*The New York Times Review Published: May 21, 1973
~In the time between the end of World War II and his death in 1962, Enrico Mattei put together an industrial-service complex that was at the very least instrumental in shaping Italy's postwar economic boom. Based on the discovery of abundant natural gas in the Po valley, but extending to chains of service stations and hotels, to deals with Arabian oil countries, with the Soviet Union and potentially even with China, Mattei's work served neither his own gain nor a private corporation, but rather the national Government—which his enemies asserted he more or less openly controlled.
Mattei had enemies enough, and on an international scale, for his power, his ambition, his corrosive energy, and for such outrages to the prerogatives of private enterprise as actually lowering the price of gasoline through economies effected by a state-owned monopoly. And when he died, in the crash of his private airplane, there was some question whether he died by accident or by carefully concealed design.
The mystery of Mattei's life and death, and of the investigation following the death, is the subject of Francesco Rosi's "The Mattei Affair," co-winner of the Grand Prize last year at Cannes, which opened yesterday at the Little Carnegie Theater. It is a subject not too unlike the life and death of Orson Welles's Charles Foster Kane, or of the famous Sicilian bandit who is the elusive hero of Rosi's own fine early movie, "Salvatore Giuliano" (1961).
Elusiveness was virtually the key to "Salvatore Giuliano," and, in a simple but excellent stylistic stroke, Rosi photographed usually from a distance and from the back. I'm not at all sure that elusiveness is the key to Enrico Mattei, though I think that Rosi rather wishes it were and is sometimes at a loss in treating a figure so aggressively interested in explaining himself. "The Mattei Affair" seems scrupulously accurate at least to the events of its hero's life, and fairly often—as when Mattei demonstrates an offshore oil-drilling rig or inspects his gas stations or hotels—it resembles an awkwardly dramatized biographical documentary.
But occasionally it comes brilliantly alive. When Mattei battles over an elegant lunch with an American oil magnate, or when, on the last day of his life, he addresses the cheering people of a Sicilian town and then, one by one, each of his associates begs off flying home with him—the "Mattei Affair" suggests the superb movie it does not finally become. Such sequences owe a good deal to the acting talents of Gian Maria Volonte, who complicates the character of Mattei, sometimes refining him, sometimes broadening him, sometimes pushing him into a public-relations caricature of the industrial visionary, which he must also have been.
The film's time ranges at will from Mattei's emergence in 1945 to the investigation of his death still continuing in 1970—but it centers on a day in autumn of 1962, as it keeps returning to the field outside Milan where the bits and pieces of its hero are being collected for burial. In themselves these remains are nothing. And as emblems for the life that preceded them and the intrigues that follow, they do not seem to have the power to crystallize Francesco Rosi's potent magic or to vitalize this immensely honorable but unsuccessful movie.
The Cast
THE MATTEI AFFAIR, directed by Francesco Rosi; story by Mr. Rosi and Tonino Guerra; screenplay by Mr. Rosi and Mr. Guerra in collaboration with Nerio Minuzzo and Tito de Stefano; editor, Ruggero Mastroianni; music, Piero Piccionl; produced by Franco Cristaldi; a Cinema International Corporation presentation; released by Paramount Pictures. At the Little Carnegie Theater, 57th Street, east of Seventh Avenue. Running time: 118 minutes. This film is classified R.
Enrico Mattei. Glan Maria Volonte
Journalist. Luigi Equarzina
McHale. Peter Baldwin
2d Journalist. Renato Romano
Minister. Franco Graziosi
Engineer Ferrari. Gianfranco Ombuen
Official of Inquiry Commission. Elio Jotta
Mrs. Matei. Edda Ferronao
Bertuzzi. Luciano Colitti.
Review By ROGER GREENSPUN
