Who scored the music in Elio Petri's 1970 drama Investigation Of A Citizen Above Suspicion
LEVEL 4 — ⭐ MASTER
Our Level 4 Master Quiz begins with a bold, powerful, and groundbreaking Italian film that won the Grand Prix Spécial du Jury at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, as well as the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), directed by Elio Petri, explores what happens when the very person responsible for enforcing the law believes he stands above it. A senior police officer, played by Gian Maria Volonté, who heads the homicide division, murders his mistress, played by Florinda Bolkan. He then deliberately leaves clues that could lead the authorities back to him. In a strange twist, rather than trying to conceal his crime perfectly, he seems to challenge his colleagues to suspect him. Yet he is a man with power, prestige, and influential connections. As the investigation unfolds, it becomes clear how difficult it is to accuse someone who belongs to the very system responsible for enforcing the law. The result is a dark political satire about power, police abuse, and impunity. One of the most representative filmmakers of political cinema, Petri co-wrote the screenplay with Ugo Pirro, creating a film that remains a powerful examination of authority and corruption.
Michael Haneke is one of the most uncompromising observers of human behavior and modern society, a cold and critical examiner of the bourgeois world who seeks to make the viewer feel uncomfortable and question what they see. His early work includes the Glaciation Trilogy, consisting of three films connected by common social and thematic concerns. In all three, we encounter people living in a modern, organized world who seem unable to form meaningful bonds with one another. At the heart of the trilogy lies the idea that violence does not always erupt suddenly or without warning. It can develop silently within a society where people have lost the ability to communicate with one another in any meaningful way. These three films reflect the Austrian filmmaker's vision and artistic outlook, laying the foundations for many of the questions that would continue to run throughout his career. In his later work, Haneke would explore these concerns even further, broadening his examination of violence, guilt, moral responsibility, and the darker sides of human nature.
We now turn to a story that is far from an ordinary mystery, exploring the fragile boundaries between identity, memory, and reality. Don't Look Back (Ne te retourne pas, 2009) is a psychological thriller co-written and directed by French filmmaker Marina de Van, who is also an actress. Its unusual and confusing plot may have kept audiences away, despite the presence of two of cinema's most beautiful women in the leading roles. But can you discover the mystery behind a woman who slowly begins to see herself—and the world around her—changing beyond recognition?
On June 27, 1976, four hijackers seized an Air France plane flying from Tel Aviv to Paris, with a stopover in Athens. The group included two Germans and two Palestinians. The plane was diverted to Uganda, where Idi Amin's regime allowed the hijackers to hold the passengers hostage at the airport. On July 4, Israeli special forces launched a surprise nighttime raid and rescued most of the hostages. The operation was successful, but it came at a cost: three hostages and the Israeli commander were killed. Dora Bloch, a hostage who had been taken to a hospital in Kampala, was later murdered by Ugandan officials. The dramatic events inspired several films. Three different productions were released within about a year of the incident, followed by another film in 2018. The one we are looking for is directed by Marvin J. Chomsky. It features an impressive cast, including Helmut Berger, Linda Blair, Anthony Hopkins, Burt Lancaster, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Dreyfuss, Kirk Douglas, and Helen Hayes. It premiered in December 1976, just months after the real-life operation. Only a few weeks later, another television film about the same events appeared, directed by Irvin Kershner this time.
We now turn to a historical adventure that had all the ingredients for success: a good literary source and an impressive cast, yet failed to win over audiences. The story had already been brought to the screen three times, first in a silent film, then in a 1944 production, and later in a television version in 1958. The film we are looking for was released in 2004 and features Robert De Niro, Pilar López de Ayala, F. Murray Abraham, Kathy Bates, Gabriel Byrne, Émilie Dequenne, Harvey Keitel, Geraldine Chaplin, and Dominique Pinon. Even director Jim Sheridan appears in a small role as the King of Spain. Directed by Northern Irish filmmaker Mary McGuckian, the film also boasts costumes by British designer Yvonne Blake and a score by Lalo Schifrin. Can you identify this historical adventure that brought together such an extraordinary cast but failed to make its mark?
Witchhammer (Kladivo na čarodějnice, 1970) is a dark Czech historical film based on Václav Kaplický's 1963 novel of the same name, which draws on the real witch trials that took place in northern Moravia in the late 17th century. Beyond its historical setting, the film carries a deeper political message, drawing parallels between the religious persecutions of the past and the show trials and forced confessions that took place under the communist regimes of Central Europe in the 1950s. Although it initially attracted around 1.5 million viewers, the film was later withdrawn from cinemas and was not shown again in Czechoslovakia until 1989.
We now move on to a very different and unusual film project. At its heart is a young married couple living in New York. Once deeply in love and full of dreams for the future, their relationship is shattered by a tragic event that leaves them struggling with grief and emotional pain. The woman withdraws, trying to find herself again, while the man struggles to understand what has happened to the woman he loves and whether they can ever find their way back to each other. But what makes this project particularly unusual is the way the story unfolds. The same relationship is explored through two different perspectives, revealing how the same painful experience can affect two people in very different ways. As their lives begin to drift apart, can we ever truly understand what happens between two people when love alone is no longer enough?
We now turn to another outstanding European film that was banned for years. Made in 1981, it was officially released in Poland only in December 1989, as the communist regime was nearing its end. The authorities considered it so critical of the regime that they called it "the most anti-communist film in the history of the Polish People's Republic." Its director, Ryszard Bugajski, was prevented from continuing his career in Poland and eventually emigrated to Canada. The production company X Film Unit, founded and led by Andrzej Wajda, was forced to close as a result of the controversy surrounding the film. Time, however, would vindicate this powerful work. In 1990, it competed at the Cannes Film Festival for the Palme d'Or, while its leading actress, the remarkable Krystyna Janda, won the award for Best Actress. Janda had already become well known through her work with Wajda and would later also be associated with the films of Krzysztof Kieślowski.
When Warner Bros. agreed to give the French TV channel Canal+ free access to its huge catalog of around 4,000 films for one month, two adventurous French filmmakers saw a unique opportunity. They had already experimented with the same technique in two short films, and now they could take their idea much further. The result was La Classe américaine, also known as Le Grand Détournement (The Great Détournement), a 70-minute television film completed in just six months. The directors took footage from different movies, cut and rearranged scenes and dialogue, and added new sound elements to create the illusion that actors from unrelated films were all part of the same story. The result is a clever parody that transforms familiar images into something entirely new. It is a striking example of film détournement, a technique that takes existing film material and gives it a completely different meaning through editing and recontextualization.
The End of the Game (Der Richter und sein Henker, 1975) is a mystery thriller directed by Maximilian Schell, marking his third film as a director. It stars Jon Voight, reuniting with his co-star from The Odessa File (1974), alongside Jacqueline Bisset, Gabriele Ferzetti, and Robert Shaw. Donald Sutherland also makes an uncredited appearance as a corpse, while his voice is heard in a tape recording. The film's music was composed by Ennio Morricone. During the production, Schell became friends with Voight and his wife, Marcheline Bertrand. The following year, in 1975, when Marcheline gave birth to their daughter, Schell became her godfather and gave her the name Angelina Jolie.
We remain with Ennio Morricone and turn to another film he brought to life with his music, but one that faced a very different fate. White Dog (1982) is based on a true story. While living in Hollywood with her husband, writer Romain Gary, actress Jean Seberg took in a large white dog she had found wandering the streets. The animal seemed friendly and playful, but when it saw the couple's Black gardener, it attacked him viciously and injured him. The dog later escaped and attacked another Black man. After similar incidents, the couple realized that someone had trained the animal to attack Black people. In 1970, Gary wrote an article about the experience for Life magazine, which later became a full-length fictional novel. In the book, the couple try to retrain the dog and turn to a Black animal trainer for help. However, the trainer eventually reverses the dog's conditioning, teaching it to attack white people instead, even threatening Gary himself. When the story reached the screen in 1982, the director and co-screenwriter we are looking for, changed this crucial part of the story to deliver a different, more direct anti-racist message. In the film, the Black trainer, Keys, tries to cure the dog of its hatred of Black people rather than turn its aggression against white people. Despite this change, Paramount and representatives of the NAACP considered the film racist. Its release in the United States was severely restricted: it played for only one week, without a trailer, posters, or any real promotion. The film had its proper premiere in France, while Paramount effectively shelved it in the American market. Deeply disappointed and hurt by what had happened, the director moved to France and never directed another American film.
And we close with a South Korean production that offers a Western with a clear nod to Sergio Leone's spaghetti Westerns. The Good, the Bad and the Weird (2008) brings together three of the country's best-known actors: Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, and Jung Woo-sung. This surprisingly wild and entertaining Western travelled to film festivals around the world, including Cannes, Toronto, Hawaii, Sitges, Chicago, and London, earning very positive reactions. The film takes the mythology of the classic Western and transforms it into a faster, more energetic and spectacular Asian adventure, filled with impressive action sequences and almost nonstop excitement. The story follows three men caught in a ruthless race for a treasure map. One is a bounty hunter, another a ruthless assassin, and the third an eccentric outlaw who steals the map from a Japanese official. Their paths soon collide in a chaotic pursuit where greed, danger and survival go hand in hand. The music also pays tribute to the legendary Ennio Morricone, while bringing a more modern and dynamic sound. Composers Dalparan and Jang Young-gyu, both with a background in heavy metal, give the score its own distinctive character. The soundtrack also features familiar songs such as Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood and Moonlight Serenade, adding unexpected musical touches to this unusual Western.
That was just the introduction to the 12 challenging questions that follow, taking you on a journey through some remarkable and often unexpected corners of cinema. From powerful films that gained recognition at the Cannes Film Festival and stories based on real events, to box-office failures and early works by directors who would later become major names in world cinema, this quiz has plenty of surprises in store. Along the way, we will travel from the Czech Republic and Poland to South Korea, while also exploring unusual and pioneering cinematic experiments such as film détournement. Some of these films may be familiar, others less so, but each has a story worth discovering. Are you ready to take the challenge?