Bob Leuci (the subject of new documentary Blue Code of Silence screening in Krakow’s documentary competition) was precisely the kind of New York cop you expect to find in one of those gritty, urban police dramas made by directors like William Friedkin and Sidney Lumet in the 1970s. (In fact, Lumet’s film Prince of the City was inspired by him).
Like his colleague Frank Serpico, Leuci exposed corruption in the NYPD and in the city’s criminal justice system. Some revered him. Others considered him a low down rat, steeped in corruption and betrayal himself.
Several years ago, by complete coincidence, young Norwegian filmmaker Magnus Skatvold met Leuci at a barbecue. “This project started out very randomly, as most of life is,” Skatvold says of his chance encounter with the notorious ex-New York detective. He had been studying in the States at the time and had gone for a brief holiday in Rhode Island, a couple of hours north of New York.
“He (Leuci) sucks all the attention out of the room and so he was very much the centre of attention at that barbecue party,” the director remembers. At the time, he didn’t know anything about Leuci but immediately hit it off with him. They stayed in touch.
At first, Leuci wasn’t interested in being involved in a documentary. There had already been books and movies about him. However, Skatvold was coming at his story from a new angle. What most intrigued the Norwegian was the fact that the man he had to come to know was a genial grandfather in his 70s – a funny and charismatic character a long way removed from the hardboiled cop that Leuci had once been.
In his time, Leuci had done awful things but had also shown heroism, going undercover in his own unit. “It was so fascinating that this person I met was the same person I was watching movies about,” Skatvold explains. “I wanted to explore what had the decades of time done with the memories of this [man].”
The film has taken several years to complete. Leuci was interviewed for it but died before its completion. “At that time [of his death], we hadn’t yet done the bulk of the filmmaking: re-enactments, interviews with the important people. We were very much in doubt if we could actually make this film.”
Leuci’s widow encouraged Skatvold to continue. The Norwegian was being helped with the documentary by one of his friends from student days, Gregory Mallozzi, who is a co-director. The two of them pressed on. They were inspired by the great New York cop films of the 70s like The French Connection and Serpico, which were themselves shot verité-style with their directors taking the camera out on the streets. They tried to ensure their documentary had some of the same raw feel. That was why they shot their re-enactments on old 8mm stock. They wanted “that old fashioned grittiness you can only achieve when shooting on film.”
Archive is central to the project. Consultant Brennan Rees pointed them in the right direction as they looked for photos from the period, which weren’t as readily available as might have been imagined.
Skatvold shows a certain measure of sympathy for the New York cops who betrayed their badge in the 70s. “I very much understand how easy it is to become corrupted when you’re involved in an environment that is so brutal and so violent toward people that don’t follow orders,” the director reflects on what was a huge challenging period for the NYPD. “There was so much hatred against them [the cops] that it really hardened them as a group.” This was also a period, he notes, when the entire city was “entrenched in crime, corruption and poverty.”
Having dealt with New York’s (not so) finest, the director is now turning his attention toward something completely different. His next documentary, The Pioneers, will be about the Norwegian salmon industry. “It’s a really interesting story about modern capitalism here in Norway,” he says. He and Gregory Mallozzi are also developing another project, Mind Over Matter, about US intelligence agencies resorting to the use of the paranormal (“psychic warfare’) during the Cold War.
Blue Code Of Silence was put together through Norwegian outfit Spætt Film and US company Rustic Canyon Pictures. International sales are handled by The Film Sales Company in New York.
“We are very early now in the release of the film,” Skatvold says. Further festivals are expected to follow Krakow but the roll-out hasn’t been straightforward. “It has been a horrible year to release a film. Especially for a sales agent, there have been no festivals to go to and a very chaotic documentary market.”
