The mafia in film: a new vision

We always come back to the Godfather. In spite of the long history of Italian cinema’s portrayal of the mafia, dating back to the strange and sinister In The Name Of The Law (1949), and Rosi’s dramatic Hands Over The City (1963), still we return for our mafia clichés, to the Godfather. Perhaps those early …

Epic history of Italy’s mafia organisations

Blood Brotherhoods: by John Dickie published by PublicAffairs I am often asked, Why does Italy have the mafia, and why can’t the state get rid of it? This book goes a long way to answer both questions, showing how seismic shifts in Italy’s rickety administration allowed the mafia to slip into the gaps and exploit …

Paranoid padrino: inside the mind of the mafia

They are obsessed with secrecy and symbolism, arcane codes and structures, they have messianic tendencies and are prone to extreme violence. Clare Longrigg asked psychiatrist Corrado De Rosa, don’t you need to be a bit mad to be a Mafioso? ‘Ask Giovanni Brusca what he was thinking when he pressed the button to blow up …

The woman who testified against her husband

For years, Carmela Iuculano played the dutiful wife to a boss in one of Sicily’s crime families. But after they were both arrested, Iuculano did the unthinkable: she testified against him. Clare Longrigg met her at a secret location in Italy, where she agreed to be interviewed – but was afraid to have her picture …

The journalist challenging the mafia’s ‘normality’

Sicilian journalist Lirio Abbate, 42, has been threatened more than once for his investigations into the mafia. He has also received warnings for founding the very successful antimafia literary festival in Lamezia Terme, Calabria, where we meet on a hot June afternoon. Most people who have been threatened by the mafia normally back down. But …