Police files represent the absurdity of modern bureaucracy: it is impractically rigid in some ways and incredibly fragile in others. It is rigid because it forces people into strict procedures, like basing their perception of reality on what is written down in files, not what they perceive firsthand. Yet it is fragile because, when those rules fall apart—such as when a file does not tell the truth, or simply doesn’t exist—it offers no solution whatsoever.
The connection between files, bureaucracy, and the absurdity of the modern state is clear from the opening scene, in which Bertozzo has no idea how to treat the Maniac until he starts reading the man’s police file. Later, the Maniac throws stacks of petty criminals’ files out the window to clear their names. He recognizes that these people’s lives depend on a few papers locked away in a government filing cabinet, but without the files, there is no record of their crimes. (Notably, when he comes back to his office, Bertozzo doesn’t even realize that the papers are missing.) Similarly, when Pissani and the Superintendent reenact their interrogation for the Maniac, this is really just an exercise in paperwork. They all brainstorm a new version of the story together because they know that, in a bureaucracy, what goes into the file doesn’t have to be the truth—rather, whatever goes in the file becomes the truth. Lastly, the play’s concluding scene uses files to mock the gap between bureaucracy and reality one last time: Bertozzo gives Pissani and the Superintendent the Maniac’s police file to prove that he isn’t who he claims to be, but it turns out that the Maniac isn’t the madman identified in the file, either. (In reality, he’s a wily political activist, not a madman.)
Police Files Quotes in Accidental Death of an Anarchist
MANIAC: Nobody move. Justice has arrived.
He empties files out of the window.
MANIAC: You’re free, free, absolutely free! Not so free.
He opens top drawer of filing cabinet and looks through.
MANIAC: Oooh I see, the big fish. Pesci grossi! Diamond smugglers, drug racketeers. You can all stay there. Where are all the little people? I know.
Closes top drawer and opens bottom drawer. Looks through.
MANIAC: That’s more like it. Heads!
Takes an armful of files and empties them out of the window
PISSANI: The second version.
CONSTABLE: What second version do you want?
SUPERINTENDENT: That one.
CONSTABLE: No. That’s the second first version.
PISSANI: Well where’s the first second version?
CONSTABLE: Here.
All three give file to MANIAC
ALL THREE: The second version!
MANIAC: So there has been a re-writing of events.
SUPERINTENDENT: A slight correction.
MANIAC: Yes?
SUPERINTENDENT: We corrected the time of the original interrogation in which we employed the…
MANIAC: The lies?
SUPERINTENDENT: … Er deception strategy. The session ended at eight instead of nearly midnight as previously stated.
MANIAC: You moved everything forward four hours.
PISSANI: Except the fall from the window. There were witnesses to that.
PISSANI: We only behaved according to specific directives.
MANIAC: Exactly. “You must provoke the kind of atmosphere in which we can justifiably demand greater repressive powers.” That’s what they told you, right?
PISSANI: They were very persuasive.
SUPERINTENDENT: The subhuman filth are threatening to engulf our beloved country.
MANIAC: “Society is falling apart.”
SUPERINTENDENT: Action has to be taken. I appeal to your finer instincts, Kamerad.
MANIAC: “Strengthen the state.”
SUPERINTENDENT: Were we wrong?
MANIAC: “Crack down on hooligans, drop-outs, drunks addicts, squatters, demonstrators, infiltrate the union militants, round up activists, fatten up the files, polish your rubber bullets…”
Police Files Symbol Timeline in Accidental Death of an Anarchist
