Ed Vulliamy remembers the master film-maker, whose thrillers exposed the murky twists and turns of Italian politics and crime
Francesco Rosi, grandmaster of the political thriller on screen, who died last week, not only understood and explained the shadows and labyrinths of what happened to be my formative years – in Italy, learning how politics work – but had an uncanny ability to predict what would happen next.
Those were the so-called anni di piombo – years of lead – a time of adrenaline and ideological conflict that included a night I’ll never forget: that of 4 August 1974, when neo-fascists with assistance from state secret services blew up a train outside Florence, killing 12 people.
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