Illustrious Corpses — Illustrious Corpses (Blu Ray)
In 1976, director Francesco Rosi and producer Alberto Grimaldi adapted Leonardo Sciascia’s 1971 novel Equal Danger into the hazy, gritty thriller Illustrious Corpses, a film that offers no easy answers.
The fascinating title could be taken as a blunt description of the film’s early, high-profile targets, a succession of judges dispatched in what appears to be a mission of revenge. But there’s also no mistaking its similarity to the game that shares its name—Illustrious Corpses (Cadavre Exquis) is a surrealist game invented by André Breton, similar to Consequences, in which players add words and images to a collective work of art without seeing other contributions. Similarly, Rosi’s film unfolds a web of victims, targets, suspects, and motivations to an unpredictable conclusion. It’s Inspector Rogas (Lino Ventura), a well-regarded policeman, who’s charged with investigating the killing spree of prominent judges that kickstarts this deadly game. But as the body count rises, the country descends into increasing social and political turmoil, and Rogas starts to formulate a theory as to who’s responsible for the killings, it becomes clear that behind everything lies a sprawling conspiracy that leaves no one untouched.
Illustrious Corpses is nearly two hours of immersion in an idea, but the form of that idea depends on the viewer: could this be a futile investigation, a high-end political thriller, or a manifestation of conspiracy or freedom fighting? From the judge’s chilling stroll through a crypt that opens the film, it looks like we could be set up for a giallo before it settles into a procedural puzzle.
Through this, we follow the capable detective Rogas (we are frequently told how good and well-regarded he is), who has a knack for being right to the point that he’s soon ahead of the murders, witnessing one and meeting another target the night before their murder. One of the film’s rare moments of comedy is when Rogas is regarded as bad luck because he’s so often found at the murder scene. But what is an atmospheric procedural in its first hour becomes a sprawling political conspiracy for its second. With Rogas trapped in the middle, it continues to spread to its conclusion.
What Illustrious Corpses does so well, and with an expert touch, is to create an atmosphere of societal discontent to back the murders; a febrile atmosphere that fuels the crimes, but also hampers the investigation.
The active serial killer allows Rogas to work his deductive muscles, connecting the murdered judiciary to certain trails and whittling down his suspects. But in an environment where the upper elite is happy to blame the younger generation, who in turn hang from statues shouting “mafiosa” at any public official, things are unnecessarily difficult. It’s an ambulance strike delaying the removal of a body from a crime scene that makes the generally calm Rogas finally snap. But this context also allows the swelling mystery to serve up surprisingly blunt killings and a large cast of characters. Alongside the stony Ventura is the always welcome presence of Max von Sydow as the Supreme Court President.
Illustrious Corpses is a murky film, with deep blacks, browns and a soft mist permeating many scenes—all the better for Rogas’ camel trenchcoat to stroll through. That frees some moments to stand out, particularly a harbourside meal between Rogas and a schoolfriend (a rare ally and a communist) in bright sunlight. On Radiance’s 4K remaster, it’s easy to sink into the deep shadows and murky Italian towns and bright interventions. Pasqualino De Santis’s cinematography excels in pivotal moments—particularly notable are flash cuts between attendees at a meeting, zooming past Rogas in separate chauffeured cars, and then, at the climax, shots that make the most of light and hue changes across the gigantic exhibition spaces of a museum. Most eye-catching are sporadic uses of monochrome for different purposes: once as a ‘flashback’ showing the truth behind an earlier trial as reconstruction, later to show the competing points of view between two witnesses, and then for surveillance and news reports.
The extras on this Radiance release include a commentary from filmmaker Alex Cox, recorded in 2021. Interviews include archive chats with Rosi and Ventura, both from 1976. A new half-hour interview with the author of The Cinema of Francesco Rosi, Gaetana Marrone, gives a modern perspective, while a trailer and gallery round out the on-disc package. The limited-edition set includes a booklet with new essays on Illustrious Corpses by Michael Atkinson, and a newly translated interview with Rosi, alongside the director’s writing.
It’s a well-presented package for a fascinating film that atmospherically mixes genres and techniques to present an alternative view of contemporary Italian politics.