The aging writer Aurelio Morelli is disillusioned: although the critics like his books, they are barely read. He develops hatred on youth and their depraved moral. One night he goes with a callgirl - and kills her. The police doesn't have a clue, only the unscrupulous sensational journalist Bossi suspects him. Instead of naming him to the police, he persuades Morelli to write about the murder for his paper. Morelli uses the occasion to write his memoirs, in which he confesses lots of other crimes before this last one...
Acting
Kinski's feral energy devours every scene he's in
Writing
Meta-narrative blurs murder and memoir deliciously
Direction
Purzer's clinical gaze implicates the viewer
Director
Manfred Purzer
Mel Ferrer
Aurelio Morelli
Klaus Kinski
Emilio Bossi
Susanne Uhlen
Agnese
Elke Sommer
Christa Sonntag
Andrea Rau
Herta Enzian
Heinz Bennent
Inspektor Canonica
Willi Rose
Whitaker
Sabine von Maydell
Bibliothekarin
Maria D'Incoronato
Girl at Francesco's Party
Giovannella Grifeo
Lucia
Maria Tedeschi
Aurelio Morelli's Mother
Carlo De Mejo
Claudio Gora
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Mel Ferrer and Klaus Kinski reportedly clashed on set; Kinski's volatility allegedly made Ferrer—no stranger to difficult directors—visibly uncomfortable during their dialogue scenes.
Released the same year as Pasolini's murder, the film's exploration of an artist's violent end and posthumous mythologizing felt eerily prescient in European arthouse circles.
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