Note: Last week’s Friz Lang selection was provided by reader AG, not AK as I wrote.
Greeting gentle reader and welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s a tale of power and sacrifice, The Mattei Affair:
and next week’s film, Kamilla:
Reviews of The Mattei Affair:
Letterboxd says:
Wow! What a stellar film that really peppered with a creative flourishes in how it’s told. I wish I could bring more to the plate in knowing much of the actual story but this sharply dots it’s I’s and crosses it’s T’s in giving you inferences to who might have wanted Mattei dead and that there is some highly suspect actions that could have lead to his plane crash,
First of all Francesco Rosi does a master class in setting up what type of person Enrico Mattei as we jump timelines from his death to his political platform of keeping the methane industry in firm control of the people in Italy and also expanding to help each nation nurture there own chemical wealth instead of in the hands of foreign investors like (Ahem) America.
Now here’s where I spoke Italian and like I said more about this case cause Francesco stops the film to show some of the characters actually involved in a personal screening and he talks to the camera about them that left me having to check my film footing.
Clearly this is not a happy story as we begin and end with the plane crash details but Rosi parallels the micro details of it to the mega oil conglomerates bullying nations to get there way but hold on if you watch now(cause it’s been restored) you get this gorgeously aesthetic stylized era(dated of course) of set design.
This was obviously a passion project for Rosi and honestly I fell for it hook line and sinker even if some of the character elements went by the wayside I was still invested. So If you like a solid democratic conspiracy type film akin to Gavras that you want to have a dalliance with then check out “The Mattei Affair”.
Films Fatale says:
Out of all of the ties that occurred with the Palme d’Or prize at Cannes, the one that happened during the 1972 edition feels the most understandable. This wasn’t a tough call between two drastically different films like Kagemusha and All That Jazz, for instance. The 1972 festival boasted two Italian films that featured political subject matters with a feature character that has to face a difficult system with their back against the wall, and both of these characters are played by Gian Maria Volonté. It almost feels like pure coincidence: which of these similar films would take the grand prize? Why not both? In this first film, The Mattei Affair, Volonté portrays the real businessman named Enrico Mattei that tragically passed via an airplane accident just moments before he was due to land. Director Francesco Rosi then studies this unusual circumstance, only to discover some hideous truths that were kept from the public (or so states the film). Here is a conspiracy theory that Rosi wanted us to know, and it won’t likely sit well with you.
Valued reader Alex Cox has generously offered his notes for a book he wrote which examines The Mattei Affair. He explained that it’s written for undergraduates; I found it informative and I think you will too:
Here is a short excerpt:
So it became a double mystery, and Rosi himself appears in the film, asking questions about de Mauro, who had presumably been kidnapped, and was never seen again.
Structurally, THE MATTEI AFFAIR is very different from the previous films we’ve seen. They had linear structures, whereas MATTEI starts at the end, and moves back and forward through time. THE MATTEI AFFAIR breaks with conventional story structure in other ways, too.
MATTEI begins at the end. It has a non-linear narrative, jumping back and forth through time.
From the muddy crash site we flash back to air traffic controllers trying to contact Mattei’s aircraft in the air, forward to the burning plane, to a crowd of journalists surrounding Mattei’s wife, then back to Mattei, alive, with his wife (the only other time we see her!) who asks about the death threats he’s received, back to the crowd of reporters, to a car pulling up, to a static shot of the 17-storey AGIP building, lights coming on in the middle of the night, to a battery of television screens, showing Mattei’s face and name.
My take:
The subject material is compelling. The design of the film is not. I find “hybrid” films like docu-dramas to be disjointed. I will give it ⭐ because I know others will like it, but it’s not for me.
Director: Francesco Rosi
Screenwriters: Francesco Rosi, Tonino Guerra, Nerio Minuzzo, Tito Di Stefano
Plot (Spoilers!):
Enrico Mattei is a patriotic Italian. He is put in charge of selling off the Italian oil industry to the US, but he ignored orders. Now Italy has a thriving oil business.
This makes him enemies, unsurprisingly. But Mattei resists them. He even explores deals with the Soviet Union.
This is a step too far. Mattei and an American journalist are flying in Mattei’s private plane. It crashes. The powers that be are suspected to be behind it all, but nothing is ever proven.
***
Bonuses:
Black Mountain Transmitter – Behold The Undead Of Dracula (Official full album stream):
The Upsetters – Eastwood Rides Again (Full Album) 1994:
Earl Hines – Spa, Belgium 1977:
Music of the Crusades – David Munrow and the Early Music Consort:
Musica Reservata – Music from the 100 Years War (Full 1969 Album):
Music from the Thirty Years’ War:
Azuma Kabuki Musicians Nagauta Music 1954 (with liner notes):
Mono Columbia LP. Sol Hurok with the co-operation of H.I.H. Prince Takamatsu and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs presents the Azuma Kabuki Musicians under the leadership of Katsutoji Kineya and Rosen Tosha in a program of Nagauta Music and original music and arrangements from older classics: Sambaso (Offering To the Gods), Dojoji (The Dancing Girl at the Dojoji Temple), Tsuchigumo (The Dance of The Spider), Ninin-Wankyu (Memories), Nagare (Water Images), Ocho (Ancient Court Days), O-Matsuribayashi (Festival Music)
‘CREEPSHOW’. Surreal, experimental horror in five sections.:
Bizarre and surreal, experimental horror film in five sections:
Contamination, Apparition, Entity, Demon and Inferno.
16mm and 8mm film. Colour, B+W and hand dyed colour.
Original Scores.
Ballet Mécanique (1924, 2K Digitally Restored, With Score by George Antheil):
“Charlot présente le Ballet Mécanique”
Ballet Mécanique is a 1924 avant-garde silent film by French artist Fernand Léger in collaboration with American filmaker Dudley Murphy. Starring Kiki de Montparnasse.
This is one of the earliest and best example of experimental cinema.
Claimed by the Dadaist and Cubist movements, this mad mad film is a
cornucopia of fibrillating images, geometric figures, kaleidoscopic objects and so forth. All glued together with a cacophonous and bizarre music score by George Antheil.
The film was originally premiered on 24 September 1924 at the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik in Vienna without music accompaniment due to disagreement between the director and the composer.
The Mystics of Muelenburg – Thomas Ligotti:
