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Accattone
Thu, Feb 17 | 7:30pm | TMT
After writing a pair of novels set in the urban periphery of Rome, Pasolini, nearly 40, decided to turn to cinema to continue exploring this world and its characters. Accattone is the nickname of Vittorio—played by non-profes- sional Franco Citti, a soon-to-be Pasolini regu- lar—a young loafer roaming the hardscrabble Roman slum of Pigneto who fancies himself a pimp. The desperation of Vittorio’s sunbaked world is intensified by Tonino Delli Colli’s crisp cinematography and the strains of Bach’s St Matthew Passion (foreshadowing a future film). One of cinema’s great debuts, Accattone reimagines neorealism by eschewing any sentimentality for the poetry of the everyday.
DIRECTOR: Pier Paolo Pasolini.
CAST: Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini, Paola Guidi.
1961. 117 min. Italy. B&W. Italian. DCP.
New 4K DCP digitally restored by Cinecittà and Cineteca di Bologna.
Mamma Roma with Love Meetings
Fri, Feb 18 | 7:30pm | TMT
The immortal Anna Magnani is equally vulnerable and volcanic as the titular character in Pasolini’s second film. The writer-director returns to the desolate out- skirts of Rome for this tale of doomed maternal love set against a stark backdrop of ancient ruins and prefab apartment blocks. Former prostitute Mamma Roma is trying to start a new life in a new flat with her teenage son. But the criminal underworld she thought she had escaped slowly returns to view. Pasolini’s first documentary, Love Meetings , is a bold, verité journey throughout Italy in which the writer-director, microphone in hand, speaks with strangers and intellectuals alike about sexuality. These frank interviews and chance encounters offer a lively panorama of the Italian people on the cusp of the sexual revolution. Expanding out into discussions of gender, morality, power, and politics, all touch- stones for the filmmaker, Love Meetings is a surprising and enlightening chapter in Pasolini’s oeuvre.
Also screening is Pasolini’s contribution to the omnibus film RoGoPaG — La ricotta , which stars Orson Welles as a director struggling to film the Passion of Jesus.
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