Violence - the fifth power in the state

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Movie
German title Violence - The fifth power in the state
Original title La violenza: quinto potere
Country of production Italy
original language Italian
Publishing year 1972
length 101 (German version 90) minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Florestano Vancini
script Massimo Felisatti
Fabio Pittorru
Florestano Vancini
production Dino De Laurentiis
music Ennio Morricone
camera Toni Secchi
cut Tatiana Morigi Casini
occupation

Violence - The fifth power in the state (original title: La violenza: quinto potere ) is an Italian court and crime film from 1971. It depicts the powerlessness of the constitutional state at the time against mafia-like structures and acts.

action

In a Sicilian courtroom, 16 members of two rival Mafia parties are charged with various crimes. The construction of a dam gave rise to conflicts, in which its designer Amedeo Barrese on the one hand and the wealthy landowner Crupi on the other, who sees his agricultural income in danger, incited their people to bloody battles. In addition to bribery and threats, there was also a murder. In a long series of tiresome interrogations by the public prosecutor Azzara, by defense lawyer Colonnesi and by judge Altofascio, the legal system is exhausted in its breadth and the impotence of the investigating authorities is clear. Witnesses contradict each other, the evidence is weak, and the possibilities for appeals are almost unlimited. In this way it is not possible to prove the involvement of political figures in the events, nor to find out the actual truth. The illiterate Giacalone lost his life in custody; Except for the farmer La Circa, an insignificant marginal figure, all of the accused are acquitted.

background

The film is based on the play La violenza by Giuseppe Fava . It was first shown in cinemas in German-speaking countries on July 5, 1973. An LP with the film music was released on Cometa CMT 1012/26.

criticism

The Lexicon of the International Film found: "The effectively staged film lacks historical background and analytical approaches and gets lost in the representation of the courtroom spectacle." Michael Cholewa specifies the director's intention: "The provocative statement in Vancini's film is: (Southern) Italian society is a madhouse, the judiciary is a farce, politics incapable and all together corruptible." The Italian critic C. Bragaglia accused this Werk before that it "wants to denounce the Mafia problem, but he only succeeds in a conventional illustration."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Entry in the Archivio del Cinema Italiano
  2. Entry on Discogs
  3. Violence - the fifth power in the state in the lexicon of international filmTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  4. in: Michael Cholewa, Karsten Thurau: The terror is directing. Italian gangster and police films 1968–1982 Terrorverlag 1999, p. 71
  5. in: Cinema di Tutto il Mondo . Rome, Mondadori, 1978