Like all the great modern Italian directors, Francesco Rosi has roots in neorealism; he apprenticed with, most famously, Luchino Visconti on La terra trema as well as on Bellissima and Senso, which he cowrote. Yet Rosi is like no other director. An artist with a passionate commitment to truth, he is never for a moment fooled into thinking he has found it. Rosi constructs his films, mostly thrillers and political exposés, as dramatic inquiries, frequently into real situations, always into real social forces—the forces of corruption.