selling
death
by Douglas Messerli
Federico Fellini, Ennio Flainio,
and Tullio Pinelli (screenplay) Federico Fellini (director) Il Bidone (The Swindlers) / 1955, USA 1962
A group of petty swindlers Augusto,
Picasso, and Roberto (played by Broderick Crawford, Richard Basehart, and
Franco Fabrizi) cheat poor farmers and slum-dwellers of their meagre savings.
Their most popular swindle goes like this: arrive at a farm, Crawford dressed
as a Monseigneur, the others as priests, proclaiming that a sinful
murderer-robber has admitted to burying his victim and his stolen booty on the
farm, near a tree. The church is interested only in the bones of the deceased,
so that they might rebury him. The farmer can keep any buried treasure that
might be discovered. Having buried bones and a box filled with cheap,
artificial jewelry beforehand, they dig and, often with the help of the farmer,
discover the bones and jewel case. Assessing the jewels, they proclaim them to
be worth millions; but all they want is enough money to say masses for the dead
man and the soul of his murderer. The poor farmer or farm-woman, with newly
discovered greed, is so overwhelmed by the new wealth that he or she has no
problem in handing over her life-savings to the church for prayers.
Occasionally they vary swindles, showing up in the slums as city
officials, demanding small payments from each to assure the slum-dwellers of
new homes—in this instance selling hope instead of death. The only constant is
that between capers the three quickly spend their ill-gotten wealth on lavish
dinners and drinks. And in the midst of this comic film, Fellini arranges for
Augusto to meet an old ally, who, has apparently grown wealthy from other forms
of fraud, who invites the three to a party-orgy not unlike the all-night party
of his La dolce vita. And just as in
that film, none of them truly seem to enjoy the events. The most likeable
figure, the Picasso (married to a woman, Iris, played by Giulietta Masina—the
most subdued role perhaps of her career) would like to be an artist, but his
talent is, quite obviously, negligible. Roberto would like to become the
Italian Johnny Ray. Augusto, the eldest of them, is simply growing tired of the
frauds, and has left behind a family life that once, clearly, represented
something better. When he accidently runs into his daughter on the street, she
pleads for money so that she might continue her education.
In the last of their swindles, a repeat performance of the first one,
they take the only money an old woman has saved up for her crippled daughter to
survive after her death. And for a moment, it almost appears that in speaking
with the lovely crippled girl, who refuses to complain about her lot in life,
that he may abandon his vampirish profession. At least he proclaims to the
others that he has returned the money. Frisking him, however, they discover the
money in his shoe. Whether
he had planned to steal the money
from the others for his daughter's school-fees or was simply trying to
out-swindle the swindlers, we never discover. They stone him, driving him down
into a ravine by the side of the road, not so very different from the death of
the hero of Malcolm Lowry’s 1947 novel Under
the Volcano.
In this case, however, the severely hurt man survives the night,
gradually climbing up the side of the steep hill to watch a small religious
procession pass by on the road. The procession, however, never notices him, and
he dies—possibly having had, at least a view of redemption. But, it may be also
Fellini’s way of suggesting that what might have saved him in life has passed
him by.
Il Bidone is one of the least known and
unacclaimed of the movies near the apex of Fellini’s career. And one must admit
that there is something muted about both the film’s humor and pathos. Even
composer Nino Rota’s score is less mischievous than his other Fellini-based
compositions. Despite the movie’s early portrayal of the trio as outrageous
rapscallions, the three characters gradually drift, through Fellini’s inky
pitch-black night-time landscapes, into disassociation and drunkenness. By the
end of Il Bidone all three have
transformed into figures who clearly no longer enjoy their fabrications, and in
the end, those who survive, have become precisely what they have been selling,
brutal murderers—but in their case without even an imitation treasure to be
buried. While, for most of Fellini’s heroes and heroines—the street-walker of Cabira, the disenchanted journalist of La dolce vita, and the overwhelmed
director of 8 ½, who even if bored by
the pattern of their living, seem to enjoy the circus of life—these small-time
criminals seemingly find no redemption, even in the absurdity of the living.
Los Angeles, March 22, 2014
Reprinted from International Cinema Review (March 2014).
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