Pier Paolo Pasolini's first feature film is, on the surface, another example of Italian neo-realism, a form that dominated in postwar Italy for decades because of the relative poverty of the industry necessitating minimalized physical productions, but it also appears to be one of those that was heavily political, taking on a main character who never works, living off the labor of another, and is so morally corrupt that he's a joke on the lower end of the criminal world of Rome. Yeah, he feels like a communist critique of the indolent class. However, Pasolini was a storyteller first and foremost, and his efforts, while thematic and political at their core, keep that need to tell a compelling story above everything.
The titular Accattone (Franco Citti), actually named Vittorio, is a pimp whose girl, Maddalena (Silvana Corsini) supports him with her nightly activities. He's one of several young men in the small suburb of Rome who sits around all day every day talking up their toughness while looking down on everyone who works, like Accattone's brother. The irony is that these pimps are the low end of the criminal order, being looked down on by thieves who actually do work their own way for a living. When some Napolitan guys come for a visit, they end up zeroing in on Maddalena, pick her up on the street corner one night, slap her around a bit, and leave her in a gravel field. When she goes to the police, she points fingers at the young men in a line up, but because she can't prove it's them she gets thrown in jail for a few months for perjury leaving Accattone alone without any means to support him.
The portrait of the Italian male youth that Pasolini draws here is a wholly negative one. They are lazy, manipulative, contribute nothing to their communities, and are full of false braggadocio. Our introduction to Accattone is a bet that he'll drown if he eats a full meal and then goes swimming. It's an excuse to eat a lot and then act tough before winning some bit of jewelry or clothing off of one of his friends. His only come down off of his victory is the news that Maddalena got hit by a car (she still has to go out and work the streets, he insists). Accattone is an all-around miserable human being.
That goes even further when Maddelena is in prison. He has to find some new way to support himself. His wife, Ascenza (Paola Guidi) wants nothing to do with him, but he does find a girl that Ascenza works with, Stella (Franca Pasut), a pretty, younger, buxom blonde girl who seems immediately caught up in Accattone's charms. Without a source of income, Accattone works through all of his assets to support her until he runs out and he pushes her to work the street corner just like Maddalena did.
I like how Pasolini tries to give Accattone a way out of his miserable moral state by having Stella have such a terrible time her first night out (she's left someplace remote after she refuses to work her john), so he ends up going to work alongside his brother doing physical labor transporting iron. It's heavy, hard work that breaks Accattone quickly, making just as much money through his own labor as Maddelena did in one night (obviously an intentional detail).
In terms of intentional details, the film is filled with visual cues that are probably the source of some of the controversy around the film upon its original Italian release (being made by Pasolini was always going to be enough on its own, but these almost feel like intentional provocations). Accattone's major visual introduction, when he stands upon the bridge to jump in and prove that he can swim on a full stomach, the young pimp stands alongside a statue of an angel holding a cross taking up the left side of the screen on Ponte Sant'Angelo. Is this making Accettone, the low-life pimp who psychologically abuses his prostitute girlfriend and ropes an innocent into the oldest profession, some kind of Christ-like figure? This isn't like the New Socialist Man, a pure example of the change in humanity that socialism will bring about like Dalton Trumbo wrote. Pasolini feels too independent minded to follow such orders from Soviet authorities (never mind that the Italian communist party kicked him out). Accattone isn't meant to be seen as a good man. He could be seen as a man whom the current Italian system failed, but he's a lazy, entitled, violent thug who steals a gold chain from his four year old son to pay for his meager lifestyle. Perhaps it's a comment on the fallen nature of man? His inability to live up to the promise of the sacrifices of Christ (not that Pasolini himself believed, being an atheist).
It still points to how decidedly Italian the whole film is. Pasolini himself may have left the Church and belief in God behind, but his characters don't act like it. They're suffused in the cultural minutiae of a group of men who were raised going to church every week, receiving education on the Bible, and having those religious references as a common language among them where today it would be more about popular cultural references. That is to say that Pasolini wrote dialogue that feels very real which helped create characters who felt very real in a setting that was very real since they just filmed in Roman streets.
I understand that Pasolini hated the neo-realist movement and rejected it as a label for his own work. I can see the differences because his use of contrasting images is too precise for the cinema verite approach of someone like Sica or early Rossellini. There's also a dream sequence in this, Pasolini's first film, that a neo-realist would never touch.
Still, it's a story, and I find the portrait of this lowlife pimp who goes by an insult as a moniker to be really interesting and involving. The characters are full of life. The actors (all non-professional) feel real. The editing is crisp. The images are thoughtful. The ending has a sad tragedy to it all. This Pasolini fellow, I think he has some talent.
The titular Accattone (Franco Citti), actually named Vittorio, is a pimp whose girl, Maddalena (Silvana Corsini) supports him with her nightly activities. He's one of several young men in the small suburb of Rome who sits around all day every day talking up their toughness while looking down on everyone who works, like Accattone's brother. The irony is that these pimps are the low end of the criminal order, being looked down on by thieves who actually do work their own way for a living. When some Napolitan guys come for a visit, they end up zeroing in on Maddalena, pick her up on the street corner one night, slap her around a bit, and leave her in a gravel field. When she goes to the police, she points fingers at the young men in a line up, but because she can't prove it's them she gets thrown in jail for a few months for perjury leaving Accattone alone without any means to support him.
The portrait of the Italian male youth that Pasolini draws here is a wholly negative one. They are lazy, manipulative, contribute nothing to their communities, and are full of false braggadocio. Our introduction to Accattone is a bet that he'll drown if he eats a full meal and then goes swimming. It's an excuse to eat a lot and then act tough before winning some bit of jewelry or clothing off of one of his friends. His only come down off of his victory is the news that Maddalena got hit by a car (she still has to go out and work the streets, he insists). Accattone is an all-around miserable human being.
That goes even further when Maddelena is in prison. He has to find some new way to support himself. His wife, Ascenza (Paola Guidi) wants nothing to do with him, but he does find a girl that Ascenza works with, Stella (Franca Pasut), a pretty, younger, buxom blonde girl who seems immediately caught up in Accattone's charms. Without a source of income, Accattone works through all of his assets to support her until he runs out and he pushes her to work the street corner just like Maddalena did.
I like how Pasolini tries to give Accattone a way out of his miserable moral state by having Stella have such a terrible time her first night out (she's left someplace remote after she refuses to work her john), so he ends up going to work alongside his brother doing physical labor transporting iron. It's heavy, hard work that breaks Accattone quickly, making just as much money through his own labor as Maddelena did in one night (obviously an intentional detail).
In terms of intentional details, the film is filled with visual cues that are probably the source of some of the controversy around the film upon its original Italian release (being made by Pasolini was always going to be enough on its own, but these almost feel like intentional provocations). Accattone's major visual introduction, when he stands upon the bridge to jump in and prove that he can swim on a full stomach, the young pimp stands alongside a statue of an angel holding a cross taking up the left side of the screen on Ponte Sant'Angelo. Is this making Accettone, the low-life pimp who psychologically abuses his prostitute girlfriend and ropes an innocent into the oldest profession, some kind of Christ-like figure? This isn't like the New Socialist Man, a pure example of the change in humanity that socialism will bring about like Dalton Trumbo wrote. Pasolini feels too independent minded to follow such orders from Soviet authorities (never mind that the Italian communist party kicked him out). Accattone isn't meant to be seen as a good man. He could be seen as a man whom the current Italian system failed, but he's a lazy, entitled, violent thug who steals a gold chain from his four year old son to pay for his meager lifestyle. Perhaps it's a comment on the fallen nature of man? His inability to live up to the promise of the sacrifices of Christ (not that Pasolini himself believed, being an atheist).
It still points to how decidedly Italian the whole film is. Pasolini himself may have left the Church and belief in God behind, but his characters don't act like it. They're suffused in the cultural minutiae of a group of men who were raised going to church every week, receiving education on the Bible, and having those religious references as a common language among them where today it would be more about popular cultural references. That is to say that Pasolini wrote dialogue that feels very real which helped create characters who felt very real in a setting that was very real since they just filmed in Roman streets.
I understand that Pasolini hated the neo-realist movement and rejected it as a label for his own work. I can see the differences because his use of contrasting images is too precise for the cinema verite approach of someone like Sica or early Rossellini. There's also a dream sequence in this, Pasolini's first film, that a neo-realist would never touch.
Still, it's a story, and I find the portrait of this lowlife pimp who goes by an insult as a moniker to be really interesting and involving. The characters are full of life. The actors (all non-professional) feel real. The editing is crisp. The images are thoughtful. The ending has a sad tragedy to it all. This Pasolini fellow, I think he has some talent.