One Way or Another · reception & legacy
1976 · Elio Petri
How One Way or Another has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
Savaged by Italy's political establishment on release in 1976, it effectively vanished from circulation after Aldo Moro's 1978 kidnapping and murder made it look horribly prophetic — decades later, restoration and reappraisal have recast it as one of the great buried works of Italian political cinema.
What's debated
Fans still argue whether this is Petri's suffocating, hermetic misfire or the secret masterpiece of his run with Volonté — and how much its legend rests on the eerie coincidence with the Moro affair.
Its footprint
Its afterlife IS the uncanny: Gian Maria Volonté plays a Christian Democrat leader unmistakably modeled on Aldo Moro two years before Moro was kidnapped and killed, making it the go-to example of cinema anticipating history.
Where it stands
A cult object for Italian political-cinema devotees — the 'lost' Petri that Volonté completists and Sciascia readers treat as essential deep-cut viewing.