Oscar Got It Wrong!: Best Original Screenplay 1971

The Contenders:

The Hospital (winner)
Investigation of a Citizen above Suspicion
Klute
Summer of ’42
Sunday Bloody Sunday

Getting Away with Murder

Film: Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Indagine su un Cittadino al di Sopra di Ogni Sospetto)
Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.

Oscar hasn’t always known how to handle non-English movies. A case in point is Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (Indagine su un Cittadino al di Sopra di Ogni Sospetto). This film won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for 1970, and then was nominated the next year for Best Original Screenplay for 1971. Evidently, according to Oscar, this film had two release years. Perhaps the Best Original Screenplay nominees for 1971 were so weak that they had to go hunting to fill the ranks. I suppose we’ll figure that out eventually.

Elio Petri’s film (he directed and co-wrote it) presents us with a story that needs to be taken in several different ways at the same time. On the surface, it’s a police procedural with an interesting twist—one that we’re aware of the whole time. It is simultaneously one of the most subversive films I have ever seen.