Pietro Germi: A Troublesome Witness
An internationally successful director who played a crucial role in key periods of Italian cinema history (neorealism, commedia all’italiana) and is beloved of filmmakers around the world (including those you would least expect, like Wes Anderson), Pietro Germi nonetheless came across as a surly, aloof filmmaker, whose vision of gender relations was considered to be politically incorrect and who was viewed with deep suspicion by the left-wing cultural establishment.
It was only decades after his death that Germi was finally and rightly recognised as one of Italian cinema’s greats. His pessimistic vision of human relations took shape through a highly original reworking of genres: from the western (In nome della legge, the first film ever made about the mafia), to melodrama (Il ferroviere), noir (La città si difende), detective story (Un maledetto imbroglio) and a uniquely personal style of black comedy characterised by explicit and savage social critique (Divorzio all’italiana, Sedotta e abbandonata). Unlike many filmmakers of his generation, Germi never claimed to be an auteur and remained faithful to a vocation as a popular filmmaker. However, he is one of the directors who most consistently placed emphasis not only on a perfectly written screenplay, but on the mise-en-scène, the composition of the image, and the film’s rhythm.