Film Analysis

L'ASSASSINO

This opera prima of Elio Petri was released on 1961, is film about Alfredo Martelli
(Marcello Mastroianni) an antique seller who is captured by police without any reason.
Along the movie we discovered that he is accused of the murder of his lover. During
his detention police abused him and try to make him to confess a crime he did not do.
Nevertheless, while he is interrogated the viewer can notice that Afredo Martelli is not a
good person in terms that he betrays his closer friends, his lovers, and has no good
moral behavior, but still is not a criminal.

This movie was very controversial. First of all it had to face a lot of attacks from the
censorship committee of Italian government because it shows a non-usual behavior of
police in the film. The accent of the characters and the way they interrogate Martelli
and “especially because it showed the Italian police using unorthodox methods”1 the
movie has to face almost ninety modifications.

Elio Petri was born in Rome on 29 January 1929, before attending school he lived in the
working-class area of the city. He was expulsed from school for political reasons and
he started a career combining film-journalism, coordination of cultural activities and
political militancy. He also began working as a critic on “L’Unità”. A friend of him
introduced Giuseppe De Santis and he became his screenwriting and director assistant.
Then Petri made short films before his first movie L’assassino. He always attempt to
made films with social denunciation “such as Investigation of a Citizen Above
Suspicion (1970, which won an Oscar for best foreign film and the Grand Prize at the
Cannes Film Festival) and The Working Class Goes to Heaven(1971, Palme d’Or at the
Cannes Film Festival, alongside Francesco Rosi’s The Mattei Affair)”2 By 1978 he
directed Sartre’s play “Dirty Hands” for the television channel RAI in which he directed
again Marcello Mastroiani. Petri died in 1982 just in the preparation of a film in which
Mastroianni was playing the leading role.

1
 A RESTORATION FOR CANNES CLASSICS 2011 
2
 Ibíd. 
Carlo Di Palma is the cinematographer of this movie, a Roman who born in 1925, son
of a flower seller and a camera operator, passed many days of his childhood on set,
watching how people work in cinema. He worked as assistant in Luchino Visconti’s
Ossessione (1943) and Rossellini’s Paisá (1946). Then Di Palma worked with Gianni
Di Venazzo, one of the “first maestri of postwar Italian cinematography”3 In 1954 he
collaborate as cinematographer with Florestano Vancini in The Long night of 43 which
won the best directorial debut at 1960 Venice Festival, later he also was the director of
photography of the debut movies of Giuliano Montaldo and Elio Petri. Later he met
Antonioni and showed great skills in the use of the color with the “Red Desert” and then
he continued collaborating in movies like “The three faces” (1965) “Blow Up” (1966)
in this film he also met his wife, Monica Vitti. With her Di Palma debuted as director
with Teresa la Ladara (1972) By 1981 the Italian cinematographer worked with
Bertoluci and with Antonioni again, and then “he began his 10-year collaboration with
Woody Allen, which he described as "the most enjoyable period of my professional
life"” In 2003 after a pause of six years of not working he tried to shoot “Anything else”
with Woody Allen, but he did not pass the medical exam requested by the producer
company. His last fictional movie was “Deconstructing Harry” (1997) He died in 2004
in 9 July.

L’assassino has a particular staging in which actors and camera movements are used to
show the scene without cut, giving the film a particular rhythm in which the camera
seems to be the witness of what is happening in front of it. Here, the work of director
and cinematographer complements in order to guide the actors and make their
performance more accurate for the film and create the impression that spectator is
sniffing around what is happening in the screen.

Looking at the work of Palma is possible to affirm that his close collaboration with the
directors had printed a special rhythm in the films in terms to add dynamism in
performance of the actors. . To attempt to demonstrate it, this text will compare the
camera movement presented on three movies where Palma was the cinematographer.

                                                            
3
 http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jul/14/guardianobituaries.film 
L’assasino, Deserto Rosso (Red Desert) and Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993 Directed
by Woody Allen)

For instance, in L’assassino the confusion of Martelli and his uncertainty when
Columbo had his first talk with him in the police office; were very good expressed by
camera movements in which the zoom changes also help to maintain the continuity and
make the performance of the actors more believable and in somehow make spectator be
focused on the words of the characters. But also, camera follows the action or the
dialog that it is important for the scene, it means camera follow characters in the space,
sometimes taking out some of them out of frame, to arrive to certain point in which
actor should go into frame to complete the composition and make the experience of the
camera is a witness of the tale keeping the harmony of the sequence.

Is at this moment when actors have to act and made a choreography for the camera to
keep the continuity of the actions, of course the instruction of director is involved on it,
but the work of cinematographer takes a relevant importance on it, because it has to
work in a way that he do not interrupt the performance. As Palma said, “The script was
brought to me and we looked it over and I was excited about it. It was a story that
required lots of movement.” He can use different lenses, zoom, wide, telephoto and
experiment how the movements of the first one help to tell the story. Also the Italian
director of photography said this movement was helpful to shoot faster “Minor lighting
adjustments were made and it saved lots of time, so Petri and I were able to get more
shots quickly.”4

                                                            
4
http://independentfilmquarterly.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=588&Itemid=11
9 
Certainly camera movements are not necessary all the time, it depends about the mood
or each shot, even each movie. Like conversation in car between Colombo and Martelli
was made by fixed camera or for instance in Deserto Rosso the camera just move in
subtle way, the most of the shots are static, and the resource of criss-cross in the
montage was used many times.

Nevertheless, Antonioni’s movie has slower rhythm in comparison with L’assassino and
Manhattan murder mystery; the film turns sometimes in contemplative images in which
the color and landscape has more importance than dialogs of characters, the subtle
moments of camera gives the movie resource to reveal information and strengthen the
visual aspect of the movie.

Like in this short take when we see how Zeller paid attention of the things are
happening inside the room. Those kind of subtle movements together with the
interpretation of characters makes the spectator more aware of the things that are
happening on the screen, keeping his attention and give him the information at the
exactly moment when it is necessary, like when Juliana tell her concerning about her
life to Zeller, she moves from a calm background towards a dark one and just with her
movement following by the camera we can see it, even, this movement was interrupted
by the point of view of Zeller the movement of camera and actor still clear and well
achieved so spectator just go into the change of mood in a soft way.

In Manhattan murder mystery the camera movements also became in an important part
of the movie because they support the mood of the scenes. The feeling of instability of
the couple and the situations they have to face is captured with a jerking handheld
camera, that in this case helps the spectator feel like natural the discussions of Larry and
Carol had. In this movie the way camera moves also helps to increase the suspense,
instead of cut and add many shots, when the secretary of Paul appears, with just a
panning on the images on the mirrors Palma create a sense of confusion in the space.

The feeling of suspense got increase also when the hand-held camera is used to support
the feeling of instability and suspense, making the spectator feels uncomfortable for not
know what is going to happen next.

As a matter of fact, Carlo Di Palma knew when to increase or decrease the movements,
most of the time when there are dialogs in the screens and even more in close locations,
the resource of many directors is the crisscross while Palma goes for movement and
staging of actors. So that is possible to say camera movement gives movie an identity, is
a narrative element which had a strong influence on the perception of it. And it was a
special talent that Carlo Di Palma had since his beginning in movies like L’assassino
towards his lastets works with Woody Allen.

He would incorporate some kind of dolly and a zoom. Usually the zoom was
hidden – not like ’70s style where they were proud of this new technology and
would actually zoom-in on camera blatantly – he would typically bury the
zoom in a pan or a dolly move so you wouldn’t necessarily notice it… and I
think that was mostly Carlo’s influence and that’s something that Woody still
tries to do today no matter who the cameraman is. (David Baron – 2nd AC of
Carlo Di Palma) 5

                                                            
5
 http://sensesofcinema.com/2004/feature‐articles/carlo_di_palma/