Poliziottesco 70: Realist Representation, Private Violence, and Social Commentary in the Italian Way to Crime Cinema

Italian crime cinema (henceforth, poliziottesco) is a film genre that developed in the 1970s, particularly from 1972 to 1979. These were the years of political terrorism (both right- and left-wing) and of a structural and cultural differentiation of crime in all the country’s major cities. In this context of opposing extremisms and widespread offenses against the law, the emerging cinematic genre combines the stylistic features of the police plot – crimes and police investigations – with chases, action scenes, and the depiction of street and state violence. The objective of this paper is to define this genre sociologically and culturally through so-called cross-border practices. The term refers to research that advance societal knowledge using sources from different fields of knowledge. Without any claim of exhaustivity, this essay muses on the poliziottesco genre, showing its aesthetic stylistic features, critiquing the social context from which it originates, and explicating the themes underpinning its political philosophy. I will first offer a critical chronology of some of the films that make up the genre and then analyse them by symbols. In the conclusions, I will offer an epistemological framework on the ideology behind the poliziottesco genre, circumscribing it to the years that witnessed its development and popularity.