Pugni in tasca, I (1965)

Director:

Marco Bellocchio

Writer:

Marco Bellocchio (writer)

Release Date:

27 May 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Ale, a deeply disturbed young man subject to seizures benignly decides to murder members of his dysfunctional family for altruistic reasons.

Plot Keywords:

Murder By Drowning | Wake | Tutor | Road Rage | Chinchilla

Awards:

2 wins

Cast

Lou Castel	...	Alessandro
Paola Pitagora	...	Giulia
Marino Masé	...	Augusto
Liliana Gerace	...	Mother
Stefania Troglio	...	Chambermaid
Jeannie McNeil	...	Lucia
Mauro Martini	...	The boy
Gianni Schicchi	...	Tonino
Alfredo Filippazzi	...	Doctor
Gianfranco Cella	...	Young man at the party
Celestina Bellocchio	...	Young Woman at Party
Pier Luigi Troglio	...	Leone
Irene Agnelli	...	Bruna
Sandra Bergamini
Lella Bertante

Directed by
Marco Bellocchio

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Marco Bellocchio		writer

Produced by
Enzo Doria	....	producer (as Ezio Passadore)

Original Music by
Ennio Morricone

Cinematography by
Alberto Marrama

Film Editing by
Silvano Agosti		(as Aurelio Mangiarotti)
Anita Cacciolati

Art Direction by
Gisella Longo

Sound Department
Vittorio De Sisti	....	sound

Camera and Electrical Department
Giuseppe Lanci	....	camera operator
Alberto Rosa	....	assistant camera

Other crew
Elda Tattoli	....	dubbing director

Production Companies

• Doria

Distributors

• Peppercorn-Wormser (1968) (USA) (subtitled)
• Silver Screen (2007) (Brazil) (DVD)

Also Known As:

Fist in His Pocket (USA)
Fists in the Pocket (UK)

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.75 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Italy:VM14 | West Germany:18

Company:

Doria

Trivia:

The role of Alessandro was initially offered to Itlian pop singer Gianni Morandi, later declining at the advice of his father and manager.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Although he is dead, Leone's right eye can be seen twitching as he lies in his coffin during the wake.

Quotes:

Alessandro: I'm a volcano of ideas.

Movie Connections:

References The Wild One (1953)

fists in the eye of the cinema

When this film first appeared in the 1960s, the effect was so startlingly individual: there had never been a film as bold, as seemingly unhinged, yet as ruthlessly controlled, as this first feature by Marco Bellocchio. The wonderfully atmospheric black-and-white cinematography seemed to be developed from some dingy dream which dared to bring out into the open the most heinous family secrets, yet the utterly dispassionate fury which animated the most frenzied sequences was so freakish it was almost funny. This constant tension somehow allowed for a sneaky kind of compassion to enter the movie, so that the family dynamics, though extreme, seemed to come out of a common nightmare. FISTS IN THE POCKET remains an embattled cry for a new society, by focusing on the remnants of the diseased upper classes, yet this tale of sound and fury seems to have been made in the kind of frenzied reverie that is analogous to the stream-of-conscious jumble which William Faulkner used at the beginning of THE SOUND AND THE FURY, and to the same effect, i.e., to chart a family's disintegration as a mirror to the decaying grandeur of a dying society.