The Art of Getting Along

They call Rosario Scimoni Sasà. He is Sicilian, the nephew of the mayor of Catania, and he has one principle: be on the winning side. As a young man he is a socialist; when fascism arrives he is a fascist. During the war he gets on with the Germans, and when the Allies come, with them. Then a Christian Democrat, then something else. He changes women at the same speed. In the end he even tries to found a party of his own. The film covers forty years through this man and shows whose hands Italy passed into. Luigi Zampa directs the Italian comedy; eighty-five minutes, with Alberto Sordi as Sasà. Sordi was the best-known face of postwar Italian comedy and generally played men like this: likeable-looking and believing in nothing. The film does it without accusing anyone, simply by showing it.