Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion
Original title: Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto
IMDb RATING
8.0/10
13K
YOUR RATING
A chief of detectives, homicide section, kills his mistress and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.A chief of detectives, homicide section, kills his mistress and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.A chief of detectives, homicide section, kills his mistress and deliberately leaves clues to prove his own responsibility for the crime.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 17 wins & 6 nominations total
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFirst part of the "Trilogy of Neurosis", also including The Working Class Goes to Heaven (1971) and Property Is No Longer a Theft (1973).
- Quotes
Il Dottore - Former head of homicide squad: The people are underage, the city is sick. Others are tasked with educating and curing this. Our duty is to repress it! The repression is our vaccine! Repression and civilization!
- Alternate versionsThe subtitled American version distributed by Columbia has slight differences in the credits. The Italian version opens with blank white-on-black credits (as many other Petri films do). The American version projects the credits onto the opening scene with the Dottore walking around the street. Both the opening and the closing credits (including the film's title and the Kafka quotation) are translated to English as well.
- ConnectionsEdited into Colpiti al cuore (2019)
Featured review
Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion (Elio Petri, 1970) ***1/2
Apart from the film's own intriguing theme and interesting credentials, I had always been keen on catching this one because it had defeated Luis Bunuel's magnificent TRISTANA (1970) for the title of the Best Foreign-Language Film at the Oscars! However, the path that ultimately led me to it was quite thorny: I first caught the start of it during a rare Italian TV prime-time screening in the mid-1980s; then, after dropping off the radar for decades, it turned up again on late-night Italian TV but the reception was terrible so I could not tape it; later still, having finally acquired it on my PC, the hard disk went bust before I had a chance to make myself a copy
so that, I had to get hold of it (via the same channels) all over again when the PC was back on its feet!! Even so, a whole year passed before I actually sat down to watch it (on the heels of two other Elio Petri-Gian Maria Volonte' films). INVESTIGATION OF A CITIZEN ABOVE SUSPICION won a clutch of other international awards, so it is not all that surprising to see it emerge triumphant at the Oscars as well and, after seeing it for myself, I cannot say I was displeased by that fact. In short, the film is a veritable masterpiece: brilliantly-made and utterly fascinating, albeit making for typically demanding viewing (particularly during its latter stages). As can be gleaned from the title, the plot revolves around a crime (actually, the murder of his mistress) committed by a highly-respected public official: ironically, the culprit is none other than the exiting Chief of the Homicide Squad (Gian Maria Volonte' who is on fire throughout as the megalomaniac protagonist) on his way out to becoming the Head of Political Intelligence and which, of course, he has the duty to investigate himself! This he does with complete confidence and not a little trickery (destroying and/or planting evidence, deviating the path of the investigation but at the same time admitting to his new superior of having known the victim, etc). His unusual relationship with the latter (sensuously played by Florinda Bolkan), then, is seen via intermittent flashbacks: she is a libertine (much is made of the fact that she possesses no underwear!), initially getting in touch with Volonte' almost in jest and, eventually, playing the willing murdered party(!) in re-enactments of crimes of passion solved by him throughout his illustrious career (of which he, unashamedly, also keeps photographic records). Other important figures to feature in the narrative are: Arturo Dominici (from Mario Bava's BLACK Sunday [1960]) as Volonte''s long-suffering successor; a young student radical who lives in the same apartment block as Bolkan and of whom Volonte' was jealous; and Salvo Randone (like the star, a Petri regular) as a confused old man to whom the pompous anti-hero actually confesses his guilt in the matter and bullies into turning him over to the Police
but the latter, naturally, is shocked to see him lording it at the Homicide bureau! For all the social and political relevance of Petri and frequent collaborator Ugo Pirro's Oscar-nominated script culminating in a delicious double ending (Volonte''s quasi-surreal exoneration by his colleagues, after he professes to have committed the ultimate sacrifice for the good of Established Law & Order, is revealed to have been mere wish-fulfillment on his part
with the true development of the facts cleverly left to the audience members' own judgment) the element which has perhaps been mainly responsible for securing the film its longevity is Ennio Morricone's celebrated bizarre (i.e. half-urgent, half-playful) score which definitely ranks among his finest works, and that's saying a lot!
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- Bunuel1976
- Feb 15, 2009
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Ermittlungen gegen einen über jeden Verdacht erhabenen Bürger
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Gross US & Canada
- $265,470
- Runtime1 hour 55 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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