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Professor (The) AKA Il Camorrista (1985)
R2 - United Kingdom - Nouveaux Pictures Review written by and copyright: Jari Kovalainen (21st May 2006). |
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The Film
 Organized crime and the Mafia have always fascinated many people, especially filmmakers. Some of the acclaimed directors have made movies about the Mafia and its different angles, and many of them are now considered as classics; “The Godfather (1972-1990)”-trilogy by Francis Ford Coppola, “Scarface (1983)” and “The Untouchables (1987)” by Brian De Palma, “GoodFellas (1990)”, and “Casino (1995)” by Martin Scorsese, and “Once Upon a Time in America (1984)” by Sergio Leone are films that people are watching again and again, and I bet most of them can be found from the DVD shelf of every movie buff. Eventually most movies about the Mafia tell about the “rise and fall” of one lead character, along with his family, friends, business partners, and of course enemies in a form of rival crime organizations and the law. These films usually focus on a longer time period, where you really get to know your “anti-hero” and you can follow his rise to that power and glory, and eventually that big fall - this has been the case all the way from the “Gangster films” in the 1930-1940s, starring tough guys like James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, and Edward G. Robinson. You can cheer for these guys for a while, but eventually they´re going down. Italian director/co-writer Giuseppe Tornatore (best known for his acclaimed movies “Cinema Paradiso AKA Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1989)”, and “Malèna (2000)”) made his debut as a director with a story loosely based on Raffaele Cutolo, the man who developed a feared and violent “new Camorra” (Camorra is the word for Naples Mafia, and not to be confused with Sicilian Mafia) during the 1970s, and slowly rose to the top even when he spent some serious time in prison. The film “The Professor AKA Il Camorrista (1985)” tells his story. Cutolo was called “Il Professore” at the time because of his intelligent style and calm and calculated nature. This was his presence to the outside, which was hiding his true nature; the Professor wanted to get rid of the “old Camorra” by any means necessary, wanted absolute power over his crime organization, and was also seeking to control the society and the law system with ruthless violence and homicides. At that time, law and order didn´t mean much for him and Camorra, so it didn´t matter whether you were an old friend, police inspector, or a judge - you might end up dead. The Professor is played by actor (Ben Gazzara), who´s a screen veteran of over 100 movies. Gazzara is one of those actors that many people recognize, but probably can´t identify by name at first. He´s clearly the key to making many scenes work in the film, and does generally a good job. The film starts with a pair of “flashbacks”, which introduce two important moments that shaped the life of The Professor for years to come; first we learn something about his childhood and how his parents had to use their boy to help some local crime boss from that time, and eventually the young boy is witnessing his first murder. The second one shows how the younger Professor kills a stranger who tries to make a move on his sister Rosaria (Laura del Sol). The latter is the introduction to his dark character, and from these scenes the story moves 10 years ahead to the prison where The Professor is serving his time. Like the real “Il Professore”, Gazzara´s character starts to build his reputation among his fellow inmates and forming his “new Camorra” by the prison. By helping the young and naive inmates with legal help and giving money to them and their families, they feel protected and looked after by him. When he openly challenges one of the leaders of the “old Camorra” in the prison, O' Malacarne (Lino Troisi), he´s gaining even more respect and following. His goal is to start the new Camorra from inside the prison, which would then be the backbone of the organization when The Professor gets out. With these loyal “camorristi´s” and the help of his sister Rosaria, The Professor is starting to make some serious moves along the Naples underworld, eventually also gaining power among the Italian political world and society. Everything is ruled by the iron hand of violence, and the income comes from extortion and other forms of criminal activity. “The Professor” is an interesting life study of the leader of the Camorra and his road amongst the criminal world of Naples. It´s a fairly solid piece of work, with a serious tone and also a fair share of violence. Generally you could say that it´s not trying to glamourise the Mafia world, but it doesn´t necessarily make any apologies either. It shows that prison is merely a “Mafia school” and recruiting centre for the Camorra, and that the political world and society is corrupted with money and power and can be quite easily penetrated by the “bad guys” simply using money and fear. It shows how threats and extortion, together with violence and murders, will make everyone scared, and eventually that scary and hostile atmosphere is all that the Camorra needs to stay in power, and take their share of various incomes and political power. Still, the film doesn´t rise (no pun intended) to the same level of the more known Mafia-films, eventually suffering from the weak production values and pacing. The audience will be drawn to the story, but then slowly - but steadily - it´ll start to lose that grip. “The Professor” never falls into being a “bad film”, but it´s not really something that you´ll remember for years to come. This might be just my personal feeling, but to me the film also looked and felt too much like a low budget film from the 1980s, and in some ways it´s not following the legacy that great Italian police and crime-films delivered in the 1970s. Don´t get me wrong, I have nothing against the more “low budget”-movies, but a story like this one simply needed some more than was offered in the film. There are also some badly executed scenes, and e.g. the scene where Alfredo-character is shooting the woman in the leg openly in the street and at the same insisting she marrys him is a bit too much to be convincing. Opening scenes also promise a bit more character development about The Professor, but it goes too soon to the prison world and you´ll end up missing a big chunk of the years that made him what he is. There´s no denying that the English dub didn´t make the film any better, even when some actors (like lead actor Ben Gazzara) speak English in the film. The film was probably made in various markets so the dubbing is not anything new, but to make the film fully in Italian with proper production sound and with English subtitles would´ve made the film better. When it comes to violence, the film is offering some bloody moments for the fans of more rugged cinema. The scenes are usually relatively quick and don´t always show that much, but it made me slightly uncomfortable to see how one guy is being thrown to the pigs, and one poor woman is lowered to the acid barrel - both alive of course. In that sense the film is portraying the “new Camorra” in a very ruthless light, with a “no mercy”-attitude, so it´s very hard to cheer for the bad guys this time (it´s not like Al Pacino in “Scarface (1983)”, who you secretly want to win and to “say hello to his little friend”). Even when “The Professor” (both the film and the man) spends plenty of time in the prison - the aspect that tends to slow the film a bit - and is focusing on his story of becoming a new “Don” of the Camorra, it also involves some other characters that will widen the story and bring some new views to it. The Professor´s sister Rosaria is probably the only one that this crime kingpin loves and respects, but due to the fact that she is also the person who´s running the organisation from outside the prison eventually gets her fully sucked into the crime and also the murders. Because of The Professor, the future of Rosaria is doomed. His trusted right hand man Alfredo (Nicola Di Pinto) is also a vital character for the story, since his relationship with The Professor will show how cruel a man the new “Don” really is, underneath his cool presence and promises of loyalty. “Il commissario” - Inspector Jervolino (Leo Gullotta) is introduced later on in the film, but has time to make his character memorable: An honest man, who believes in the law and hates criminals like The Professor. There are also characters that don´t work as well, and e.g. the female boss of the rival crime organisation is more amusing than a serious character. “The Professor” fails to be a truly memorable Mafia film, but it still draws a fairly decent and dark picture of the violent world of the Camorra and its leading man. Despite its rather simplistic style and settings it manages to create some intense scenes and effective violence, and Ben Gazzara makes his character work. It´s not the film that you´ll watch many times during the years like some other films of Mafia and gangsters, nor is it anywhere near as powerful a saga as “The Godfather”, but it´s still a fairly enjoyable appetiser for all the fans of these type of films. I know you´re out there with your toy Tommy guns and pinstripe suits.
Video
The first English friendly DVD-release (there could be one earlier "budget-release" from the UK) by UK´s “Nouveaux Pictures” is a minor disappointment. The film is presented in the aspect ratio of 4:3, which doesn´t come from a pristine source. Grain is quite heavy and the general look of the transfer tends to be more on the “murky”-side, especially during the darker scenes. Fortunately the transfer is fairly clean, but there are occasional film artifacts, and some edge enhancement and line shimmering. At this point I can´t fully be sure about the source of the transfer, since although the transfer doesn´t have apparent evidence of cropping, it doesn´t always look “Open matte” either. There´s a R2 Italian -release by “Medusa” that´s apparently in Anamorphic 1.78:1, and includes only Italian-audio, and could be in better quality. To add more fuel to the confusion, the running time of the disc is 144:34 minutes (PAL), which is listed as “UK cinema version” on the BBFC-site (all previous cuts are waived btw), when the Italian-release is listed around 164 minutes (PAL) from various sources. This is another aspect that I can´t confirm. Still, for the English speaking people this is the only real choice to see the movie on DVD, and the somewhat mediocre quality is not THAT mediocre - not so that you couldn´t enjoy the movie anyway (with smaller screens this probably look actually fairly ok). “Dual layer” disc is coded “R2”, despite the fact the back cover says “R0”. There are 16 chapters.
Audio
The disc has one audio track; English Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono, and there are no subtitles. Audio has some hiss in the background, but the dialogue is fairly clean and easy to follow, and there are no major problems. Like was pointed out earlier, the English dub is not ideal for the film, but it´s not horrible either. It would be interesting to see this film with Italian audio and hear how it compares to the English one, maybe that is in the end the better choice.
Extras
No extras. Nada. Back cover lists “Picture gallery”, but what you only have is a simple Menu and chapters.
Overall
For the fans of Mafia films and Italian “polizia”-genre, this is a film definitely worth seeing. It´s not a classic and it has some flaws, but it´s still a solid debut work by director Giuseppe Tornatore. The film presentation may not be state of the art, but still kudos to “Nouveaux Pictures” for presenting an English friendly version on DVD of this partly forgotten crime film. For more info, please visit the homepage of Nouveaux Pictures.
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