Drama · History
Italian (Il caso Mattei)
1972 · Directed by Francesco Rosi · 116 min
Francesco Rosi rebuilds the career of Enrico Mattei, the partisan turned head of Italy's state oil company, who took on the world's biggest oil firms. Gian Maria Volonté plays him in a dense, documentary-flavoured drama about power, money and national independence.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining work of the Italian political cinema of the 1960s and 70s, and a leading example of the fact-based investigative drama that Rosi had been developing since Salvatore Giuliano.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a film that argues like a dossier, asking you to weigh evidence and motive rather than simply follow a hero.
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