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One of the first Italian films to realistically portray the Mafia<\/h1>\nOne of the first Italian films to realistically portray the Mafia<\/h1>\nDirected by Alberto Lattuada
\nStarring Alberto Sordi
\nReleased in 1962
\nYou can stream Mafioso<\/i> on the Criterion Channel
\nA film critique by Alice Gebura<\/p>\nIntroduction<\/h1>\n
Mafioso<\/i> was made in 1962. At the time the Mafia was getting away with whatever it wanted to in Italy and internationally. \u00a0The sordid history of organized crime and attempts by authorities to bring these criminals to justice since 1962 is long and complex. What we know today, thanks to the courage of many in undercover investigations and the courts, was not known by the filmmaker, Alberto Lattuada, in 1962. Yet he crafted a revealing story informed by the streets and the whispered anecdotes of family stories and witnesses. My review shows how factual history informs the story of one man\u2019s existential tragedy in a dehumanized capitalist system that dances with international crime.<\/p>\n
I begin with a very short history of the Mafia in Sicily based on two excellent books: Mafioso<\/i> by Colin McLaren (2022) and Midnight in Sicily <\/i>by Peter Robb (2008). I can\u2019t recommend these books highly enough.<\/p>\nWhat is \u201cMafia\u201d<\/h1>\n
Mafioso<\/i> takes place in Sicily so this is the particular story of Sicily. I look at three eras in its history that inform our understanding of the film:<\/p>\n “Greek-speaking Sicily became a Roman province in 200 BCE…Most of the following two millennia were also spent under foreign rule\u2026It is impossible to calculate how much produce and money have been taken out of Sicily in rents, taxes, and just plain looting in the past 2000 years.”<\/i>1<\/p>\n Roger I of Sicily at the Battle of Cerami<\/i>, by Prosper Lafave. The corruption of justice in Sicily can be traced back to the eras of the Greeks and Romans. Occupation continued with the Arabs then the Normans, relatively quiet times.\u00a0 Injustice metastasized with the arrival of\u00a0 the Spanish and the Bourbons.\u00a0 The stories are truly horrific.<\/p>\n 1603 Spanish dungeon in Palermo, now a museum. The prisoners left graffiti. https:\/\/www.wondersofsicily.com\/palermo-museum-inquisition.htm<\/p><\/div>\n For centuries the latifondi<\/i> (large, landed estates) were owned by aristocratic families who were seen less and less on their land. They put the hated gabellotti<\/i> in charge of their estates, guarded by armed campieri<\/i>. The gabellotti<\/i> leased land to sharecroppers who oversaw day laborers working the fields. They subsisted on bread, pasta, and beans, living in dire poverty.2<\/p>\n The gabellotti<\/i> were estate administrators and tax collectors who used extortion and intimidation to control the people. They were a parasitic presence that grew in the space between the absentee landowner and the people. \u00a0Playing both sides, they protected and ripped off the landowners as they protected and ripped off the peasants.3<\/p>\n Gabellotti https:\/\/www.perizieartistiche.it\/2023\/03\/28\/campieri-e-gabellotti\/<\/p><\/div>\n In the 1800s, the push to create a unified Italy began in the north and eventually initiated a military campaign to oust the Bourbons in the south.\u00a0 The Bourbons had a large, well-equipped army. To overthrow this formidable force, the north enlisted the aid of the gabellotti<\/i> and campieri<\/i> in Sicily. In exchange for their help, the north promised these local, hard-nosed criminals that they would be rewarded with land ownership.<\/p>\n Garibaldi in Palermo<\/i> by Giovanni Fattori (the siege of Palermo)<\/p><\/div>\n Despite the promises of land reform made to Sicily in exchange for fighting with the troops of General Garibaldi,4 land reform did not materialize and miserable conditions continued in Sicily from the 1860s on. In addition, the new government of unified Italy levied onerous taxes on Sicily while favoring the north with public works. Protests were met with bloody suppressions while the gabellotti<\/i> and campieri<\/i>\u00a0 continued their reign of terror.\u00a0 The police were just as corrupt. Terrible hunger and poverty drove emigration to the US and elsewhere during this time. The unification of Italy had resulted in yet another occupation of Sicily \u2013 this time by the north.<\/p>\n By the time of the Risorgimento, Sicilians had developed an ingrained distrust of government and a deep suspicion of all outsiders. These were coping mechanisms born of necessity.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Sicilians had no alternative but to rely on their own popular tribunals.\u201d5\u00a0 In other words, people took the law into their own hands. \u201cBrotherhoods\u201d sprang up to redress injustice. For example, if livestock was stolen, a farmer could contact someone to recover it regardless of the method used. The \u201crecovery man\u201d was likely a hardened criminal suitable to the job.<\/p>\n In time, this practice became an income stream – with one difference. The brotherhood did both<\/b> – the stealing and the recovery – and also got into the business of kidnapping people for ransom. The practice of collecting protection money evolved from this system as well. Bribery was another form of surviving within this corrupt system.<\/p>\n The Marasa Brothers\u2019 criminal network ruled Sicily for 20 years. Photo from Mafisoso by Colin McLaren<\/p><\/div>\n Ernesto Marasa (1881-1948) codified mafia operations in a document known as the \u201cmanifesto.\u201d He instituted the practice of omerta<\/i> \u2013 the code of silence. Anyone who talked was disposed of permanently.<\/p>\n The Mafia, in summary, evolved historically at the intersection of:<\/p>\n Campiere (1949) by Renato Guttuso 6<\/p><\/div>\n During Italy\u2019s fascist era (1922-1943), Musolini tried to stamp out the Mafia in Sicily which sent many of these criminals into hiding. These Mafiosi thus acquired an anti-fascist identity. The Americans assumed the anti-fascist identity of the Mafia in hiding meant they were allies of the resistance. Mafia, already well-versed in playing both sides, took advantage.<\/p>\n Meanwhile Italian organized crime had got a foothold in the US in the late 1800s and eventually had control of the New York City waterfront.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Navy [needing the ports for wartime shipping] realized that they did not have full security control over the Port of New York. They couldn\u2019t get into the unions, they couldn\u2019t get next to the shopkeepers, the longshoremen. Nobody was talking to them. The Navy was surprised to learn that not only would the Mafia be ready to help, but they would be happy to.\u201d7<\/p>\n Albert Anastasia, notorious gangster based in New York and New Jersey. This family photo shows Albert in his US Army uniform. He already had a lengthy rap sheet when he enlisted to evade ongoing criminal investigations into “Murder, Inc.” From 1942 to 1944 he was a technical sergeant training G. I. longshoremen in Pennsylvania. In 1943 he was given US citizenship.<\/p><\/div>\n Mafiosi were rewarded by the US for their role in the American invasion of Sicily. The wealth and access provided to the Mafia by the Americans re-established Mafia power in Sicily and from there it metastasized to Rome and the Vatican.<\/p>\n The Mafia used its ties to Sicily to aid allied troops during Operation Husky (Allied invasion of Sicily). 8<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cCitizens appeal to him to settle their differences in business and matters of honor.\u201d 9<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cIn the 1890s, some people, including the young Calogero Vizzini, decided to do something about the absence of peace and security in the country town of Villalba. The state police at the time was as much a danger as the brigands.<\/p>\n The Villalba Mafia thus emerged as an alternative social regime centered on membership in church-sponsored associations that generated considerable social capital. It later transformed into a protection racket, victimizing villagers and landowners alike through violence, intimidation and omerta.\u201d10<\/p>\n \u201cThe supreme head of the Mafia after WWII was Calogero Vizzini who died in 1954. He is said to have been half-illiterate and to have been made the mayor of Vilalba with the support of the American Army.\u201d11<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of his excellent connections, Vizzini also became the ‘king’ of the rampant post-war black market* and arranged to get Villalba’s overly inquisitive police chief killed.\u201d12<\/p>\n [*American food aid meant for the Italian people was diverted by the Mafia to the black market where they then sold it for high prices.]<\/p>\n \u201cIn 1949, Vizzini and Italian-American crime boss Lucky Luciano set up a candy factory in Palermo exporting products all over Europe and to the US. Police suspected that it was a cover for heroin trafficking.\u201d13<\/p>\n \u201cVizzini’s criminal record included 39 murders, six attempted murders, 13 acts of private violence, 36 robberies, 37 thefts and 63 extortions.\u201d14<\/p>\n Now let\u2019s talk about Mafioso<\/i> the film. I assume you\u2019ve watched it so I will not repeat the story here. Instead I provide the contemporary context for when the film was made in 1962. Then I deconstruct some of the scenes in the film.<\/p>\n In 1962 the power elite denied a fact well-known to the people \u2013 the existence of organized crime that permeated all levels of Sicilian life as well as the government of Italy and the Vatican.<\/p>\n The criminal organizations in the south were known to themselves by their names such as Camorra and La Cosa Nostra, but these names were unknown to the general population. The term Mafia defined a criminal way of life while the existence of a formal crime organization by that name was denied. Certainly, as in the film Mafioso<\/i>, it was not spoken of openly. According to Peter Robb, author of Midnight in Sicily<\/i>:<\/p>\n \u201c[In Sicily] police practice and judicial practice, the very articles of the law, reflected a belief that Cosa Nostra didn\u2019t exist. Nobody even knew its name until Tommaso Buscetta revealed it in 1984.\u201d<\/em>15<\/p>\n The \u201cSack of Palermo\u201d began in 1958. Salvo Lima, a Mafioso and mayor of Palermo, collaborated with Vito Ciancimino to issue 4,200 building permits. 17th and 18th century palazzi were razed and replaced with massive, ugly concrete buildings that \u201cmultiplied like cancer cells.\u201d16\u00a0 They profited from real estate development, as follows:<\/p>\n The gentry were happy to work with the Mafia\u00a0 to profit from the sale of their old agricultural lands. This destruction of history and beauty broke the hearts of the powerless Palmeritans.<\/p>\n BEFORE: The waterfront of Palermo was once lined with palazzi and villas. There were huge parks, the former hunting and agricultural lands of the aristocracy.<\/p><\/div>\n AFTER – https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/25\/buried-in-concrete-how-the-mafia-made-a-killing-from-the-destruction-of-italys-south<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cThanks to inroads made in the political sphere, the Mafia created fictitious shell companies and won every bid. Hundreds of those apartment blocks were built unregulated, some without running water or toilets. In less then twenty years, the city, an architectural jewel, had been disfigured.\u201d<\/em>17<\/p>\n An unfinished building in Via Tiro a Segno, in Palermo. After taking money for their completion, building firms tied to the Mafia left many of these constructions unfinished. Photograph: Alessio Mamo https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/jul\/25\/buried-in-concrete-how-the-mafia-made-a-killing-from-the-destruction-of-italys-south<\/p><\/div>\n L\u2019Ora investigative reporting on real estate fraud in Palermo, June 23, 1961. The paper coined the term \u201cthe Sack of Palermo.\u201d https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/urban-history\/article\/hands-over-the-city-the-mafia-lora-and-the-sack-of-palermo\/EEFEE5853FB0064E30A4F203C29FA959<\/p><\/div>\n The story of Mafioso<\/i> the film happens within the context of an entrenched criminal enterprise\u00a0 with a lurid history that since WWII had expanded nationally and internationally, its tentacles reaching across business, government and the Vatican.<\/p>\n Mafioso<\/i> opens in the factory in Milan where Nino works. The factory boss is a man from New Jersey whose parents are also from\u00a0 Nino\u2019s hometown in Sicily: Calamo. Right away the film connects\u00a0 criminal elements to Italian industry, the US, and Sicily.<\/p>\n The boss gives Nino a gift for Don Vincenzo. The gift, a bejeweled heart, is engraved with a list of names. It is a coded signal for Don Vincenzo who says upon receiving it: \u201cOur American friends do things in a big way\u2026 One name is missing.\u201d The missing name identifies the victim of the hit. The heart and hands are two symbols throughout the film associated with loyalty\u00a0 (\u201cfriends help one another\u201d), duty (\u201cyou can\u2019t leave your old friends behind\u201d), and obedience (\u201cmama orders, child obeys\u201d). Kissing the hand (baciare la mano)<\/span>\u00a0is a ritual signifying submission and loyalty.<\/p>\n In another scene, Nino asks what happened to his old friend Pesalise di Calamo. \u201cHe dug his own grave.\u201d \u201cHe betrayed his friends.\u201d Apparently Nino\u2019s old friend had \u201ctalked,\u201d a betrayal of omerta<\/i>.<\/p>\n Omerta<\/i> is the code of silence. Nothing is to be said outside the criminal enclave. Even within it, nothing is explicitly stated. Conversations are oblique.<\/p>\n Due to centuries of occupation and injustice\u00a0 Sicilians had developed an ingrained distrust of government and a deep suspicion of all outsiders. These were coping mechanisms born of necessity. In Mafioso<\/i>, the villagers and especially Ninos mother, look askance at Marta, the outsider.\u00a0 This scene captures the nature of the Sicilians.<\/p>\n\n
Before the Risorgimento (the unification of Italy)<\/h2>\n
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Roger, a Norman invader, conquered the previous invaders of Sicily, the Arabs.<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/smartalicewebdesign.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1000x700-Museum-Inquisition-20150322-Palermo-004_2410.jpg\")
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1861-WWII<\/h2>\n
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WWII: The Mafia is Strengthened and Gains Political Power<\/h2>\n
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Post WWII<\/h2>\n
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The US\/Italy Connection<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nCalogero Vizzini: Real-Life Sicilian Capo<\/h2>\n
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Mafioso<\/i> the Film<\/h1>\n
The Context<\/h2>\n
\u201cBuried in Concrete\u201d<\/h2>\n
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Scene: The Capitalist \u201cMiracle\u201d<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nScene: The Mafia Fetish of Honor<\/h2>\n
Scene: Distrust of Outsiders<\/h2>\n