Accattone

Year:  1961

Director:  Pier Paolo Pasolini

Screenplay:  Pier Paolo Pasolini with additional dialogue by Sergio Citti

Starring:  Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini

Running Time:  117 minutes

Genre:  Drama

 

In a seedy section of Rome, Vittorio (Citti), nicknamed "Accattone" (Italian for "beggar" or "scrounger"), happily lives as a pimp, off the earnings of sex worker Maddalena (Corsini).  Until Maddalena is arrested and Accattone finds himself having to find an alternate source of income, and possibly finding himself having to do something like working, which he has no intention of doing.

This was the film debut of acclaimed filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini.  However Pasolini was already a major, if controversial, figure in Italian cultural and intellectual life as a poet, author, essayist, critic and public intellectual, and Accattone does tie in with Pasolini's previous writing, which often dealt with the urban poor.  Accattone is largely seen as the last of the great Italian neorealist films, although Paolini himself rejected the neorealist label.  Neorealism was a subgenre that sprung up in Italy in the years immediately following the Second World War.  During the war a lot of film studios were used as munitions factories and were bombed, and many filmmakers and actors were drafted into the military and many didn't return.  Lacking facilities and actors, filmmakers made a virtue out of a necessity and began filming almost documentary style on the streets, with non-professional actors as performers.  Accattone was filmed on the streets, with a largely non-professional cast, and it does have a feeling of scenes snatched from real life.  Despite the plot and characters, and unlike most other neorealist films, the film has stylised, almost religious, overtones, with it's Bach soundtrack and frequent religious imagery.  The performances range from being very good to unimpressive.  Franco Citti in his film debut manages to be both repulsive and charismatic as the deeply unpleasant but magnetic Accattone.  Citti would go on to appear in several Pasolini films and went on to greater fame with his appearances in the three Godfather films.  His brother, Sergio Citti, became a screenwriter and director, and contributed to the script of Accattone.  While Pasolini made better films, this is a hugely impressive debut.  

              Franco Citti is Accattone

Rome, Open City

Year of Release:  1945
Director:  Roberto Rossellini
Screenplay:  Sergio Amidei and Federico Fellini
Starring:  Aldo Fabrizi, Anna Magnani, Marcello Pagliero
Running Time:  105 minutes
Genre:  Drama, war

Nazi-occupied Rome, 1944:  Resistance leader Giorgio Manfredi (Pagliero) is being hunted by the Gestapo.  With the aid of Pina (Magnani), the fiancee of a fellow Resistance member, and Don Pietro (Fabrizi) a priest who aids the local Resistance groups, Manfredi struggles to evade the Nazis and the Italian Fascists.

This was filmed in the months immediately following the end of the Second World War, with scenes shot documentary-style on the still ruined streets of Rome mixed with more conventional studio-set scenes, and many of the cast being non-professional actors, alongside established stars Anna Magnini and Aldo Fabrizi.  This was the film that brought the movement known as Italian Neorealism to international attention.  While doubtless not as shocking today as it would have been to viewers of the time, it still has shockingly brutal moments, and still packs a real punch.  It features great performances, particularly Magnani and Fabrizi, who at the time were known as comic actors, and here playing against type in serious dramatic parts.

        Anna Magnani in Rome, Open City