The Organizer

Italy's first capital after the Risorgimento ended in the 1870s, Turin was in the midst of rapid industrialization during the period that this film takes place, although it unfolds some years before the growth of the industry. Populating his densely inhabited film with actual workers, director Mario Monicelli was attempting, three years before The Battle of Algiers (1966), to create a sort of neo-realist period piece. Using a strategy that would subsequently be seen in Bonnie and Clyde (1967), the film opens with a montage of historical photographs that skilfully segues into contemporary facsimiles.