La corruzione

Stefano is a young man leaving school with a regular diploma, the only son and heir of a wealthy publishing business in Milan, but he has no mother. She is chronically ill lying in hospital, and his father doesn't want to see her. He confesses he started hating her when they married. Stefano decides for a different course of life than the father's wealth and success, and decides to become a priest. The father doesn't object, but brings his son out on a yachting tour to the islands without telling him that his mistress is following them on board. We soon understand that the father's intention is to let his mistress seduce his son, to make him enter another state of mind, which she does. He tries to escape but fails, the father brings him back to Milan where he has a traumatic experience at the father's business, which leaves him devastated. We never learn if Stefano really entered the monastery or if he continued the relationship with the mistress, but we do learn that he saw through all the hollowness of his father's career and was thoroughly disgusted, as if another opportunity for him could be to throw himself out of the window of his father's office.

The acting is splendid, the psychological battle over the son's soul between father and son is brilliantly exposed, while the mistress' character totally void of morals is more plain and superficial. It's a rather morose film of a fine son being totally disillusioned about his own father, and no women can help him, least of all his hypochondriac mother, so maybe he really should enter that monastery and have done with it all.

In the opening scene of 'La corruzione', the 1963 film by director Mauro Bolognini, the director of an elite Italian high school, he separates from the graduates with a speech in which he exposes a Manichean vision of the world. According to him, the society of the time has two options: the moral one represented by the Catholic faith and the materialist one embodied by the Marxist ideology. For the school graduates, children of the Italian bourgeoisie, the option seems clear. The hero of the film, Stefano Mattoli (Jacques Perrin), heir to an editorial empire in Milan, takes the moral option very seriously and plans to enter a life of priesthood. His father (Alain Cuny) opposes, wishing that his son takes over the business. Can there be a third way? Or perhaps in a crooked world, where principles are violated by everyone, just one, third alternative exists, that of compromise? 'La corruzione' describes a moral drama in simple terms and with a perfect cinematic execution, due to which this apparently minor film, survives very well the almost six decades since it was made.

In the conflict between the father's materialism (not at all Marxist, on the contrary, very capitalist) and the son's idealism there is a third character - Adriana (played by Rosanna Schiaffino), the father's much younger mistress, whom he uses as bait to distract the young Stefano from his priestly thoughts. The woman fascinates with her beauty but is she in control, or is she just another victim of a corrupt world, in which moral integrity and honor have no place? This is not about a love triangle but about an immoral triangle.

Mauro Bolognini's cinematic talent and professionalism manage to prevent this film from being a boring debate of ideas despite its serious substance. What we see on screen is a coming to age and family drama, with credible characters and a psychologically charged atmosphere due to the relationship between father and son, and sexual tension due to the presence of Adriana. At one point I wondered whether the story was moving towards the thriller genre. The story has a very modern open ending. Jacques Perrin intensely plays the role of the teenager whose dreams fall apart in the face of reality. Alain Cuny is distant and cold, as the father's role demands. Rosanna Schiaffino radiates beauty and magnetism. It is also worth mentioning the character of Morandi, the left-wing intellectual and the fallen idol of Stefano, a traitor to the ideals of the anti-fascist resistance. The role is played by Ennio Balbo. Leonida Barboni's cinematography is excellent, both when filming outdoors, at sea or on the streets of the early '60s Milan, but also when he takes us inside the functional headquarters of the editorial corporation or through the lavish but tasteful rooms of the Italian tycoon's villa. Giovanni Fusco's music combines jazz with contemporary classical tones, under the clear and positive influence of the soundtracks of contemporary films produced by the New French Wave. The acting and the cinematic quality make 'La corruzione' a film worth watching or re-watching.

Jacques Perrin has just graduated from high school and has determined to go into the priesthood. His father, Isa Miranda, is a rich industrialist who wants his son to follow in his footsteps. So he takes the youngster on a cruise on his yacht and invites Rosanna Schiaffino along, figuring that nature will take its course.

Mauro Bolognini directs the movie for beautiful images, both at sea and when looking at Signorina Schiaffino. If he is attempting to expose the corruption of the rich, I'd say that he has done so in a simple and obvious manner. What he has done for me is expose the essential black-and-white thinking of his young protagonist, in which everything is either all good or all bad, including himself. Except for that point about naivete -- and if he wants to become a priest, there's still confession -- the only thing stopping him is his own pride.

I really love the cinema of the 1960s, and this film was an interesting find with its cool 1960s Italian vibe and provocative storyline. Stefano, played by Perrin, is a recent graduate who wants to become a priest against his father's wishes. Rosanna Schiaffino is radiantly beautiful and plays temptress, but she is also a pawn, corrupted by the material world. The film portrays the struggle between the idealistic and the virtuous, with the temptations and "corruption" of the materialistic nature of the modern world. Great cinematography by Leonida Barboni, especially in filming on a yacht. It has a very cool soundtrack by Giovanni Fusco, whose rhythmic song accentuates a vague modern ending with a synchronized Madison Dance scene. Surprisingly, this film is not part of the Criterion collection but it is well worth viewing.

Why is it that quite a few Italian masterpieces are forgotten ? Why is ' Il Mare ', ' Fists in the Pocket ' and ' La Corruzione ' all seemingly lost ? And especially why in the UK they are totally forgotten ? I am not even sure that this great film made it to the UK, and there is no reference to it being shown here. And yet we still have the Fellini films, Antonioni and a sparse collection of Pasolini. It makes no sense that ' La Corruzione ' should be unseen. Jacques Perrin gives one of his finest performances and so does Alain Cuny. The story to me is simple. Why do we all finally give in to the right of the strongest, while those of a gentle and caring nature are destroyed ? I do not see this film as being religious, but it does cry out for higher ideals and that society should not depend upon mechanical responses to life. The ending of the film is overwhelming and in its power beyond anything that Antonioni achieved. I will not spoil it but just to say that it says everything about how apart we are from each other. I disagree with one reviewer about the music. It is one of the best uses of sound, music and its addition to a film, and not its subtraction that I have heard. And why is Schiaffino's beauty mentioned and no mention of the beauty of Perrin during this period of his life ? It is the same old story here and I am not ashamed to repeat it; the ' Male gaze ' remains supreme. Perrin was beautiful, and why is that never voiced, and that he gives his all to every good film that he is in. His eyes alone say more than the dialogue and his greatness as an actor should be celebrated. But to all who can find this film please see it and question the materialist beliefs that this world clings on to. And please, please watch Perrin's face in the final scene, and see with him the ultimate futility of motion that we go through and how we accept its solitary state and the near military movements of our physical pleasures.