Der Professor

Camorra is the Italian word for Mafia. Only Americans call the mafia, the mafia. The origins are in Sicily, and affects every major city in Italy. They are apolitical; they align with whomever gives them the best deal. And it does not usually pay for you to oppose them openly.

This is a poor man's Scarface, with some eye-opening content as to why Italy struggled so much in post WW2 Europe. Italy had a large socialist segment at that time (in retaliation for the fascists of Mussolini). The unions, politicians, revolutionary groups, and the Camorra all vied for power in Italy after WW2. This chaos led to Italy falling behind other major powers like Germany, France, and several other countries, economically. The film highlights these problems under Tornatore, a very able director, who, a year later, made the classic, Cinema Paradiso.

Tornatore (who probably came to the same conclusion) did not excel in violence and sex; he was much better at romanticism, for which he eventually became the best in the world at portraying on the screen. He personally revived the Italian film tradition of great films. Unfortunately, this is not one of them, despite the best efforts of Ben Gazzara, is only slightly above average. The film is uneven, due mostly to production values, which are very low.

Some of the settings are quite impressive, but several others are very amateurish. The story about the rise of an intelligent gangster is interesting. At the halfway point, the Professor makes a grave error, as you will see in the film. From there he goes downhill. There really is no one in the film to root for as a protagonist; one of the weaknesses in the film; but then again, some films have no protagonists. Worth viewing as a retrospective of Tornatore's career.

Outstanding movie about the Mafia in southern Italy at the end of the 1970s. In the beginning of the movie, the authors say they hope that viewers will strengthen their belief in the necessity of the state and laws as the only true protector of civil life. However, watching the movie raises the thought that differences between illegal Mafia and legal authorities are not so great. The Mafia does not question the government, but rather competes with it, trying to imitate certain features of the government such as collecting taxes, providing safety and regulating business. The government relies heavily on the ruling ideology and consent, but is more than willing to resort to violence when threatened, and in the southern Italy government has often used the Mafia to do their dirty work, especially against labor unions, and other attempts to organize the working class.

The Camorra, a criminal organization/secret society founded in Campania in the 17th century, has developed into independent clans who cooperated or were feuding with each other. During the 1970s, Raffaele Cutolo, a charismatic crime boss in the Neapolitan region, formed a new criminal organization modeled on the traditional Camorra from the 19th century, and soon came into conflict with the existing camorrist groups. The New Organized Camorra (Nuova Camorra Organizzata) recruited its members in prisons and among unemployed youth, was very aggressive and had a strong hierarchical structure, with ideological stronghold in the code of silence, local patriotism, remarkable mutual solidarity, Catholicism and political conservatism. This film is about the rise and fall of the reformed Camorra, which spread rapidly due to its structure and ruthlessness but ultimately failed due to a lack of understanding of the broader political picture, very bad political assessments, unfounded megalomania and general loss of contact with reality. Based on actual events.

Whenever I watch Ben Gazzara, he always commands my interest. There's this sort of ambiguous charisma, this late great actor had, even when first seeing him do the nasty in Roadhouse. Here, in this mafioso, mostly fictive tale, drawn from real accounts (this movie which surprisingly made in 86, in contrast to the wonderful olden settings) Gazzara plays a really manipulative mafioso character, where the real true colors of his character, surface, halfway through the film (which has the exact same running time as Goodfellas) and they're ugly. Gazzara of course, stands out too, as this is a Italian production, where save for him, all the other actors are Italian. The Professor is not your average mafioso boss, he's a planner, who uses his noggen, while of course paying some hard prison time, for a domestic involving his sister, being felt up, that went inexplicably wrong. The movie really gets juicy in it's second half, as well as bloody, with Gazzara escaping from the mental sector of the prison, where freedom and fresh air, do him the world of good. He becomes head of the camorra, running protection rackets, you name it, in a shocking display of greed and power, where he becomes responsible for 100 deaths, due to late over payments, or people going up against him, where it's not a smart move. One scene has him looking into a widow and her sons eyes, then waving at the son, where the widow, then spits at him, returning a much understandable malice, a back window of bus, separating them. The film's almost like Scarface and King Of New York revisited, but this much lesser known vehicle, must be seem, by lovers of mafia type/Scorsese films, etc, especially with Gazzara. The final scene, with Gazzara back in the hole, strangely unforgettable. There are moments that are very compacted with stuff, montages, etc. much like Goodfellas and Casino, but that really doesn't count as a fault, this very well made film, hardly having any.

The "camorra" is the Neapolitan equivalent to the Sicilian Mafia and this is a pretty good biopic, loosely based on the life of prominent "camorrista" Raffaele Cutolo.

The film deals extensively with the strong links between organized crime and politics and makes some very badly veiled allusions to modern Italian politicians and events.

From a film point of view, there's not much in the way of character development. The main character studies medicine (?) in an attempt to escape the criminal milieu he is meant for, but after being sent to jail over a crime of passion he turns into a cold, pitiless man who ruins and corrupts everyone around him. He is nothing like Brando's delicately nuanced Vito Corleone. This guy is ugly, evil and completely unredeemable.

On the plus side, the film was shot by Tornatore who was responsible for the magic Cinema Paradiso. This works as a sort of "flip side" to that films rather elegiac vision of Southern Italy.

Well worth watching, if only to see an "alternative" mafia film, where a nation's problems are most definitely NOT solved by a quickie car chase.

The main reasons why I bought this movie, are that it finally shows the Camorra and because of Tornatore. I read that this movie was banned in Napels, but I forgot the actual reason. Maybe it was banned because it gave politicians a bad name or because the Camorra was against it.

This movie has many things that the most (Hollywood) gangster movies are missing; gritty look, realistic gore and NOT glorifying crime. The Tornatore directing is very good; it's maybe not as superb as his "Legend of 1900" or "Nuovo Cinema Paradiso" but that's okay, especially for a debut.

Ben Gazzara is good enough as The Professor (Raffaele Cutolo). He appears to me as a real Camorra capo (cunning, cruel and evil) would be. The only thing that bothered me about his acting, is that it looks a little silly when he goes crazy and bangs his head to the glass, but the dubbing isn't really helping there.

The supporting cast is quite good. Some of them also make their appearance in La Piovra (Nicola Di Pinto) and some even in Godfather Part 3 (The assassin from Sicily plays a magistrate here). There were no actors that bothered me or anything.

The soundtrack is good. It's no Morricone, but you cannot expect that from every Italian movie.

The DVD (EAN 5050232700587) is not very good. It is in English with no subtitles. The picture quality is bad, but still watchable. The sound is OK. There are no specials on the disc and for a movie of 144 minutes long, it has a very small number of scenes.

If you like La Piovra, you like this. If you don't like La Piovra, you can also like this, but it's a little different than what most people are used to.