CRIME NOVEL

original title:ROMANZO CRIMINALE
directed by:Michele Placido
cast:Kim Rossi Stuart, Anna Mouglalis, Pier Francesco Favino, Claudio Santamaria, Stefano Accorsi, Riccardo Scamarcio, Jasmine Trinca
screenplay:Stefano Rulli, Sandro Petraglia, Giancarlo De Cataldo, supported by Michele Placido
cinematography:Luca Bigazzi
editing:Esmeralda Calabria
set design:Paola Comencini
costume design:Nicoletta Taranta
music:Paolo Buonvino
visual effects:Proxima
presented by:Warner Bros. Pictures, Cattleya
producer:Riccardo Tozzi, Marco Chimenz, Giovanni Stabilini
production:Cattleya, Babe Films, Warner Bros. Italia
distributor:WARNER BROS. ITALIA
world sales:TF1 INTERNATIONAL
country:Italy/Uk/France
year:2005
film run:130'
format:35mm - colour
aspect ratio:1:2.35
sound:Dolby Digital
release date:30/09/2005

festival & awards:

INTERNATIONL NOIR FILM FESTIVAL OF MANRESA 2007
ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL OF ST. LOUIS 2007: In Competition
NEW ZELAND ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2007: Panorama
PALM SPRINGS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007: World Cinema Now
SHANGHAI INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2007: Focus Italy
TOKYO ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2007
AJACCIO ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Panorama
BERLINALE 2006: In Competition
CPH:PIX NEW COPENHAGEN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2006: European Thrills
DAVID DI DONATELLO 2006: Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Pier Francesco Favino), Best Photography (Luca Bigazzi), Best Editing (Esmeralda Calabria), Best Art Director (Paola Comencini), costume design (Nicoletta Taranta), Best Visual Effects (Proxima), David Giovani Award
FESTIVAL CINÉMA MÉDITERRANÉEN À BRUXELLES 2006: Vu à Bruxelles
GLOBI D'ORO 2006: Revelation Actor (Riccardo Scamarcio)
INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF INDIA 2006: Cinema of the World
JERUSALEM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Panorama
LINCOLN CENTER - OPEN ROADS 2006: Panorama
MIAMI/ACAPULCO ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2006: In Competition
MITTELCINEMAFEST 2006: Panorama
PANORAMA OF EUROPEAN CINEMA - FILM FESTIVAL 2006: New Italian Cinema
SEATTLE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Contemporary World Cinema
SEVILLA FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Focus Italy
STOCKHOLM INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Open Zone
THE TIMES BFI LONDON FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Film on the Square
TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Spotlight
VILLERUPT'S ITALIAN FILM FESTIVAL 2006: Panorama

(Filmitalia.org)



SYNOPSIS

Rome, 1960’s. Three young criminals, Lebanese (Pierfrancesco Favino), Ice
(Kim Rossi Stuart) and Dandy (Claudio Santamaria), with the help of a
makeshift gang of other rogues, including Black (Riccardo Scamarcio), an
extremist who thinks he’s the last samurai, kidnap and brutally kill a rich
proprietor. With the ransom money in hand, they decide to invest it,
together, in the heroine business. It’s the birth of a smart and ruthless
organization, which crushes all its rivals, assumes total control of the drug
trade, imposes brutal criminal laws on Rome, becomes allies with the Mafia
and at the same time benefits from the protection of those faceless men the
government assigns their dirty work to. Meanwhile, the authorities are
absorbed in a fight against national terrorism and underestimate the flood of
dirty money and violence preying upon Rome, the only one who senses the
devastating power of these new gangsters is Captain Scialoja (Stefano
Accorsi). In order to destroy them, Scialoja unscrupulously gets involved in a
dangerous relationship with Patrizia (Anna Mouglalis), a intriguing prostitute,
who also happens to be Dandy’s girl. It’s a relationship in which both of
them get in way over their heads and initial intentions. Meanwhile, after the
organization hits the apex of its success, things inexorably head towards
disaster: more and more often, Lebanese manifests his overblown sense of
greatness in maniacal ways; disgusted by relationships with Mafia and
politicians, Ice thinks about retiring with Roberta (Jasmine Trinca), a “clean”
girl who he is madly in love with; Dandy starts to deal on his own. The crew
unites again to vindicate the death of Lebanese, who was stabbed to death
for a gambling debt that he proudly refused to honor. But, the reunion is
short lived: framed by an informer, Ice, Dandy and all the others are
arrested. Ice manages to escape, while Dandy is acquitted thanks to his
influential friends. The gang is now divided: this marks the beginning of a
period of transversal vendettas and a succession of murders…




THE MOVIE AND ME

Romanzo Criminale embraces fifteen years of Italian history, bringing some of
the incidents that made a gang of Roman criminals infamous between ’77 and
’92 to a fictional plane. Some have said that Romanzo Criminale seems as
though it were written for film. Others go even further to say that the book
seems like a screenplay adapted into novel form. I consider these criticisms a
compliment. Screenplay writing classes have been fundamental to my
method of writing. Certain means of expression, the traits I gave to my main
characters, the dialogue, the abundance of action scenes… this all comes
from film. Now, that all this is going back to the world of film, where it
always had its roots, is a great source of joy for me. In regards to the film,
well, every screenplay, even one that takes its cues from a novel that is so
explicitly “cinematographic”, becomes a fatal betrayal of the written word.
What is fundamental in the book is destined to get lost in the translation from
written language to visual language. Something that was only hinted at in the
book, or hidden, or not even present emerges dominantly on screen. The
book is modified, it changes its spots, it becomes, in the film, something
“else”. It, in fact, becomes ROMANZO CRIMINALE,the movie. Great. This is
the way it should be. This, and nothing else, inspires the sense of “betrayal”.
And only one thing counts in a betrayal: the ultimate reciprocal satisfaction of
the partners. I experienced it.

Giancarlo De Cataldo




MY NOVEL
Interview with Michele Placido

For many months, even before shooting began, word in the Italian film
industry was that the subject and the genre of
Romanzo Criminale were in Michele Placido’s mind’s eye". How and how much
did you rely on that mind’s eye?

I mostly find my mind’s eye thanks to the screenwriters, Rulli and Petraglia,
with whom I have collaborated on some important work during my career
both as an actor and a director, from “Mery forever”, to a chapter of “La
Piovra”, from Amelio’s “Lamerica” to “Pummarò”, and even earlier with “Un
eroe borghese”, a film I directed which was inspired by Italian news reports
and that you could say was a social film. This was when I worked on the
Ambrosoli crime, here too there was an aspect that was relevant to the
Italian events of the time – the end of the seventies and all of the eighties -
with the disturbing ties between Mafia, acts of terrorism and the many
secrets of the Secret Service. So, I was already familiar with the subject
matter and I found Cattleya’s proposal to go back and look at a piece of
Italian history from the perspective of a gang of criminals, fascinating.

Romanzo Criminale is a “gangster movie” that describes a period of national
political and civil turbulence. An action movie that uses “close-ups”, the most
powerful and moving technique in film, to convey the story of the rise and fall
of a group of criminals in the capital. Are there genres and filmmakers that
influenced you in your filming of these “goodfellas”?

To tell this kind of story, Luca Bigazzi, the director of photography, and I
focused on passions, emotional ones, asking ourselves what kind of style,
language and techniques to use to describe them. Everything has changed in
Rome today from the period that we are describing: buses, cars, shop signs,
street panels. Bigazzi suggested we tighten the field of vision to contain the
space of the shots, and use close-ups to make the emotions of the characters
come out. This is how the psychology of the protagonists emerge, which of
course necessitated great actors in order to work. And it seems to me that
really everybody, all the actors, were up to the task, essential for success,
they all “got into character”, it would have been a disaster if we had gotten
them wrong. For models, I looked at, or a better way to describe it,
absorbed, that part of our cinematic history that spans from Leone to
Pasolini, not like models to imitate, but as inspiration to find individual
solutions for shooting. The direction and the standard is not that of
important American cinema, even Scorsese and Tarantino have admitted
more than once that they watched our films from the seventies, I am talking
about certain B action movies, those with Tomas Milian and Maurizio Merli,
tough films, violent action films, that reckoned with a reality that was
probably just as hard, a bit paranoid and dominated by suspicion. What we
did was bring to the screen the truly violent, ruthless crimes committed by
that “Roman school” of delinquency.

A lot of good is often said about the actor work of directors who are
themselves actors with lots of experience. It can appear like an ideal, almost
idyllic rapport. In this film your actors include almost the entire national team
ofLa Meglio Gioventù (The Best of Youth).
How did you guide each of them?
Was there a group spirit, a virile cohesion that in its core reflects the essence
of the film, that of the crew of the gang?

I think so, there was the cohesion and spirit of the group, but also a
challenge for each to be better than themselves. There is no lead role, no
absolute protagonist. Before shooting started, there were those who would
have preferred less known faces, the faces of criminals, not celebrities.
Actually, the actors in the gang (Santamaria, Favino, Rossi Stuart) are all real
Romans, like many in the supporting roles. They all did a lot of research,
studying images and reading newspaper articles from the period, as well as
devouring De Cataldo’s novel. Their “Romanness” was essential even if the
story is only inspired by, and is not the actual account of an extremely
dangerous gang in the capital. I think that Stefano Accorsi deserves a special
mention for the difficult role of Officer Scialoja, the ambiguous role as a
character who is hostile and unlikable. I think it was a trial of his maturity as
an actor. Even the two women are emblems of Roman femininity, Anna
Mougalis, the prostitute and Jasmine Trinca, the good girl who is capable of
redeeming a criminal. With Anna’s character I wanted to show a very refined
prostitute, like the girls in Mauro Bolognini’s “La notte brava”, elegant,
slender, gaunt. I like to remind people that Mouglalis is not only the face of
Chanel, but also an actress who attended the Consèrvatoire de Paris, the
equivalent of our Accademia d'Arte Drammatica. Instead, Jasmine incarnates
tenderness, the purity of the soul, a clean conscience and intellectual
courage.

Interview conducted by Studio Nobile Scarafoni




Romanzo criminale
Seduced by evil

Placido’s film liberally recounts the real life events of the Magliana Gang, which between 1977 and 1992 ran the most ambitious criminal operation ever seen in Rome

by Camillo de Marco

With its ambitions, solid cast, action scenes, historical/political aspirations, long running time, and phenomenally successful literary beginnings, Romanzo criminale is certainly an anomalous film on the Italian landscape, a new kind of undertaking, thought up on a large scale to create an event, with a well-devised advertising campaign run by Warner Bros.

Based on the eponymous novel by Giancarlo De Cataldo – a judge turned writer who then became a writer turned judge – and scripted by De Cataldo together with Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia (The Best of Youth), Michele Placido’s film liberally recounts the real life events of the Magliana Gang, which between 1977 and 1992 ran the most ambitious criminal operation ever seen in Rome. They dominated the Italian capital by controlling all drug, blackmail, prostitution and arms trafficking, modelling themselves after Mafia families. Their ties to the Mafia and politics transformed the gang into a kind of "crime agency” at the service of the highest bidder, and in turn got them involved with the rogue secret service and the extreme right in the most dramatic moments of those years, from the kidnapping of Aldo Moro to the Bologna train station massacre.

Through Luca Bigazzi’s splendid photography, Placido, no newcomer to political films, mixes these public events with the characters’ private lives, in a sort of Once Upon a Time in America set in Rome, an epic saga made up of still-open wounds, bloodshed and betrayal. On this film, the director displayed a surprising sense for the spectacular and used a shooting style that is both jumpy and urgent, illuminated by visionary moments that are simultaneously alternated with the hyper-realism of the action scenes, enhanced as they are by a variety of technical elements (including black screens and superimposed or diagonal shots). There are references to Leone, Scorsese and Coppola throughout the film’s two and a half hours, in terms of the disgust for and attraction towards the young criminals’ actions. Above all, the perhaps unintentional model seems to be Scorsese’s Goodfellas for this "worst of youth" devoid of all morality and a microcosm that reveals a world of dark collusions.

Placido succeeded in pulling something akin to anthropological identification from his cast: Kim Rossi Stuart and Pierfrancesco Favino are excellent in the roles of “Freddo” and “Libanese”, Claudio Santamaria tormented as “Dandi”, Riccardo Scamarcio sinister as “Nero”, Anna Mouglalis seductive and damaged as Patrizia, while Stefano Accorsi struggles to maintain a character as complex as Commissioner Scialoja. Through these young stars’ commitment and involvement, the film seems particularly efficient in portraying the psychological implications of the powerful bonds of childhood that unite these assassins and render them “human” and fascinating. This is the seductive power of evil, to which cinema has always turned, which in turn gives us great bad guys, wonderful gangster stories and romantic scenes. Such as the prologue of Romanzo criminale, in which the three main characters, friends since childhood, run from the police, towards the sea, like Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows.

(Source Cineuropa)






The middle floor between Italy's auteur attic and its commercial bargain basement is curiously empty.Screenwriting duo Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia are among the few to havemade their home here, scripting films like The Best Of Youth, which for all its symphonic, multi-linearstructure and often prickly political themes, contrived to hook a wideraudience with the double bait of strong characters and canny TV drama plotting.

Crime Novel is their Worst Of Youth: a dark, violent tale of therise and fall of the Banda della Magliana, the Roman organised crime outfitthat terrorised the capital between 1977 and 1992.

Though dogged by problems ofpacing, especially in its second hour, this Italian Goodfellas has a confidence that comes through in quickfireediting, a peppy pop soundtrack, and fine performances by Kim Rossi Stuart,Pierfrancesco Favino and Claudio Santamaria.

Directed by Michele Placido,the film goes into competition in Berlin more than four months after itsItalian release, when it put on just short of $6m (Euros 5m) in a remarkablysteady seven-week run. Subtitled, Crime Novel will play to more highbrow audiences abroad whichcould be a problem, as the film's commercial strength in Italy lay in itstrickle-down potential.

Giancarlo De Cataldo, theauthor of the bestselling novel on which the film is based, is a practicingjudge, and thus might have been expected to turn in a near-documentary accountof these dark and twisted years. Instead, in the novel, as in the film, thetrue history of the Banda Della Magliana is melted down and recast in purelyfictional mode.

Three characters, childhoodfriends and adult partners in crime, give Crime Novel its tripartite structure as one passes the baton ofleadership on to the next. The Lebanese (Pierfrancesco Favino) is the savage,hungry loner who first decides to unite the scattered, small-time Roman crimelords under one cupola, and to eliminate those who don't fit in.

Freddo (Kim Rossi Stuart) isthe dramatic fulcrum of the film, its Michael Corleone character. Though he canbe as ruthless as his criminal buddies, he's a sensitive soul at heart something that is conveyed both in his innocent lovebird relationship with goodgirl Roberta (Jasmine Trinca) and his Hamlet-style dithering as to whether heshould start a new life abroad. After his watchable turn as the confused fatherof a handicapped son in Gianni Amelio's The Keys Of The House, Rossi Stuart is really coming into his stride: hemay even be ripe for export.

The third boss, Dandi(Claudio Santamaria), is a cocktail of self-doubt and self-regard; but he'salso the least developed of the three. Frustrated police chief Scialoja(Stefano Accorsi) and hooker-with-a-heart-of-stone Patrizia (an overwroughtAnna Mouglalis) complete the main cast.

The film sets off at acracking pace, dragging us from a when-they-were-young prologue through tocontrol of the Eternal City's drug market in the first twenty minutes; nowonder that it flags when the existential crises kick in.

Period pop music, bothItalian and international, is used to underline the casual, often carelessnature of the band's violent career sometimes in ironic counterpoint, as whena police raid on Freddo's apartment is set to the smoothly orchestrated PleaseDon't Go by KC & The SunshineBand.

Luca Bigazzi's widescreenphotography comes into its own when it suggests the emptiness of the 1970s'bling lifestyle that these gun-toting lads buy with their stash (as in scenesof the Lebanese roaming around his vulgar seaside villa, all alone).

Few concessions are made tosubtlety. Freddo et al may be working-class kids, but they have a feel forpostcard settings: one rival is wiped out on the Spanish Steps, and Patriziamanages to crash her car right in front of Castel Sant'Angelo. They also manageto have a hand in most of the big terrorist coups of these years in Italy, fromthe Moro kidnapping to the Bologna station bombing (which is rendered withjarringly unnatural digital effects).

The real-life Banda dellaMagliana was similarly implicated in these and other atrocities; evidence thatthis happened with the collusion of rogue elements of the Italian intelligenceservices is presented here in a murky subplot featuring a sibylline Toni Bertorelli as a secret service puppet-master.

Perhaps the most interestingthing about Crime Novel is itsconfident demonstration that commercially successful European feature films canhave a compressed TV miniseries structure and get away with it just as longas the miniseries is gripping enough.

7 February, 2006 | By Lee Marshall
Screen daily.com





Berlin Film Fest Review: 'Crime Novel' ... 'The Movie'?
By Kirk Honeycutt

This Italian gangster movie
is based on a novel titled Crime Novel (Romanzo Criminale). So why not call this Crime Movie? Because even though the story reputedly portrays a real gang of street punks that did rise to some power in Rome from 1977–92, the movie feels totally generic. We've

seen all these moves before—all these massacres, betrayals, drug deals and double crosses, the intrepid police inspector, great whore, merciless leader and the falling out among gang members once delusions of grandeur or grasps at respectability go to their tiny brains.

Truth be told, when moviemakers go up against Coppola or Scorsese, they need charismatic characters and a wicked story line. Alas, Michele Placido and writers Giancarlo De Cataldo, Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia, adapting De Cataldo's novel, are stuck with cruel characters and crude action that provoke little excitement.

Warner Bros. Pictures is one of the producers of Crime Novel, but there probably isn't too much domestic coin to be made from the film. It should do well in action markets and could turn up at a festival here or there.

On the plus side, Placido does give audiences juicy action and superficial though lively characters. He even has an eye for tourist sights. A clandestine meeting takes place in front of the ancient Forum. A girl brings her gangster date to an old church to admire its Caravaggio. A guy gets knifed to death on the Spanish Steps. You half expect a bloody body to get dumped into the Trevi Fountain.

These gangsters come from the streets and never really clean up their act. As kids, they joyride in a stolen car through a police blockade and over a cop, an act that lands several in prison. They emerge as hardened

criminals, each with his own criminal moniker.

Lebanese (a scruffy-bearded Pierfrancesco Favino) is the natural born leader, uncompromising in his brutality but untutored in the subtleties of dealing with Mafia dons, terrorists or the Secret Service. Ice (handsome Kim Rossi Stuart) actually has smoothness, as he comes from wealth. He eventually tires of the whole criminal experience, perhaps because of his love for Roberta (beautiful Jasmine Trinca), an innocent art lover unaware of her boyfriend's occupation.

Dandy (the equally handsome Claudio Santamaria) also longs to be "normal," but that doesn't mean dropping Rome's greatest prostitute, Patrizia (sultry Anna Mouglalis), as his lover. He even sets her up with her own luxury bordello.

The police are absorbed in a battle with homegrown terrorists during this time, so it falls to Capt. Scialoja (Stefano Accorsi) to dog the gang's every step for years. In doing so, he forms an ambiguous relationship with Patrizia; indeed he may be her only lover to actually love her.

The film interweaves the gang's activities with major events in recent Italian history, especially the Red Brigade terror. The film hints that the gang may have crossed over into working with terrorists, but this is never completely clear.

Eventually, the endless killings and emotional face-offs between the gang members as they predictably fall out become numbingly repetitive. So muddled is the action that one can be excused for missing a plot point or misidentifying a character.

Luca Bigazzi's camera is fluid and alive to the action. Nicoletta Taranta's stylish period costumes and Paola Comencini's sets are magazine-quality. A score of pop hits of the era and Paolo Buonvino's lush, ominous music put plenty of flavors into these Roman rumblings. But as one Mafia don says, there have been too many killings by this rudderless gang and " 'too much' is the enemy of fairness." That is an apt criticism of this movie, too.

The Hollywood Reporter





Michele Placido's Crime Novel wins five Nastri d'Argento awards

8 February, 2006 | By Melanie Rodier

Michele Placido's CrimeNovel (Romanzo Criminale)has walked away with five Nastri d'Argento, Italy's nationalcriticsprizes, from the 60th awards ceremony in Vatican City.

The film won awards for best director, best actor (jointly won by Kim Rossi Stuart,Pierfrancesco Favino andClaudio Santamaria), editor, and sound. A bestproduction award went to the picture's producers, Cattleya,for Crime Novel as well as Oscarnominee Don't Tell and Marco Tullio Giordana's When You Are Born You Can No Longer Hide.

The best actress award went to veteran opera singer KatiaRicciarelli, who made her big screen debut in Pupi Avati's The Second Wedding Night (La Seconda Notte di Nozze).The film also won a prize for best costume design.

Hitcomedy Manual of Love earned popularcomic Carlo Verdone the best supporting actor prizeand a best screenplay award for Ugo Chiti and writer-director Giovanni Veronesi.Best supporting actress went to Angela Finocchiarofor her role in Don't Tell.

Roberto Benigni picked up three Nastrifor The Tiger and TheSnow, in the best story and best cinematography categories. Composer NicolaPiovani was awarded a special music Nastro while Alessandro D'Alatri'sLa Febbrewon the Nastri D'Argento inthe main best song and music categories.

Francesco Munzi was voted best newcomer for hisimmigration-themed drama Saimir.Valeria Solarino, who starred in La Febbre, won the 2006 Fendi talent award. Other prizes went to Sabina Guzzanti, who won the best documentary award for Viva Zapatero!,about comedy and freedom of speech under SilvioBerlusconi's government.

Best foreign film went to Clint Eastwood for MillionDollar Baby.

The Nastri d'Argento, founded in1946, are Italy's second highest film awardsafter the David di Donatellos.The awards ceremony took place at the Vatican City Auditorium.

Screen daily.com




Romanzo criminale

Written by Boyd van Hoeij
Thursday, 16 February 2006

Already released in Italy last October – where it was both a critical and a box office success – sleek crime noir Romanzo criminale (Crime Novel) is part of the Official Competiton here in Berlin. Romanzo... tells the story of a small gang of boys who become the toast of the Roman underworld by their own doing. Of course, in their line of business, success lasts only as long as competitors can be kept quiet or dead – which is never long enough. Full of ruthless killings, blood, violence and sex, the story may have a fiction-inspired title and attitude, it is nevertheless based on real events.

Based on a celebrated novel of the same name by co-screenwriter Giancarlo De Cataldo, director Michele Placido has assembled an all-star cast of mostly Roman actors, including the three main kingpins of the gang: Il Libanese (“The Lebanese”, played by Pierfrancesco Favino), Il Dandi (“The dandy”, Claudio Santamaria) and Il Freddo (“Ice”, Kim Rossi Stuart). Each character has its own dedicated chapter in the film, though of course their stories are interconnected and Romanzo criminale is one continuous narrative.

What elevates Michele Placido's above many other, more generic stories is its sense of history, which may in part be due to the work of Sandro Petraglia and Stefano Rulli on the screenplay, the same team that was responsible for the entwining of personal and national history in the celebrated TV-series La meglio gioventù (The Best of Youth). Placido also uses archive footage in the film that, rather than breaking the fluidity of the narrative or creating jarring tonal differences, enhances and deepens the story as it hints at connections between terrorists, politicians, the secret service, the mafia and other criminal organisations such as the one headed by Il Libanese.

The film’s insistent use of close-ups and a slick technical package (including cinematography, score and editing) give the film an edge, and there is not a bad performance to be found, except for the weak turn of Italian Shooting Star Riccardo Scamarcio, whose ruthless teen killer Il nero (“Black”) lacks the necessary gravitas to compensate for his wiry frame and pimpled face.

European-films.net





Interview with Michele Placido • Director
March 14, 2006

"A political film full of incurable romanticism"
Based on the eponymous book by Giancarlo De Cataldo, Romanzo criminale is the director’s most accomplished and stylistically complex film

by Camillo de Marco

Cineuropa: The film came about when Cattleya acquired the rights to the book, convinced that it could be successfully adapted for the big screen. How did the project develop?
Michele Placido: The names of various Italian directors were suggested, like Marco Tullio Giordana and Roberto Faenza. I got a screenplay written by [Stefano] Rulli and [Sandro] Petraglia and only after finishing it did I read De Cataldo’s book. I was moved when I read the screenplay for the first time, and subsequently did some work on it. I cut down the number of lines, I made everything drier. I did as I had always done on the other political films that I’ve directed or acted in, from Ordinary Hero (Un eroe borghese) to Forever Mary (Mery per sempre), following the lessons of those who taught me this craft: Francesco Rosi, Elio Petri, Damiano Damiani, Marco Bellocchio. I hope that Crime Novel re-opens a classic trend of Italian cinema. Our history is beset with closets full of skeletons asking to come out and be recounted.

What struck you most about the novel?
I immediately sensed that I could make a good movie from this book, because it speaks of facts that have marked recent Italian history, and beyond. It is also about human tragedy, an event that directly touches upon love, hatred and passion.

Nevertheless, it was not an easy story to adapt into a film, considering the number of characters and events.
It was certainly a question of finding the right style for bringing these pages to life. An overly realistic style would have emphasised its documentary-like aspects and probably would not have satisfied the tastes of an audiences used to more modern and efficient narrative styles. Seeing as how the novel allows it, I chose an approach somewhere between realism and tragedy, which draws the audience closer to the characters. Especially in the second part, I drew the actors’ face in tighter with continuous close-ups, to delve into the intimacy of these dramatic lives. The result is a very physical and passionate film, focused entirely on the actors’ bodies.

The actors seemed to have really gotten into their parts…
I was lucky to have been able to work with excellent actors. They were free to choose their own roles, which was a new experience for me. There was moreover so much collaboration between us, we discussed every scene. They have all worked in the theatre, and they gave their characters a certain pietas, a hint of fragility, making them even more tragic.

Was there any risk of overly legitimizing these criminals?
There are no positive characters in the film, even though the characters in De Cataldo’s book have a powerful epic and human depth. We were careful not turn these delinquents into big heroes, but the actors knew how to portray their [characters’] existential turmoil.

Cineuropa.org




Romanzo Criminale - Production

Cattleya-Warner: A winning combination
The third collaboration between the two companies

by Fabien Lemercier

Spurred on by the highly dynamic Cattleya and its management trio (Riccardo Tozzi, Giovanni Stabilini and Marco Chimenz), the ambitious Romanzo Criminale benefited from a href="prodcompany.aspx?documentID=18277">Warner Bros. Italia’s heavy involvement. This film marks the third collaboration between the two companies (following Three Steps Over Heaven (2004) and L’uomo perfetto, both by Luca Lucini) and Tozzi, Simona Benzakein (Vice President of European Productions at Warner Bros. Italia) and Paolo Ferrari (President of Warner Bros. Italia)

Riccardo Tozzi (Cattleya)
Romanzo Criminale is a film that had been around a bit, ever since we developed it for Marco Tullio Giordana, who refused the project when RAI was attached to it. We then talked to five or six [other] directors. Finally, we received a very serious offer from Warner and accepted it. So it’s a film that had a fairly messy start from a market perspective, with no director until the last minute. The budget rose to €8m through co-production agreements with the UK (Aquarius Film) and France (Babe Productions), a minimum guarantee on international sales, and through Warner’s involvement as co-producer and distributor (approximately 40% of the budget). Warner works very well with Italian cinema and I stress this because there are always doubts as to the studios’ ability to co-produce and distribute Italian films.

Simona Benzakein (Vice-President of European Productions for Warner Bros.) "Warner co-produced seven features over five years with independent Italian producers. But we are not content just to hand over money, we are involved in the artistic decisions, working with the producers from the beginning, the development of the screenplay and the casting. On Romanzo Criminale, it was very quick. Riccardo Tozzi, who bought the rights to the book, suggested I read it, and I thought it was magnificent. We then brought together quite a surprising cast for an Italian film, with a very good screenplay. And even though the budget was a bit higher than our previous two projects, the film deserved it. We are obviously working within tight parameters with regards to estimated release dates for distribution which we have to weigh up before deciding to get involved in a co-production or not. In Europe, our co-production strategy is Italy for Italy, Spain for Spain... If the films have international potential, that’s great (for example, TF1 International sold Crime Novel in Berlin, most notably to Germany and the UK), but we focus on the domestic market first. And in Italy, there are good directors, good screenwriters, good actors and lots of projects."

Paolo Ferrari (President, Warner Bros. Italy)
"We were in talks with Cattleya on this project and we decided to give it to Michele Placido. The original book Crime Novel was very successful, particularly in Rome and central Italy, add to that an exceptional cast of young actors. All the ingredients came together to create an excellent film that immediately had good results, especially in central Italy, but took off more slowly in the North and South. But word-to-mouth did its job and success spread gradually throughout the country. Warner was the first studio to invest in Italy’s domestic market and we will continue to do so since Italy still has great potential."

Cineuropa.org




Romanzo Criminale

Reviewed By: Paul Griffiths

Based on the exploits of the real life criminal organisation the Magliana Gang, Romanzo Criminale charts a clique of petty hoods’ rise to become a dominant force in the criminal underworld of the Seventies and Eighties. What sets this apart from other such Mafioso tales is how it disturbingly ties their criminal dealings to the modern political history of Italy.
In the late Sixties, three young criminals, Lebanese (Pierfrancesco Favino), Ice (Kim Rossi Stuart) and Dandy (Claudio Santamaria) are tired of the small time wheeling-dealing. They’re ready for serious crime, serious money and serious power. Instead of blowing their latest ill-gotten gains on drugs and women, they agree to invest in the heroin market instead. With diamond-hard nerves, ruthless conviction and brutal methods of persuasion they soon rise to supremacy in the narcotics trade, ruling Rome’s criminal class.
However, they don’t get to the top alone. They’re being watched. Shady characters call upon the cruel, intelligent Lebanese and his gang to enlist their services. Atrocious acts of national terrorism take place. The Gang continue to operate. Prosecutions fail to hold. In some way high-level people who have an interest in manipulating the underworld for their own political machinations topside are protecting them. It’s an engaging take on a murky, controversial chapter in Italy’s modern social and political history and lifts the story above the usual Mafia humdrum, especially as it is aided by the inclusion of real Italian news footage of assassinations and terrorist acts.
This is just as well because we’ve certainly seen the ‘confident friends become goodfellas become paranoid enemies’ story arc before. The inclusion of a sexy femme fatale becoming an integral cog in the machine is nothing new either. In this case with it’s Dandy’s fiery relationship with high-class hooker Patrizia (Anna Mougalis). On top of that, there’s Ice’s fates-crossed romance with the virginal Roberta (Jasmine Trinca), to show his softer side and the pull to leave the Business for her. However, the quality acting from everyone pulls the characters through these gangster genre staples with enough gusto. Stuart and Favino’s gravitas and poise stand out once the story has begun to find its feet.
That takes a little while because things kick off at such a gallop. Starting with the friends as boys and spinning to their establishment as a heavy criminal force the film develops at such a speed, with much crashing and banging and eddying cameras, you seriously begin to doubt the quality of the filmmaking. Luckily it all calms down in the middle section, when the police and political forces move onto the stage. Although, the romantic ménage à trois between Patrizia, Dandy and Stefano Accorsi’s dogged police inspector feels at odds with the rest of the plotting. If it’s based on truth then fair enough, but otherwise it feels faintly ridiculous.
It is only when we get to the final, protracted act that things start to feel truly tense and emotionally involving. We’re again in slightly clichéd territory, though, this being when the lifelong friends are finally pulled apart by the lifestyles, vendettas and honour-grudges while trying to find a way out. Not as stylish or as nail biting as, say, Carlito’s Way, director Michele Placido uses his time to build up a more tragic, emotional tension of inevitability.
Following the popular success of Giancarlo De Cataldo’s novel on which his screenplay is based there was a lot of web-chatter of disappointment when Placido got the film reins. Good actor, poor director was the general gist. It’s certainly not as bad as people feared. Maybe not as artful as some would have liked, his direction is nonetheless tight and clean, with Rome and the rural locations served well by Luca Bigazzi’s excellent cinematography.
At nearly two and half hours long Placido has gone for an epic Italian sweep of friendship, violence and political corruption. Unfortunately the three uneven acts that worked well in the novel undermine his attempt here and it overstays by about 20 minutes. It’s definitely worth your while, but if he’d cut some of superfluous elements it would be more of a classic gut-punch rather than a cool winding.

Eyeforfilm.co.uk




Romanzo Criminale (2005)

From Time Out London
That’s ‘Crime Novel’ rather than ‘Criminal Romance’, by the way, and this bullet-riddled Italian saga does have a very generic feel, as ruthless Roman street-kids use the proceeds from a kidnapping to muscle in on the city’s underworld, make it bigger than they dreamed, then proceed to wipe each other out when they get ideas above their station. Shades of Scorsese and Coppola abound, though Michele Placido’s film is perhaps closer in spirit to the brutal B-picture world of ’70s Italian gangster movies. What marks it out however, is an ambitious attempt to weave the characters’ nefarious exploits into Italy’s turbulent recent history (including the Red Brigade’s 1978 murder of PM Aldo Moro), suggesting sinister connections between the criminals, terrorists and the government’s secret service. Unfortunately, the storytelling here is murkier than required, causing the pace to flag alarmingly in the second half. A pity really, since Placido uses period pop hits, like The Sweet’s ‘Ballroom Blitz’, with genuine swagger and Kim Rossi Stuart’s gang leader Fredo (‘Ice’) delivers a terrific performance balancing cold steel with a flicker of conscience.

Author: Trevor Johnston
Time Out London Issue, November 1-8 2006




Romanzo Criminale

During the 70s and 80s, three street hoods get organised to take control of Rome. Their rise is swift and brutal, yet as their power grows, so do the cracks in their friendship. Bubbling with paranoia, egotism and cold-hearted violence, this absorbing crime epic is clearly influenced by Brian De Palma's Scarface and the Mob operas of Martin Scorsese and Francis Coppola - but none the worse for it.
Set over four decades, Giancarlo De Cataldo's bestseller Romanzo Criminale (literally 'Crime Novel') traces the fortunes of Lebanese, Ice and Dandy – three childhood friends who don’t run with the wrong crowd: they are the wrong crowd.
Michele Placido's lengthy adaptation begins in the 1960s with the young ne'er-do-wells being caught by the police after a spot of joyriding ends with a hit-and-run.
Years later, Ice (Stuart) celebrates his release from incarceration by kidnapping a local VIP with Lebanese (Favino), Dandy (Claudio Santamaria) and their lowlife cohorts.
The gang pools the ill-gotten gains to fund a takeover of Rome's underworld. Modelling himself on the likes of Stalin and Hitler, Lebanese heads the motley collective as they wipe out the competition with ruthless efficiency.
Nurturing their connections in big business, the police and the Mafia, the trio soon has control every criminal racket in the city: drugs, prostitution, protection, extortion.
The boys enjoy the spoils in different ways. Dandy splashes the cash on clothes, cars and devious call girl Patrizia (Mouglalis). The brooding Ice warms up around his brother's fresh-faced tutor. Lebanese? His only appetite is for power.
But as the operation expands, greed creates an atmosphere of distrust. Mistakes are inevitable... and fatal.
The story unfolds in three 'chapters' in which the fate of each main character is resolved. Keeping up with the host of peripheral characters isn’t easy, but Placido ties up most loose ends satisfactorily. (However, the relationship between Patrizia and the cop on the gang's tail is both unlikely and distracting.)
He also threads in newsreel footage from the murder of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro in 1978 and implicating the characters in the notorious 1980 bombing of Bologna train station. It puts the drama in context.
The period is also set by Placido's Scorsese-like use of music, though subtle it is not: two versions of 'Heard It Through The Grapevine' hail the entrance of informants while bloodbaths play out to Queen's 'Another One Bites The Dust'.
Amidst it all the central threesome create a convincing dynamic. Criminals first and friends second, they expect no sympathy and get none.
With such excellent performances, any occasional narrative slumps can be forgiven in what is a collectors' piece: an Italian crime saga without a godfather.

Elliott Noble
Movies.sky.com




The Italian film Crime Novel (Romanzo Criminale) by Michele Placido is a reminder that Italy was ruled by terrorism throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The film charts the history of a Roman gang, which started out as wild street kids and ended up ruling the city and beyond with fear. There is more than a hint that they were hired guns for terrorist connections. Adapted from the novel by Giancarlo De Cataldo, the film is a tribute to what Placido calls 'Romanness', having cast three Roman actors for the roles of the three ringleaders: Lebanese, Freddo and Dandy. Their coarseness, clothes and accents are of the kind that attracted Pier Paolo Pasolini to the beaches of Ostia, where the key scene of the film was shot in his honour. The film subtly analyses the three thugs and their different personalities and presents a portrait of that time that feels very genuine in terms of costumes, art direction and even its purposely 'ugly' TV-ish camera style. But Crime Novel, which refuses to sensationalise the gangsters, stumbles over several melodramatic moments, which feel alien to the script. Watch out for Kim Rossi Stuart, the actor who brings pensive introspection to the role of Freddo ('cold'). Born in Rome, with British, German, Dutch and Italian blood, he seems on the verge of an international breakthrough. His debut as a director, Anche libero ca bene, will be shown in Cannes' Quinzaine de la Réalisateurs.

From kamera.co.uk/features/tribeca2006





Crime Novel
Romanzo Criminale

By JAY WEISSBERG

Combining a gritty feel for the tense loyalties of underworld alliances with a flair for period detail, Michele Placido's gangster epic "Crime Novel" rides full steam through Italy's years of terrorism in the '70s but loses force halfway through the two-hour-plus mark. Still, first half plays as a respectable addition to the classic ensemble gangland genre, offering a gangster's-eye view of recent Italo history that reps the flip side of "The Best of Youth" -- not coincidentally co-scripted by "Crime Novel" writers Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia. Opening weekend saw decent if not boffo biz; Euro arthouses may see modest returns.

The leap from juvenile delinquents to ful-fledged criminals is easy for a trio of friends whose assumed nicknames contribute to their self-perceived coolness. Cold-blooded Libanese (Pierfrancesco Favino) thinks of himself as the ringleader and wants his friends and he to become the most powerful, feared men in Rome. Freddo's (Kim Rossi Stuart) loyalties run deep, while Dandi (Claudio Santamaria) is enamored of the trappings of power.
They start off by kidnapping a baron (Franco Interlenghi), who Libanese casually murders. Libanese graduates to more grandiose ideas, including cornering the market on heroin sales, which the gang accomplishes through shadowy partnerships with mobsters, crooked cops and the secret service.
On the other side is Inspector Scialoja (Stefano Accorsi), who traces the marked ransom money to Dandi's g.f., call girl Patrizia (Anna Mouglalis). The cop's obsession with bringing down Libanese and his gang becomes linked to his uncontrollable desire for the shrewd Patrizia.
Meanwhile, Freddo falls for the straight and pure Roberta (Jasmine Trinca). Her attempt to educate Freddo in the beauties of Italian Old Masters, however, is unbelievable and could easily be discarded.
After an orgy of violence including a significant murder, the elaborately constructed world of the gang crumbles, and pic also loses its drive.
Consciously basing much of his style on Italo crime pics from the '70s (with an indisputable indebtedness to Coppola and Scorsese), helmer Placido uncannily captures the style and swagger of the era. But what gives "Crime Novel" its structure is in the way political events impact the lives of these antiheroes, first brought to full prominence with the kidnapping and murder of politico Aldo Moro in 1978.
Well-chosen contempo TV reports are expertly spliced into the protags' crimes, highlighting the unholy alliances between gangsters and terrorists, mobsters and politicians whose connections are still shrouded in mystery (unfortunately some of that confusion rubs off in the narrative).
The 1980 bombing of the Bologna train station, which itself marked the beginning of the end of the period's more spectacular attacks, also forms a turning point in the film, after which its energy splutters and the running time drags.
Ensemble work is high throughout, with Favino carving out an especially chilling niche for himself. Mouglalis doesn't reveal any new depths, but she's got down pat the prostitute's knowing understanding of power games. Accorsi is fine, although he could use a decent comedy as a change from his recent hang-dog roles.
"The years of lead" is the general moniker given to the bullet-strewn period in the '70s and early '80s when the Red Brigades terrorized most of Italy. Perhaps in a bid to evoke the tonalities associated with the metal, Placido and d.p. Luca Bigazzi keep the palette muted and cold, with an emphasis on grays and ice blues until the second half when colors get warmer and richer.
Music is strong. Soulful Italo pop queen Giorgia's cover of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is bound to be a local hit.

Variety.com