Todo modo
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Todo modo |
 | |
| Country of production | Italy |
| original language | Italian |
| Publishing year | 1976 |
| length | 123 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Elio Petri |
| script | Elio Petri |
| production | Daniele Senatore |
| music | Ennio Morricone |
| camera | Luigi Kuveiller |
| cut | Ruggero Mastroianni |
| occupation | |
| |
Todo modo is an Italian crime film / political thriller directed by Elio Petri from 1976 with Gian Maria Volonté and Marcello Mastroianni in the leading roles, based on the novel of the same name by Leonardo Sciascia .
action
While a vehicle with a howling siren warns the population of an epidemic that has already killed a number of people, leading politicians, industrialists, bankers and other members of the Democrazia Cristiana , like every year, go to a closed, underground place in cloister - San Ignazio di Loyola, an order that has existed for centuries and has long been considered a source of spiritual renewal for the ruling castes. The evening before, "M.", the Italian President, appeared, greeted by the head of the Order, Father Don Gaetano, and shown to his room. M. has secretly had his wife smuggled into the underground vaults, who is waiting for him in her room.
The first disagreements arise when Voltrano, Don Gaetano's right-hand man, does not want to sit at the same table with some politicians because he considers them to be thieves and fraudsters and denies them the serious intention of coming here to fast while renouncing their privileges . In fact, most politicians have no interest in the Spartan life and meet to agree common strategies and strengthen their own position, but when the first deaths appear they start to get nervous. Is it the epidemic that has meanwhile also reached this place, or is one of them up to mischief? - Whenever you think you have convicted a suspect, the suspect dies a short time later. With deaths rising more and more suddenly, panic begins to spread, causing the last survivors, including M., to flee the catacombs, but that cannot save them.
background
Todo Modo was Elio Petri's second collaboration with Leonardo Sciascia , whose novel Two Coffins to Order ( A ciascuno il suo ) he filmed in 1967. As in his novel The Power and its Price ( Cadaveri eccellenti ), which was filmed at the same time by Francesco Rosi , Sciascia was no longer gazing at his homeland Sicily, but at the general political situation in Italy, here using the example of Italy's political and economic elite, under the leadership of M ., which was clearly Aldo Moro. With his murder in 1978, his death in Todo modo got an unwanted tragic component, which led to Todo modo disappearing from the Italian media for decades.
The fact that Gian Maria Volonté portrayed this character a second time in 1986 in The Aldo Moro Affair ( Il caso Moro ), again based on a model by Leonardo Sciascia , can only be understood as a correction of his first interpretation. Aldo Moro's attempt to form a coalition between the Christian Democratic and Communist Parties in the mid-1970s - known as the historical compromise ( Compromesso storico ) - met with much criticism not only in right-wing circles but also among supporters of the Communist Party was decisive for the design of his role in Todo modo . Unlike the other politicians, clerics and business bosses, he was admitted not only to be interested in increasing his own power, but at the same time his bigotry was ridiculed. Ten years later it became clear how much Gian Maria Volonté distanced himself from this design.
Awards
- Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists 1976
- Award (silver ribbon) for the best supporting actor, Ciccio Ingrassia