1970 film
Un caso di coscienza (Italian for A matter of conscience) is a 1970 Italian comedy-drama film written and directed by Giovanni Grimaldi. It is based on the Leonardo Sciascia's short story with the same name, which is part of the collection Il mare colore del vino.[1][2][3]
Plot
On the train to his hometown Maddà (a fictitious place in Sicily) after one of his work trips to Rome, Advocate Salvatore Vaccagnino (Lando Buzzanca) comes across the women's magazine Lady Signora. On the page Ask Father Lucchesini there is a letter about the moral dilemma of a married woman in Maddà who has committed an act of infidelity in spite of loving her husband. Caught between the pain of guilt and the risks of confessing to her husband, she asks for Father Lucchesini's help. Due to the gravity of the situation, Father Lucchesini recommends her to stay silent till the next issue until he puts more thought into the matter.
In order to put his peers in the city council club to shame, Vaccagnino reads them the letter concluding that all the married men in the council are potential cuckolds. A married man himself, Vaccagnino clears his name though by referring to a part in which the woman has given away that, from her house, she could often see her lover going to the bank, while the only thing that can be seen from Vaccagnino's is "the sea and nothing but the sea".
Trying to mend their injured reputation, others tail the postman to discover the subscribers, but to their disappointment, the only ones are the public places of tailor shop and the beauty salon. After getting their hands on a copy of Lady Signora the men sit together to read the article, some take an oath that if the woman turns out to be among their wives, they will do whatever it takes to regain their honor.
However, the article begins with Father Lucchesini's apology for a typo that had happened in the previous issue because of which the word boat (barca) reads bank (banca), hence putting the burden on Vaccagnino's shoulders. Even though the other members of the club stand up for him by claiming that parts of the sea can be seen from their houses too, Vaccagnino's pride is broken.
Salvatore gets home to confront his wife Rita (Antonella Lualdi), and ends up offering her his mercy if she would confess. But no matter how hard he begs, Rita insists on her innocence. It makes Salvatore to offer her his confession in exchange for hers. Though Rita does not agree with the idea, Salvatore goes ahead anyway and confesses that he has a mistress in Rome who is pregnant by him.
But Rita tells him that it can not be his child as, contrary to what she had told her years ago when they visited a doctor, it is he who is infertile and not Rita. She confesses that she lied because she didn't want Salvatore's pride to be broken. She also tells him that she looks for nothing in return for her fidelity as it comes from nothing but the essence of her nature.
The next morning, when the club members are sitting with their wives in a café in the town square, Solfi (Raymond Pellegrin), one of the members of the council, whispers to his wife Sandra (Françoise Prévost) disapprovingly that writing to a magazine about her affair was not a good idea. Knowing about the affair the whole time and doing nothing enrages Sandra. The movie ends with her attacking Solfi and shouting in hysteria that she'd rather get perished by a man crazed by the jealousy of love than live with a man who pretends to love her.
Deviation from source
In the original short story:
- there is no mention of Vaccagnino having an affair (and hence all the other related events);
- Father Lucchesini answers the letter in a single issue of the magazine (and the subject of the typo is introduced only in the movie).
