Country: Italy
Year: 1969
Duration: 95'
Glauco, a forty-year-old industrial designer, goes back home after work. His wife is in bed with the flu. The maid prepared a cold dinner for him, but he decides to cook himself something else. While searching for the ingredients, he finds a package wrapped in a newspaper dated July 23RD, 1934 with the headline “Dillinger is dead.” Inside the box there’s an old gun, which Glauco strips down, carefully cleans and loads. As he takes care of the weapon, he eats his dinner, watches television and flirts with the maid. Meanwhile the sun has risen. Glauco goes into the bedroom and shoots his wife. He then leaves the house, and drives to the port where he boards a ship headed for Tahiti after being hired as a cook. “It’s dishonest to talk about films, since we’re already doing something useless which self-destroys itself. In silence. I made Dillinger Is Dead for several reasons: because I felt like doing it, because this film earned me some money; but in any case I’m doing something useless, so its pointless to talk about it.”
Biography
film director
Marco Ferreri
(Milan, 1928 - Paris, 1997) worked as a producer in the 1950s and moved to Spain, where he created the films inspired by Buñuel El Pisito (1958), Los Chicos (1959) and The Wheelchair (1960). After returning to Italy, Ferreri kept the same tone with The Conjugal Bed (1963) and The Ape Woman (1964), which sparked the censors’ wrath. With Dillinger Is Dead (1969) and La Grand bouffe (1973) he filmed two great cinematographic allegories on the late capitalist society. His last film was Nitrate Base (1996).
FILMOGRAFIA
El pisito (id., 1958), Los chicos (I ragazzi, 1959), El cochecito (id., 1960), Le italiane e l’amore (ep. Gli adulteri, doc., 1961), Una storia moderna: l’ape regina (1963), La donna scimmia (1964), Controsesso (ep. Il professore, 1964), Break up: l’uomo dei palloni (1965), Oggi, domani, dopodomani (ep. L’uomo dei cinque palloni, 1965), Marcia nuziale (1966), L’harem (1967), Dillinger è morto (1969), Il seme dell’uomo (1969), Perché pagare per essere felici! (TV, doc., 1970), L’udienza (1971), La cagna (1972), La Grand bouffe (La grande abbuffata, 1973), Non toccare la donna bianca (1974), L’ultima donna (1976), Ciao Maschio (1978), Chiedo asilo (1979), Storie di ordinaria follia (1981), Storia di Piera (1983), Il futuro è donna (1984), I Love You (1986), Come sono buoni i bianchi! (1988), La casa del sorriso (1991), La carne (1991), Diario di un vizio (1993), Nitrato d’argento (1996).
Cast
& Credits
regia, soggetto/director, story Marco Ferreri
sceneggiatura/screenplay Marco Ferreri, Sergio Bazzini
fotografia/director of photography Mario Vulpiani
scenografia/set design Nicola Tamburro
montaggio/film editor Mirella Mencio
musica/music Teo Usuelli
suono/sound Carlo Diotallevi
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters Michel Piccoli (Glauco), Anita Pallenberg (la moglie di Glauco/Glauco’s wife), Annie Girardot (la cameriera/maid), Carole André (la proprietaria del battello/shipowner), Mario Jannilli (il capitano/captain), Gino Lavagetto (il marinaio/saylor), Adriano Aprà (il critico cinematografico/cinema critic), Carla Petrillo
produttore/producer Alfred Levy, Ever Haggiag
produzione/production Pegaso Film s.r.l.
copia restaurata dalla/copy restored by Cineteca Nazionale