Mafioso

Part of Cinema in Conversation! Explore all Cinema in Conversation titles here. Co-sponsored by the Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities. Alberto Lattuada’s Mafioso (1962) is a brilliant and unsettling comedy on Italy at a time of rapid transformation. The film follows Antonio Badalamenti, a Sicilian man who has built a new life for himself in Milan with his wife and children. A visit to his hometown in Sicily, however, brings him back into contact with the people, customs, and obligations of his past, with increasingly unsettling consequences. Blending dark comedy and social commentary, Mafioso explores the tensions between Northern and Southern Italy, family and masculinity, and the ways in which seemingly ordinary relationships can conceal structures of power and violence. Made a decade before The Godfather, Lattuada’s film also provides an intriguing alternative to the mafia narratives that would later become familiar around the world. Join Colby College Assistant Professor Giovanni Miglianti and the students of “Mafia Movies: Mobsters, Martyrs, and Myths” for a brief introduction to the film and a post-screening conversation with the audience. WATCH TRAILER >