Quote:
Originally Posted by Kakihara
I read a critic that insists this movie promotes right wing propaganda. Is that true?
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I think a lot of that criticism comes from American critics, viewing the films through the lens of their American equivalents (eg. Death Wish, Dirty Harry) without considering the different ciricumstances in Italy or the background of the Italian film makers.
The reality I think is a little more complex with the Italian crime films. In the context of the period in which they were made, the Italian government of the time had long been the Christian Democrats who happened to have been embroiled in massive corruption & bribery scandals, so the criticism of the red tape of "the system" in these films is often more of a criticism of their corrupt bureaucracy, compared to American films which were more of a criticism of what was perceived as a justice system that protected criminals more than victims.
In a lot of these types of films too, you'll find scenes where the hero cop - the one breaking the rules to get around the red tape - is criticising his superiors for being more concerned with locking up student protesters and 'hippies' than focusing on the real criminals, who more often than not are wealthy, powerful types in the pockets of the corrupt officials. The hero cop is usually an embodiment of the working class in Italian cinema.
It's also common that the characters introduced as the bad guys, end up being portrayed as a victim themselves driven to violent crime by inequality and a broken system, before we're led to the 'real' villain who is often one of the wealthy powerful types. This is something generally absent in American vigilante or 'rogue cop' films of the time. It's likely a lot of reviewers probably focused more on the ineffective justice system angle - being a lot more familiar in an American context - than the criticism of Italian society that lay underneath it.
Overall, I think a lot of poliziotteschi films did to the American cop/crime film what spaghetti westerns did to the American western, they often subverted the genre to convey a more Marxist message that criticised the corrupting influence of wealth & power and the destructive consequences of inequality.
The other thing to remember is that a lot of these directors had to grow up under the oppressive fascist dictatorship of Mussolini. As a result, they came out the other side very much on the other end of the spectrum.
Some film makers such as Fernando Di Leo (a supporter of the Red Brigade whose sister was the editor of a communist newsletter in Italy) and Damiano Damiani were a lot more overtly left-wing in their film making than others such as Umberto Lenzi whose attention was clearly on the exploitation elements, however the same themes are even present in Lenzi's films which are generally sympathetic to the "proletariat" and often critical of the "bourgeois" upper class, something he has mentioned himself in interviews about his early Carroll Baker gialli in particular.
All of that said, I haven't actually seen Rome Armed To The Teeth yet and from all accounts it sounds like it's a pretty straight-up exploitation actioner that probably has very little (if any) of the subtext I descibed above. But in the context of the period and who directed it, I think it's unlikely the film would be delivering an intentionally fascist message and more likely just doesn't have the intelligence of a Di Leo poliziotteschi.
I have it pre-ordered and can't wait to see it because it looks great either way!
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