This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, March 8, 2009 - “Gomorrah,” which opens March 27 at the Tivoli, provides a sobering snapshot of the far-reaching, toxic tentacles of organized crime, called the Camorra, in and around Naples. The plot profiles five central characters, but the insidious impact leaves no one untouched. Central characters include a mob bagman, a tailor, several slum-dwellers and two teenage boys enamored of cinematic gangsters.
This romanticizing, titillating, sensationalizing Hollywood representation of gangsters comes in for implicit but nonetheless serious indictment, as “Gomorrah” exposes the ugly face of the drug trade, sweatshops and toxic garbage dumps. I was reminded of comments on the banality of evil, but in showing this unglamorous reality, director Matteo Garrone never underestimates the damage done to community.
After a screening at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival, Garrone answered questions and made comments about “Gomorrah.” The following commentary is from my notes at that session:
Garrone: There is nothing glamorous about Italy’s organized crime, called the Camorra. And the reference in “Gomorrah” to “Scarface” indicates that. In that scene, the model of criminality is the cinema, but this is a contrast to the real world. I found it interesting to put it in the movie – two boys playing in a villa and imitating “Scarface.” That villa was owned by a real-life, dangerous boss who was in jail, hence it was empty. That real boss went to an architect and said he wanted a villa like Tony Montana’s – he had the VHS tape of Brian De Palma’s “Scarface” and wanted a place exactly that one from the movie!
The film is an adaptation from a very long book, full of hundreds of possibilities. We worked on subtraction and it was very difficult. We wanted 10 hours for a television series, but the producer wanted a movie, and since he had the money, we have a movie.
Each character brings a different theme, local and universal. For ambition, like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, there are the two boys. For them, like in the U.S., killing is like a video game.
Q: How did you structure one story to another? How much before and how much editing room was there?
A: We had a script from the beginning but always wanted to verify what we included on the set, and sometimes we made immediate changes on the spot. We shot in the real territory of the war because they live in a war.
Q: Professional and unprofessional actors?
A: Most of the actors were from the theater. Scampia, where we shot, is full of a lot of good actors, and we cast some actors who were in jail. Casting starts from the face. We cast a few from the streets. One real boss is now in jail after the movie. A friend kept saying, “Don’t do the movie.” He began work on the movie early and worried. But people wanted to participate.
They saw the film as not against the Camorra but about the Camorra. They love cinema. And I wanted to make a movie without judgment. Everyone can have their own opinion. As a result of this, I don’t feel in risk of my life.
This is the situation for the political right and for the left. Berlusconi is right and sometimes he’s in power; sometimes the left is in power. As a director, I’m not interested in that but in human people and the conflict for them. I’m not so interested in the political dimension.
Q: T-shirts on the people there are all British and American. Is this typical?
A: Yes. “Gomorrah” presents a transfigured reality: Cinema starts from the image and reality, and then transfigures it to another dimension. That’s what I was after here.
Diane Carson’s film reviews can be heard on KDHX (88.1 FM) or accessed at the KDHX Web site at www.kdhx.org.
The Lens is the blog of Cinema St. Louis, hosted by the Beacon.