"Dillinger è morto" is a bizarre Italian film by Italian director Marco Ferreri, made in 1969, and never shown in the U.S. until now, 2009, in its scattered special engagements. I had the good fortune to catch it in Rome in 1970, on my last night in the city, at the neighborhood Cinema Farnese in Campo de' Fiori.
It deals pretty much with an evening in the life of a character named Glauco, played by Michel Piccoli, who comes home from work in a gas-mask factory, is disgusted with the cold supper left for him by his always sleeping wife, prepares a gourmet meal of his own as he cleans (with virgin olive oil) a revolver found in a closet and wrapped in old newspapers. The papers contains the story of the death of American gangster John Dillinger. The revolver, of uncertain origin, obsesses him. When done, he paints it red with white polka dots. This is an interesting man but hardly a sane one.
And then...well, and then...what Glauco does with that revolver and how it becomes an invigorating turning point in his unwell life, gives the film a measure of its eerily fascinating allure. This lost cult movie is certainly an interesting counterpoint to Johnny Depp's current "Public Enemies," about the gangster himself.
I never thought I would see it again, since it has never been available on video or DVD. Yesterday I caught it at the Brattle in Cambridge. You may like it; you may not. But, as with me four decades later, it will never leave your mind.
It deals pretty much with an evening in the life of a character named Glauco, played by Michel Piccoli, who comes home from work in a gas-mask factory, is disgusted with the cold supper left for him by his always sleeping wife, prepares a gourmet meal of his own as he cleans (with virgin olive oil) a revolver found in a closet and wrapped in old newspapers. The papers contains the story of the death of American gangster John Dillinger. The revolver, of uncertain origin, obsesses him. When done, he paints it red with white polka dots. This is an interesting man but hardly a sane one.
And then...well, and then...what Glauco does with that revolver and how it becomes an invigorating turning point in his unwell life, gives the film a measure of its eerily fascinating allure. This lost cult movie is certainly an interesting counterpoint to Johnny Depp's current "Public Enemies," about the gangster himself.
I never thought I would see it again, since it has never been available on video or DVD. Yesterday I caught it at the Brattle in Cambridge. You may like it; you may not. But, as with me four decades later, it will never leave your mind.