Bandits of Orgosolo

After 10 short documentaries that surveyed Italy’s poorest workers, Vittorio De Seta made his feature debut with Bandits of Orgosolo, a rough-hewn study of survival in the highlands of Sardinia. Shepherd Michele (Michele Cossu, a nonprofessional and native of the region) ekes out a meager living with his brother until bandits arrive on the island and kill a policeman. Mistaken for a member of their gang and accused of murder, Michele must flee to the mountains where he’s driven to dire acts. Winner of numerous prizes at the 1961 Venice Film Festival, De Seta’s post-neorealist narrative (which he also shot) recalls Visconti’s elemental La Terra Trema, and moved Martin Scorsese to observe: “It was as if De Seta were an anthropologist who spoke with the voice of a poet.”