-life crime and unrest in 1970s Italy during the period known as the anni di piombo (political violence, kidnappings, assassinations, bank robberies, political militant terrorism, impending oil crisis , political corruption, organized crime-related violence, and recession). Just as American police films, American crime thrillers, and American vigilante films of

14080-545: The same group regardless of the nature of the offences committed individually, etc.) adopted by the Italian authorities to combat terrorists ran counter to the French conception of law. While leftists had mostly fled to France, many neo-fascist activists involved in the strategy of tension, such as Vincenzo Vinciguerra and Stefano Delle Chiaie , fled to Spain; Delfo Zorzi, condemned for the Piazza Fontana bombing,

14208-483: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for

14336-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

14464-422: The success of the term spaghetti Western over western all'italiana , being shorter and more vivid – though in both instances the term that has come to be used more frequently by English-speaking fans of the genre ( poliziotteschi , spaghetti Westerns) was originally used pejoratively by critics, to denigrate the films themselves and their makers. Although the subgenre has its roots in Italian heist films of

14592-432: The targeted symbol represented an action towards the symbolized entity. Initially, the BR focused on managerial staff and right-wing trade unionists from the country's largest firms, such as Alfa Romeo , Fiat, and Sit-Siemens. By 1974, with the decrease of working-class mobilization, they shifted from the factory to the state and its institutions; in 1976, they described in particular the magistrature as "the weakest link in

14720-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as

14848-561: The time focused on the crime waves and urban decline in the United States of the 1960s and 1970s, poliziotteschi were set in the context of, or directly addressed, the sociopolitical tumult and violence of Italy's anni di piombo , or the "Years of Lead", a period of widespread social unrest, political upheaval, labour unrest, rising crime, political violence, and political terrorism from the 1960s to 1980s. During this period, paramilitary and militant political terrorist groups, both on

14976-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found

15104-421: The words of historian David Broder, rather than causing through their actions a radicalization of the Italian political landscape as they had hoped, it resulted in an anti-communist blowback and a decline for the extra-parliamentary left, which has sometimes prompted accusations that the Red Brigades were infiltrated by anti-communist or governmental entities seeking to undermine the group, especially in regard to

15232-622: Was Patrizio Peci, one of the leaders of the Turin "column". In revenge, the BR assassinated his brother Roberto in 1981, significantly damaging the standing of the group and lowering them in the public's eyes to little more than a supposedly radical Cosa Nostra . On 7 April 1979, the operaismo philosopher Antonio Negri was arrested along with the other persons associated with the Autonomist movement, including Oreste Scalzone . Padua's public prosecutor, Pietro Calogero, accused those involved in

15360-534: Was a "concentrated strike against the heart of the State, because the state is an imperialist collection of multinational corporations". The SIM ( Stato Imperialista delle Multinazionali ) became a primary target. In 1975, the Carabinieri discovered a farmhouse where Gancia was kept prisoner by the BR (Cascina Spiotta). In the ensuing gunfight, two police officers were killed, as was Cagol. That following April,

15488-600: Was also attacked in 1979, during an exam at University of Genoa ; it was the first time that the BR attacked in a school. Their weaponry came mainly from the stocks of the Italian Resistance during the Second World War. In 1978, the Second BR, headed by Mario Moretti , kidnapped and murdered Christian Democracy (DC) president Aldo Moro , who was the key figure in negotiations aimed at extending

15616-532: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed

15744-523: Was exonerated from Moro's kidnapping. No link was ever established between Negri and the BR and almost all of the charges against him (including seventeen murders) were dropped within months of his arrest due to lack of evidence. Moro's assassination continues to haunt Italy today, and remains a significant event of the Cold War . In the 1980s–1990s, a parliamentary commission headed by senator Giovanni Pellegrino investigated acts of terrorism in Italy during

15872-569: Was granted asylum and citizenship in Japan, while others fled to Argentina, in particular Augusto Canchi, who was wanted by Italian justice for his role in the 1980 Bologna massacre . The issue of a general amnesty in Italy for these crimes is highly controversial and still source of dispute. Most political forces oppose it, in particular the associations of victims of terrorism and their family members. In April 2021, seven fugitive Italians were arrested in France, six of whom were identified as members of

16000-501: Was held for 42 days until 28 January 1982, when a team of NOCS (a special operations unit of the Italian police) successfully carried out his rescue from an apartment in Padua, without firing a shot, capturing the entire terrorist cell. The guard, Ugo Milani, assigned to kill Dozier in the event of a rescue attempt did not do so and was overwhelmed by the rescuing force. Dozier was the first American general to be kidnapped by insurgents and

16128-476: Was responsible for numerous violent incidents during Italy's Years of Lead , including the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978. A former prime minister of Italy through the Organic centre-left , the murder of Aldo Moro was widely condemned, as was the murder of left-wing trade unionist Guido Rossa in January 1979. Sandro Pertini , the then left-wing president of Italy , said at Rossa's funeral: "It

16256-457: Was subsequently arrested by the Italian police, Abbé Pierre went to talk in 1983 with Italian President Sandro Pertini to plead Mulinaris' cause. Mulinaris had been imprisoned on a charge of assisting the BR. The Abbé had even observed eight days of a hunger strike from 26 May to 3 June 1984 in the Cathedral of Turin to protest the conditions suffered by "Brigadists" in Italian prisons and

16384-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by

#976023