SHOOTING THE MAFIA (2019)

Kim Longinotto gets about half a documentary out of pioneering Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia.  How she began her professional career late, her upscale, but ultimately unsuccessful marriage going sour, raising two daughters, then moving from a job writing with words to writing with camera as the first female photographer at an Italian daily paper, covering the Mafia killings just as they were becoming a daily event (sometimes a multiple daily event) in and around Palermo.  Weegee, that great eccentric street photographer from ‘30s NYC comes to mind, but æsthetically a bad comparison.  Where Weegee is purposefully raw, even coarse, Battaglia turns out shockingly well-composed, museum-worthy shots of bloody gore & horror.  (see poster)  Not only victims, but also relatives in grief and remarkable glances of onlookers at edges of the frame.  Stunning b&w stuff which she shot for many years.  The problem is that this part of her life runs out long before the film is done.  Following her admittedly interesting personal story (she chose young, unusual romantic partners!) proves far less universal in appeal.  Worse, the running time is padded out with a documentary on two brave Sicilian judges who put their lives in danger during the large Mafia trials.  Here, Battaglia is tangentially, not professionally involved.  And the footage, as elsewhere in the film, variously sourced and not properly credited on screen.  (Presumably the end credits cover it in tiny print.)  Much of it looking familiar from other documentaries.  There’s a magnificent short subject in Battaglia, but it's likely a feature-length film was easier to fund and get distributed.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: Francesco Rosi’s SALVATORE GIULIANO/’62 gives superb 1940s background to many issues that led to Palermo’s Mafia vs Communist vs independent bandit culture, while Alberto Lattuada’s MAFIOSO/’62 has yet to be surpassed in revealing Sicilian Mafia culture.  (All thru the conventions of commedia italiana.)  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2010/03/mafioso-1962.html