The Art of Getting Along

Sasà pretends to be insane to avoid conscription and escape the horrors of the front lines. This elaborate ruse allows him to preserve his ambitions while other Italians are sent to fight. It's one of his earliest and most significant deceptions, establishing his pattern of avoiding personal risk while leveraging chaos for advancement.

Earlier in Catania, Sasà already demonstrates a willingness to manipulate anyone who can help him, making his later cowardice in avoiding war consistent with his character.

Sasà falls for the wife of an honest socialist politician and uses his connection to her to orchestrate events that frame or trap the husband. His manipulation leads to the politician receiving a five-year prison sentence, effectively removing a rival and allowing Sasà to deepen his political influence in Catania.

His early career in Catania shows him charmingly exploiting connections with both men and women for advancement, foreshadowing this calculated political maneuver.

Sasà has no genuine political convictions, he simply backs whatever faction offers the best opportunity for personal advancement. He moves from socialism to fascism to communism to the Christian Democrats, discarded each when their power wanes. His only loyalty is to his own greed and ambition, making him the ultimate opportunist satirized by the film.

The film opens by establishing him as someone who adapts to any man who can help him advance, establishing his principle-less nature.

Sasà travels to Rome with the wealthy Duke di Lanocita and his fiancée Lilli, planning to make a film that will legitimize his influence. He pivots the film's theme repeatedly, first supporting workers when communism rises, then proposing a saintly project when the Christian Democrats win, always chasing whatever attracts funding. Ultimately, the scheme collapses when his financial manipulations are exposed.

Meeting Lilli at the beauty pageant reawakens his appetite for influence and leads directly to the film venture.

Sasà orchestrates a scheme where church dignitaries route the duke's funds to foreign missions, but the money secretly flows to Sasà instead. He uses these funds to buy farmland outside Rome, evicts the squatters, and bribes an official to obtain development rights. When these machinations are exposed, he receives a five-year prison sentence, ending his rapid ascent.

His earlier move into flour milling business demonstrates his pattern of using business ventures to mask political manipulation.

The final image shows Sasà in Bavarian dress with his latest companion, hawking German razor blades from a lorry in Germany. This ironic ending demonstrates that despite all his scheming, from political manipulation to film finance to land development, his ultimate success amounts to petty hucksterism. It perfectly encapsulates the film's cynical thesis about endless opportunism yielding only shallow, transient gains.

His lifelong pattern of chasing whatever appears most profitable leads naturally to this final, small-time con.

Sasà marries a dim but wealthy heiress specifically to gain entry into her brother's flour milling business. This marriage serves his pattern of using relationships for advancement, providing him with wealth, business networks, and a new platform to influence commerce and politics simultaneously.

His early exploitation of connections with both men and women in Catania established this transactional approach to relationships.

When Allied bombs kill his wife during the invasion of Sicily in 1943, Sasà pivots quickly to profit from the chaos. He begins operating in the black market, exploiting the wartime disorder to enrich himself. This move represents his pattern of using personal tragedy as just another opportunity for advancement.

His hasty discarding of Fascist insignia when the Allies arrive shows his immediate adaptation to new circumstances.

Upon his release from prison, Sasà founds a political party claiming to defend victims of capitalism. It's his latest reinvention, a desperate attempt to recapture political influence after his downfall. However, the party gains virtually no support, demonstrating that his endless maneuvering has left him with no genuine constituency or conviction.

His lifelong ability to create new causes and alliances now fails him, as his reputation for opportunism precedes him.

The duke insists on moving capital abroad before continuing to finance Sasà's film project. Sasà arranges for a church dignitary to direct funds to foreign missions, but the money ultimately flows into his own pockets. He then uses these funds to purchase farmland outside Rome, demonstrating his talent for finding corrupt pathways around financial obstacles.

His earlier business ventures in flour milling showed his skill at navigating commercial and political systems for personal gain.