Trama

'The Stone in the Mouth' is the live chronicle of how the mafia conquered Sicily, the whole Italy and parts of the United States. Or how it tried to do so, thanks to the guilty underestimation of many who should have fought it.

In a corpse slain by the mafia, a stone inside the mouth meant that the man should have kept his mouth shut. Modern mafia has its historical and sociological roots in the birth of American capitalism through the establishment of particular relationships between the American and Sicilian mafia. The methods and subtle ramifications of the mafia become instruments of terror and power: the same strategies, the same enforced silence. This is demonstrated by discoveries made by investigators both in Sicily and in the United States. A documentary collage made out of archive footage, sequences of films ranging from La mafia (1962) to Paisà (1946), and faithfully reconstructed facts from real-world news, recording the mafia's methods, crimes, collusions and high-ranking protections, also highlighting the links between the original island organization and Italian-American organized crime. An absolutely real portrait of the mafia, devoid of any mythification or justification, in a film that has become a classic of cinema.—Anonymous