In Australia, government ministers caught drunk and dancing in their undies get dumped. In Italy, some prime ministers dance with murder, Mafia and corruption scandals, and walk away unscathed. In fact, they might even be rewarded with a life membership of the Italian parliament. Giulio Andreotti was.

Who’s Andreotti, you ask.

Arguably Italy’s most important politician of the past 50 years, he has been prime minister seven times, in parliament for 62 consecutive years, and trails a record of scandals that makes the incumbent divo, Silvio Berlusconi, look like a preening puppy. Andreotti’s extraordinary life is the focus of a new Italian film, Il Divo, which is showing at the Italian Film Festival in Melbourne, after screening to critical acclaim in Cannes this year, where it took out the Jury Prize.

That success for Naples-born writer/director Paolo Sorrentino came alongside fellow Italian Matteo Garrone’s Grand Prize for Gomorra, a film about the Mafia. This quinella made front-page news in Italy and prompted predictions of a renaissance of the national cinema.

In Italy, prime ministers seem to go in and out of fashion as often as style shifts on the country’s esteemed catwalks. That the nation continues to function amid its infamous political instability, scandals and corruption is a mystery that baffles even the native Italian.

“I have never understood this either,” says Sorrentino, speaking by phone from Toronto, where Il Divo is about to screen in that city’s film festival.

“And yet, this country, despite all its problems, continues to develop; it does not lag behind. In reality, Italians are much better than their politicians.”

The term “il divo” suggests a certain type of man – suave, slick and supercilious, a star of operatic dimensions who radiates vanity and entitlement. Every country has a political “divo” or two – Australia has been unusually blessed, flaunting the Zegna-suited Paul Keating, the silver-haired bodgie Bob Hawke, and the silvertail Andrew Peacock. Italy, of course, has the super-tanned and super-taut-faced Berlusconi.

But Sorrentino’s use of the term “il divo” is archly ironic – Andreotti is hunchbacked, short, plain and so passionless as to be practically “unItalian”. He is pale, sickly, flap-eared and a chronic sufferer of migraines. His “divo” quality resides in his Machiavellian capacity to survive, even as he faces the strongest counter-power in Italy, the Mafia. Indeed, in his nerdiness, political cunning and absolute obsession with power Andreotti evokes a recent Australian prime minister. Except that Andreotti, a highly religious man, seems altogether more sinister.

For Sorrentino, Andreotti is consummately intriguing – ambiguous, obsessive and psychologically complex, a bullet-proof survivor leaving a sprawl of bloody corpses in his wake. He has been accused, and acquitted, of collusion with the Mafia, and of the murder of Italian journalist Mino Pecorelli. Some consider him at least partly responsible for the death of his colleague Aldo Moro, chairman of the Christian Democrat Party, who was kidnapped by the Marxist-Leninist terrorist group le Brigate Rosse (the Red Brigades) in March 1978. Moro’s bullet-riddled corpse was found in Via Caetani, Rome, 55 days later.

Sorrentino researched Andreotti’s life for a year before he started writing the script of Il Divo, yet despite this immersion, he cannot decide whether the man is guilty or not.

“Italy is full of mysteries and Andreotti is one of those mysteries,” Sorrentino says. “People who have spent many years studying Andreotti have not been able to work it out, so how could I after a year?”

Nevertheless, the film leaves the viewer with a deep suspicion of the man.
“You have all the reasons to be suspicious of this ambiguous and contradictory person,” says Sorrentino, “That’s why he is represented as a type of modern-day Nosferatu.” In Italy, Il Divo, which cost about $US6.7 million ($A8.4 million) to make, grossed about that much at the box office in its first six weeks. But will Australian audiences unfamiliar with the complexities of Italian politics appreciate its nuances? A glossary at the start of the film testifies to its complexities, but Sorrentino believes the film transcends Italian politics and is a meditation on power.

Some outstanding performances, in particular by Toni Servillo as Andreotti, are reason enough to see the film, as is its dark humour, sharp editing, dynamic soundtrack and lush cinematography. To counter the potential tedium of a film about church and state, Sorrentino has crafted Il Divo like a “rock opera”, with a score comprising everything from Italian pop to the classics .

With his unusual biographical treatment of Andreotti, he has been credited with inventing a new language of Italian film. He is comfortable with the assessment but dismisses suggestions he and Gomorra’s director, Matteo Garrone, are responsible for a rebirth in the national cinema. Their Cannes success was a “happy coincidence”, and Italy was in no need of a renaissance.

“Many great directors have been working and making films in Italy,” he says, pointing to the likes of Mario Bellochio, Nanni Moretti and Bernardo Bertolucci.

Little though it has to do with the plot, I cannot help but ask about the film’s cryptic final dedication, “to Daniela, who saved me”. “Daniela is my wife,” Sorrentino says.

And from what did she save you? “I can’t tell you. It’s between her and me,” he says, adding just a little to the sumptuous list of Italian mysteries.

The Italian Film Festival runs to October 5. Details: italianfilmfestival.com.au

Giulio Andreotti: political survivor
BORN in Rome on January 14, 1919. Statesman, politician, writer, journalist and one of the leading figures in the Italian Christian Democrat Party, which held power from the postwar period until the early 1990s.

Andreotti has dominated the political stage in Italy for 50 years and has served seven times as prime minister, elected for the first time in 1972 (his government, which lasted only nine days, was the most short-lived in the history of the republic). The last of his seven governments ended in 1992, a little more than a year after it was formed. From 1993 on, Andreotti was accused by several Mafia turncoats of being linked to the Cosa Nostra. He was acquitted.

Andreotti was also tried for the murder of journalist Mino Pecorelli. He was acquitted in 1999, sentenced to 24 years in 2002 and fully acquitted by the Court of Cassation (Italy’s highest appeal court) in 2003.

Andreotti now sits on the Third Standing Committee (Foreign Affairs, Emigration) and the Special Committee for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights.

He was made a senator for life in 1991.

Power, corruption, lies – Gabriella Coslovich – September 18, 2008 – Fairfax Digital – This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/news/executive-style-home/culture/power-corruption-lies/2008/09/18/1221330983162.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap2

Kissing and telling is bad form in any culture, but nowhere more so than in the Sicilian Mafia.

The kissing in Il Divo – which won the Jury Award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and makes its North American premiere today at the Toronto International Film Festival – is of the manly, on-the-cheeks variety. It’s between Sicilian Mafia boss Salvatore (Totò, The Beast) Riina and seven-time Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti.

The teller is Baldassare (Balduccio) Di Maggio, who worked as a driver for Riina and hid out in Toronto under an assumed name in the early 1990s, while on the run from fellow assassins.

During his fugitive GTA days, Di Maggio could sometimes be found playing pool on College St. in Toronto, where he once encountered Antonio Nicaso, an internationally recognized expert on organized crime who has written several books on the Mafia and lectured police forces on the Sicilian underworld.

“He’s not a good pool player,” says Nicaso, who interviewed Andreotti several times for a book he wrote on allegations Andreotti was too tight with the Mafia.

After leaving Toronto, Di Maggio turned on his old Mafia associates. That’s when he told authorities of the alleged “kiss of respect,” which he said took place in September 1987 in Palermo, in the home of a political associate, who was later murdered.

Andreotti’s now a senator for life and Nicaso interviewed him several times between December 1994 and March 1995 for his book Lo e La Mafia; le verita de Giulio Andreotti (The Mafia and Myself; the truth according to Giulio Andreotti), which was an Italian bestseller.

During those interviews, Andreotti categorically denied Di Maggio’s account of the “kiss of respect,” which is featured prominently in Il Divo. It didn’t help Di Maggio’s credibility that he committed a murder while in the witness protection program.

It’s also worth noting that Di Maggio didn’t actually accuse Andreotti of being in the Mafia, although the Mafia clearly favoured Andreotti’s Christian Democratic Party.

Di Maggio told authorities that Riina “personally told me more than once that it is not possible for a politician, at any level, to become a man of honour. … On the basis of this rule, which was expressed to me in categorical terms, there is a substantial contempt on the part of Cosa Nostra (Sicilian Mafia) toward politicians, who are not regarded as serious enough to become part of the organization.”

Nicaso notes that Di Maggio isn’t the only former Torontonian depicted in Il Divo. There are also shorter portrayals of Tomasso Buscetta, who enjoyed College St. in the late 1960s while on the run, and Salvatore Ferraro, the reputed No. 2 man in the Sicilian Mafia, who lived in a semi-detached bungalow on Burtonwood Cres. in Etobicoke in the early 1990s.

In part because of Di Maggio’s accusations, Andreotti was charged with improper ties to the underworld, including playing a role in the killing of a journalist who accused him of having Mafia ties. Andreotti was initially acquitted, but then convicted on appeal. His conviction was annulled and Nicaso notes he benefited from the country’s statute of limitations, rather than a definitive ruling on his innocence.

In his interviews, Nicaso found Andreotti to be wrapped in contradictions and ambiguity. While he embodied power, he somehow also seemed fragile and gentle, like lace that could be used as a garrotte.

“He cultivated his ambiguity consciously,” Nicaso recalls.

“He has a fantastic memory. If 40 years ago he told you a lie, he’d be able to continue to tell that lie to you, if you met again. It’s very difficult to catch him off guard.”

At one point, Nicaso tried asking a question for a second time, in a different form, a couple of weeks after the first attempt.

“You’ve already asked me that,” Andreotti chided him.

As depicted in Il Divo, Nicaso found Andreotti coped with severe stresses through irony, not temper.

Among other things, Andreotti has said that madmen either claim to be Napoleon or boast that they can bring order to Italy’s rail service.

In Il Divo, Italian actor Toni Servillo plays Andreotti as a cartoonish figure worthy of Peter Sellers, and Nicaso notes that filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino was producing a satire and a work of art, not a factual record.

“Movies should transfer emotion, not information,” Nicaso notes. “Otherwise, you’d do a documentary.”

A recurring image in Il Divo is Andreotti turning off lights, something that struck a chord with Nicaso. “There was always a little darkness in his house,” Nicaso recalls. “The same darkness that characterized his way with power.”

Story of a Mafia kiss returns to Toronto – September 09, 2008 – Peter Edwards, staff reporter – This story was found at: http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/FilmFest/article/495566

ROME — This is the year of the mafia—at least at the box office.

Two films on organized crime in Italy, each fact-based melodramas, took top prizes at the Cannes Film Festival in May and are drawing packed audiences here. The Italian movie industry was giddy over the double win.

“Gomorra,” the film adaptation of a diary-like book by journalist Roberto Saviano that focuses on the Naples-based mob known as Camorra, took home Cannes’ grand prize. “Il Divo,” a film directed by Paolo Sorrentino, won the jury honor for its original portrayal and analysis of former Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.

Sorrentino, a 38-year-old native of Naples, said he spent years contemplating how to explore Andreotti, a towering figure in Italian politics whose career was shadowed by suspicions of connections to the Sicilian-based Cosa Nostra. “It’s such a provocative subject,” he said during an interview in the Rome office of his film distributor.

The longtime prime minister faced criminal charges over the killing of a journalist who wrote that Andreotti had mafia ties and was implicated in the notorious kidnap-murder of politician Aldo Moro. Andreotti denied all charges. Over time, he was acquitted then convicted on appeal. Then that conviction was annulled. He remains a senator for life.

Andreotti’s story has tantalized the Italian public—and perhaps any society ready to examine how a power class maintains itself, Sorrentino said. The film also opened the same month as the 30th anniversary of Moro’s death, a time when dozens of new books are looking back on the scandalous killing.

“It’s not something of the past,” Sorrentino said of “Il Divo.” “It’s of today and tomorrow. Within power, criminal organizations have a place. … The Italian state fights it, but on different tracks.”

Both “Il Divo” and “Gomorra,” directed by Matteo Garrone, have triggered discussions about the relentless criminality of Italian society.

“Italians are tired of not knowing,” Sorrentino said of the films’ popularity. “They want to know the mechanisms of power in Italy. In America, scandals and secrets at the top powers? In time, the truth comes out.

“In Italy, the truth never comes out.”

Winners at Cannes are hits in Italy too – July 7, 2008 – Christine Spolar – chicagotribune.com – This story was found at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-mafia_side_spolarjul07,0,2497480.story

Denzel Washington gives a typically electrifying performance as Frank Lucas

ON THE DVD of Brian De Palma’s ultra-trashy Cuban gangster epic Scarface is a documentary acknowledging its odd status as “a hip-hop classic”. Over the years, and apparently without irony, America’s biggest rap stars have embraced the rise and fall of drug monster Tony Montana as a “how to” guide to making it big and living it large on the streets of America. It’s one of the film’s stranger legacies, but this fictional icon’s reign as the “ultimate ghetto superhero” may be about to come to an end if the seductive portrait of real-life New York crime lord Frank Lucas served up in American Gangster anything to go by.

Already dubbed the “black Scarface” (there’s even a tie-in hip-hop “concept” album by Jay Z), Ridley Scott’s latest offering doesn’t dwell on the devastation wrought by this cold-blooded killer’s decision to flood Harlem with heroin in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Instead it focuses on his status as a ruthless entrepreneur who managed to build up an empire that rivalled the Mafia. A criminal he may have been, but he was also a businessman – and one who was able to get away with so much for so long because nobody believed a black man had the smarts to pull off all that he accomplished.

Played by Denzel Washington, Lucas, almost by default, can’t help but come across as a charismatic and endearing figure. The film’s first scene introduces us to Frank as he pours petrol on a man, sets him on fire and puts a bullet in his skull at point-blank range, but Scott wants us to like him so Washington – in a typically electrifying performance – turns on the charm, showing him to be a calm, controlled man who is fiercely loyal to his family, his mother, his wife and his business. The fact that his business is heroin, or that his success in sourcing it directly from Vietnam depends on a pathological level of cunning, is deliberately presented as being of little consequence. All he’s really doing, after all, is getting his hands on the cookie jar. He’s not interested in Martin Luther King’s dream, he’s interested the American Dream of unfettered wealth that he sees being embraced by everyone from white CEOs to Mafia big-wigs to dirty cops.

To ram this point home, Scott and his blue-chip screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler’s List) tell Lucas’s story in tandem with the cop-turned-lawyer who eventually brought him down: Richie Roberts. Played by Russell Crowe with understated vulnerability, Richie seems to be the last honest cop in the New York/New Jersey area. Incorruptible to a fault, he makes his colleagues nervous but he’s no white-clad Serpico figure – his honesty on the job is offset by dishonesty in his personal life. When we meet him, his adulterous ways have ended his marriage and landed him in the middle of a messy custody battle for his son, something the film rather too obviously uses to provide Crowe with a meatier character arc to chew on.

The film is structured in such a way that the pair never meet until the end, which ensures the acting fireworks that come from pairing Washington up with Crowe go off with a bigger bang. Like Heat before it, it works because both actors manage to encapsulate that mutual respect-contempt dynamic that comes from spending so long locked in a game of cat-and-rat. Unlike Heat, their individual story strands don’t mesh together as effectively over the lengthy running time. The pace never exactly flags, but the action is too predictable for you to be able to immerse yourself wholly in the story.

The characters surrounding the leads also conform too easily to the stereotypes of the genre. From the moment Frank’s extended family turns up, it’s just a matter of guessing which of his undisciplined brothers is going to catalyse his downfall. It’s a shame too that no-one thought to furnish Frank’s wife, a Puerto Rican beauty queen played by Lymari Nadal, or his mother (played by veteran actress Ruby Dee) with any material that would allow us to understand how these women justified living off the profits of the drug trade, the moral blind spot required to do something like this instead being left disappointingly unexplored.

But that’s the big problem with the film: there’s just no life surrounding Washington and Crowe’s powerhouse performances. Sure, Scott has crafted a handsome picture, even toning down some of his trademark visual excesses to better reflect the rundown nature of New York in the early 1970s. But he has none of the brio of Scorsese, or the authority of Michael Mann. Despite the fresh racial perspective the story offers, the film never seems fresh; everything looks like it was taken from another film. The soundtrack, too, is little more than an iPod shuffle mix of famous soul classics from the period, tunes that have been used in the same way in countless other movies (Scott even deploys Bobby Womack’s title track from the 1972 blaxploitation classic Across 110th Street in a desperate effort to add energy to a montage scene).

For a film about someone whose success was dependant on going to the source and not diluting his product, it’s ironic that Scott hasn’t done the same. The title suggested a definitive American story; it should have been more than the black Scarface.

Say hello to my little friend: Scarface part II – Scotsman.com – Fri 16 Nov 2007 – Last updated: 16-Nov-07 00:55 GMT – http://living.scotsman.com/film.cfm?id=1809552007

The crime thriller with ripped-from-the-headlines details of the Russian mafia premiered at the Toronto Film Festival this week.

During the making of the film, Russian journalist Alex Litvinenko was poisoned to death.

A building near Cronenberg and actor Viggo Mortensen’s residence at the time was swarmed by British forensic police, who found traces of polonium-210, the substance that killed Litvinenko.

“Rather than scaring us, it energized us,” Cronenberg told broadcaster CTV. “We felt we are really are on to something that has got a lot of profundity involved.”

In the somber film, there are no scenes of London pubs, Big Ben or Hyde Park. Rather, Cronenberg aims his camera at the gritty streets of the city, home to new immigrants, crime clans and lost souls.

He “shows you a London that you don’t see in movies, even crime movies,” commented Viggo Mortensen, who plays the mysterious Nikolai, the driver for a Russian restaurateur (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who has deep ties to the mafia.

The film also stars Naomi Watts.

Mortensen also starred in Cronenberg’s “A History of Violence” (2005), but is maybe best known for his role as Aragorn in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

“I certainly tried to make the movie as depressing as possible,” Cronenberg told reporters at the Toronto film festival. “I thought it was too hopeful sometimes.”

He defended a controversial and violent bath scene, telling CTV: “My understanding of violence is that it’s totally physical.”

“It’s all about the human body — the destruction of the human body. So, given those two things, this was a necessary scene and necessary to be shown in the way that I do,” Cronenberg said.

His previous films include “Videodrome” (1983), “Dead Ringers” (1984), “Naked Lunch” (1991) and “Crash” (1996), which won a special jury prize at Cannes, and “Chacun son cinema,” which is also screening at the film festival.

“Eastern Promises” is expected to be released in North America in the coming weeks, then in Europe and Russia.

Cronenberg takes two on Russian mafia at Toronto film fest – AFP – 11. september 2007 – http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hR4OuYQ21DhnmIA5XKW0z3BJP3iQ

If the three Italians on trial in Düsseldorf for cocaine-trafficking are found guilty, it won’t be the first time that evidence supplied by mobster-turned-police informant Basile puts suspected Mafiosi behind bars.

Before he was even 40, the man they called “Angel Face” had murdered up to 30 people. After being arrested in the Allgäu region of southern Germany in 1998, he was allowed to go free. In return for his new life in a witness protection program, he has helped police lock up over 50 criminals.

Now 47, Basile, who will testify Wednesday via video from a secret location in Italy, was once one of the most redoubtable top dogs within the Carelli clan, which belongs to Calabria’s notorious ‘Ndrangheta.

Among the most powerful and ruthless Mafia-like organizations in Italy, ‘Ndrangheta cells are loosely based on blood relationships. The organization is believed to rake in some $30 billion (22 billion euros) annually, mostly from illegal narcotics, but also from ostensibly legal businesses such as construction, restaurants and supermarkets. Allegedly, it is also involved in counterfeiting, gambling, fraud, theft, labor racketeering, loan sharking, people smuggling and kidnapping.

The ‘Ndrangheta‘s family ties are believed to be closer and their vows of silence more strictly observed than other Mafia clans, such as Cosa Nostra and Camorra. So when Giorgio Basile decided to break them, it marked a watershed in Germany’s fight against the Mafia.

Becoming numero uno

With all the ingredients of a classic “Godfather” film, it comes as no surprise that Basile’s story has attracted the attention of a Munich film company which has worked in the past with German star movie director Oliver Hirschbiegel (The Downfall).

Born in Corigliano Calabro in 1960, Giorgio moved one year later to Mühlheim an der Ruhr in Germany, where his father made a living as a “guest worker.” In 1966, his parents separated when his father realized his mother was having an affair. Her lover was Antonio de Cicco, local boss of the ‘Ndrangheta in Corigliano and every bit the Latin stereotype in his sharp suits with slicked-back hair and gold chains. Giorgio spent two years in Italy with his new family, but returned to Germany when his mother got pregnant.

He lost touch with his adopted father until 1979, when at the age of 19, Giorgio was persuaded by de Cicco to leave the dull, industrial trappings of western Germany and work as his driver back in Corigliano. As a fledgling ‘ndrinu, he enjoyed the attention his association with de Cicco afforded him and soon became versed in the ways of the clan. But when he discovered his adopted father had been abusing his sister, he resolved to avenge her. In 1973, he made his first killing, when he murdered de Cicco.

By now, he was one of the most powerful cocaine dealers in Tuscany, and a recognized uomo d’ onore (man of honor). It was during these years that he met his wife, who bore him a daughter. He extended the business further afield, and in the 1980s, played a key role in building up Mafia influence in Germany.

Betrayed by the organization

Arrested in 1998, he opted to break the Omertà, the Mafia‘s “code of silence”. Within Mafia culture, this made him a “stool pigeon” — a violation punishable by death.

According to Andreas Ulrich, author of “Angel Face,” a biography of Giorgio Basile, he agreed to name names because “he felt betrayed by the organization.”

MOBSTER Tony “The Ant” Spilotro met a grisly end because he broke the Mafia code – by having an affair with another gangster’s wife.

Spilotro, said to be the inspiration behind Joe Pesci’s chilling character in the gangland movie Casino, was buried in a cornfield along with his brother.

Both were beaten and buried alive, just like Pesci’s Nicky Santoro and his brother in the Martin Scorsese movie, also starring Robert de Niro and Sharon Stone.

Spilotro was also skimming money from the mob from deals he made on the side, a jury trying a hitman for murder was told.

But his worst offence in Mafia eyes was having a fling with the wife of a Las Vegas mobster.

“Right then a nail went in the coffin,” convicted loan shark Frank Calabrese is heard saying on a tape.

It was played to the trial of Calabrese and four others accused in a conspiracy that involves 18 murders, including Spilotro’s. Spilotro was known as the Chicago mob’s man in Las Vegas and he boasted one day he’d be boss.

Calabrese was heard on the tape saying sex with the wife of a mob member violated their code.

“That is a no-no, that is a friend and that’s a commandment,” he told his son, who secretly recorded the conversation to help the FBI gather evidence against his father.

Calabrese said Spilotro and his brother Michael were murdered on orders from the big boss of the mob at the time, Joey Aiuppa. Referring to Spilotro, Calabrese said: “Joey Aiuppa had a meeting before they all went to jail and he told them he wanted Spilotro knocked down.”

On the tape, Calabrese then quoted Aiuppa as saying: “I don’t care how you do it. Get him. I want him out.”

Calabrese, 69, is on trial in Chicago along with James Marcello, 65, Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo, 78, convicted jewel thief Paul Schiro, 70, and retired Chicago police officer Anthony Doyle, 62.

They are charged with taking part in a racketeering conspiracy that included the murders of the Spilotro brothers and 16 others.

Aiuppa was the top boss of the Chicago mob. He died in 1997, aged 89.

‘That’s a no-no. Right then, a nail went in the coffin’

MOBSTER BURIED ALIVE FOR MAFIA WIFE AFFAIR – By Don Mackay – 12 July 2007 – http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/news/tm_headline=mobster-buried-alive-for-mafia-wife-affair-&method=full&objectid=19442927&siteid=66633-name_page.html

BEFORE Tony Soprano or Don Corleone or Tony Montana there was Lucky Luciano — the real-life patriarch of modern organized crime.

Luciano was the Sicilian immigrant who rose to power in the Mafia in the U.S. in the 1920s and transformed it into a flourishing enterprise based on legitimate economic models. He ordered gangland killings, consolidated warring crime factions and began laundering profits from narcotics and prostitution through lawful businesses.

Criminals paid attention. So did the cops. Even the White House deferred to Luciano during World War II, imploring him to marshal the Mafia to help the Allies crush the enemy — a covert intervention that earned him a presidential pardon. Major studios struggled for decades to secure the rights to the mobster’s life story but failed because Luciano’s family was reluctant to bring his crime-filled saga to the screen.

Finally, a movie about Luciano is in the works, and the driving force behind the project is Joseph Isgro, a producer once branded a Mafia soldier by the FBI. Isgro was a producer on the 1992 film “Hoffa” while under indictment on racketeering charges.

How Isgro secured the rights remains a mystery — one he will not discuss except to say that he got them legitimately. Isgro says he was dogged by the same type of skepticism decades ago when he beat out Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and the studios to lock down the Jimmy Hoffa life-story rights.

“Listen, I was 15 years old when Luciano died,” the 60-year-old Isgro said in a recent interview. “If someone wants to try to associate me with Luciano, then so be it. The government has wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money chasing me. You know what those guys say about me, right?”

Here’s what they say: In a 2000 affidavit, the FBI singled out Isgro as one of 192 identifiable members of the Gambino crime family — a mob soldier who has been under federal investigation for many years.

Isgro scoffs at those charges.

“I’m a soldier all right,” Isgro said. “A decorated veteran of the Vietnam War, and a proud member of the Isgro family.”

Isgro broke into Hollywood 15 years ago, producing “Hoffa,” a 20th Century Fox film about the mobbed-up union leader, which starred Jack Nicholson and Danny DeVito. He and Gary Arnold are co-executive producing “Baby-O,” a movie starring Theresa Russell and David Proval that began shooting recently in Las Vegas.

For “Luciano,” Isgro has approached a specific A-list actor to play the lead role (whom he cannot yet publicly identify) and is wooing several actors from “The Sopranos” to join the cast. Isgro and his associate Dan Michaels, chief of Full Force Films, have also interviewed a number of writers and directors, including Charles Matthau, son of the late actor Walter Matthau. Isgro already signed hit music producer Scott Storch to score the soundtrack and is in talks with New Line Cinema to distribute the movie, according to New Line’s Joseph Khouri.

Corporate-style boss

Charles “Lucky” Luciano was born on Nov. 24, 1897, in a tiny, sulfur-mining town in Sicily called Lercara Friddi. His family immigrated to the U.S. in 1906.

Before he was 21, Luciano had established himself as a deft criminal, helping to consolidate the mob’s bootlegging operation on New York’s Lower East Side. He worked his way up into the inner circles of the nation’s biggest mobsters, Giuseppe “Joe the Boss” Masseria and Salvatore Maranzano — and then orchestrated the assassinations of both men.

This provocative and compelling 5-part drama from Granada International Television journeys back more than 400 years to 16th-century Sicily, where the small Italian island has fallen victim to corruption, intimidation, extortion, and brutality, all at the hands of the ruthless Gramignano family. The program then follows the development of succeeding Sicilian Mafiosos, illustrating the limitless power wielded by these fearsome and powerful men, and revealing the merciless atrocities which were carried out on any and all who dared to stand in their way.

Through dramatic reenactments filmed entirely on-location in Italy, “Origins of the Mafia” provides careful insight into how organized crime came to be known by the powerful images reflected in such popular films as The Godfather trilogy and in the more recent HBO television series The Sopranos.

http://www.edgeboston.com/index.php?ch=giveawaycenter&sc=giveaway_enter&id=2678

The special edition two-disc DVD is full of special features, including nine additional scenes with introductions by Scorsese.

In the film, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a cop working reluctantly undercover in the mafia. But if you think it’s just another Scorsese mob film, think again.

“It was a departure for Scorsese, I think, too, because he got to do another film about the sort of mob underworld, but this was also mixed with, you know, intelligence, counter-intelligence, the, you know, police department, the FBI, Irish mobsters in Boston — as opposed to Italian guys in New York,” DiCaprio told The Early Show contributor and People magazine Assistant Managing Editor Jess Cagle. “Certainly my character, I got to play somebody who was constantly in angst — having 24 hour panic attacks, which is something that I — I never got to do before.”

Besides DiCaprio, the film has an all-star cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen and Matt Damon — but it seems all were in awe of Jack Nicholson.

“You never, never, never know what to expect with him, because he can off the cuff and just say anything or do anything,” DiCaprio said. “And playing my character and playing that intense fear that I had constantly about being found out as this mole and he was the main, you know, force of nature there that was trying to catch me. And to have him be in character constantly, help — just helped me — it really did … it did instill the fear in you.”

Nicholson leads a cast of Academy Award veterans. However, “The Departed” received only one acting nomination. In one of the bigger surprises of the Oscar season, that honor went to first-time nominee Mark Wahlberg, who admits he’s come a long way from his days as a juvenile delinquent.

“The amazing thing was when I got the call that I was nominated, I got to call my parents and tell them good news that made them cry for the first time in my life,” he told the press after being nominated. “I called them the 20 or 25 times I was arrested and one of them had to get on a train or a bus and bail me out and they had to use the money they were going to use for food to feed their nine kids, so to make them proud and to use all that experience and put it to good use was definitely a blessing.”