Accattone is an extraordinary
directorial debut. After Pasolini had been celebrated – and
pilloried – for his politically and sexually frank poetry and
novels, he turned to filmmaking to continue his exploration of life
among the destitute of Rome. But Accattone is much more than just a
late neorealist slice of life. It's a complex, fully-realized and
compelling portrait of its title character, who comes to embody the
many stark contradictions of his world. The picture is both
harrowingly realistic and strangely poetic; the tragic life of a
charismatic young pimp filmed in a style which suggests both
documentary techniques and even Renaissance religious art.
In the slums of modern Rome lives Cataldi Vittorio, nicknamed
Accattone (Franco Citti), a cocky and ingratiating pimp supported by
Maddalena (Silvanna Corsini), who sold out her former handler,
Ciccio, to be with him. Accattone, who's never worked a day in his
life, just hangs out with his cohorts (slackers, swindlers and
fellow pimps), bitching and boasting. Despite Maddalena's injured
leg, Accattone sends her out to troll the streets. But this time she
is led on and brutalized by several of Ciccio's pals, who want
revenge. When Maddalena is arrested, Accattone's lifestyle
deteriorates rapidly. Hunger drives him to seek out his former wife,
Ascenza (Paola Guidi). After her father curses Accattone and her
brother beats him away, he finds his young son alone. Hugging him,
Accattone apologizes sincerely for having to steal the gold chain
from his neck. Accattone then falls in love with the virginal Stella
(Franca Pasut). But when he is literally starving, he persuades her
to do what her widowed mother had to do to survive after the war.
Following Stella's disastrous experience with her first john,
Accattone feels remorse and decides that he will provide for her. He
gets a job loading scrap iron, but after one day he finds it too
low-paying and hard, and quits. Meanwhile Maddalena, still in jail,
learns about his new girl and squeals to the cops, who begin tailing
Accattone. Finally he turns to the thief Balilla (Mario Cipriani);
they and a crony set off to find someone to rob. No sooner do they
steal a truckload of salami (!) than the police close in. Accattone
jumps on the nearest motorcycle and tears off in the opposite
direction, precipitating the film's resolution.
Although Accattone was the first film Pasolini directed, he was no
stranger to the industry. He had recently acted in some features
and, since 1954, written or worked on fifteen screenplays, most
notably Fellini's 1957 masterpiece, Nights of Cabiria, about a
hapless streetwalker with a heart of gold. Pasolini has said, "I
wrote all the low-life parts." Throughout his life, he alternated
between (and in some ways combined) lofty intellectual and artistic
pursuits with adventures in the demimonde. In fact, Pasolini loosely
based his first picture on his own acclaimed 1959 novel, A Violent
Life, while changing the main character of Tommasso, who was
bisexual, into the straight – and hence easier to pass by the
censors – Accattone. (Neither the book nor film were released in the
U.S. until 1968.) Pasolini dedicated the novel to his longtime
friend, Sergio Citti, who also served as a consultant on the film.
Sergio introduced Pasolini to his younger brother Franco, who was
quickly cast in the title role. (Trivia buffs take note: Sergio
plays the small role of a waiter, and yet another Citti brother,
Silvio, appears as Accattone's brother Sabino.) Franco Citti was the
only actor in the film to establish a long-lasting career, including
roles in six more of Pasolini's film (Mamma Roma, the title part in
Oedipus Rex, Porcile, The Decameron, Canterbury Tales, and Arabian
Nights). Pasolini came to regret having Citti's voice dubbed in this
film, and later even had him re-record other actors' voices.
Accattone not only looks back to Pasolini's poetry and fiction
dealing with Roman slum life – including his first novel, Ragazzi di
Vita (1955), about street kids, which caused him to be indicted for
obscenity – but ahead to his two dozen other films. You can see
Pasolini's cinematic style, and themes, come together with
considerable fullness even in this first picture (as we will see
below). Accattone also reveals much about Pasolini's take on the
rich neorealist tradition, including De Sica (you could see the
young men of this film as slightly-older incarnations of the
benighted boys from 1946's Shoeshine) and Rossellini (1946's Rome,
Open City), as well as such non-Italian works as Buñuel's Los
Olvidados (1950) and Bresson's Pickpocket (1959). As a gay artist,
Pasolini might have felt a special affinity with Visconti, who
inaugurated neorealism with 1942's Ossessione and created one of the
movement's last great films with 1960's Rocco and His Brothers.
Pasolini's film may not be as polished as those sometimes carefully
un-polished – and great – films, but it is arguably every bit as
powerful.
Pasolini made some provocative comments about neorealism (and many
other topics) in a series of interviews conducted by Oswald Stack in
1968, later published as Pasolini on Pasolini. He said, "In
neorealistic film, day-to-day reality is seen from ... [a]
credulous, and above all naturalistic, point of view.... [T]hings
are described with a certain detachment, with human warmth, mixed
with irony - characteristics which I do not have. Compared with
neorealism, I think I have introduced a certain realism, but it
would be hard to define it exactly." In the journal Officina which
he founded (where did he find the time!), Pasolini made his most
provocative remark about neorealism, criticizing it for "not having
sufficient intellectual strength to transcend the culture which
preceded it." On one level, of many, he uses Accattone to confront
that perceived failing.
Shrewdly, Pasolini focuses his film on the beguiling, and complex,
character of Accattone. It is through this unforgettable pimp that
he both explores the contradictions of the slum world which so
fascinated him (he saw resilience and beauty as well as squalor) and
is able to bring together his vast cultural learning (he was as
prodigiously well-versed in the visual arts and film as in music,
history, philosophy, and literature) to create an
already-distinctive cinematic voice. I'm not saying that this is a
"perfect" film, or even one of his masterpieces (which for me are
The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Arabian Nights, and the most
horrific work of art I know, Salò), but it is an extraordinary
achievement.
Accattone's very name embodies his contradictory nature. (Although
some sources show Accattone's name with only one "t," the title on
the film has it with two.) His birth name is Vittorio ('victory'),
but as he tells Stella, during their budding romance, "there are
thousands of Vittorio's" so he prefers being called Accattone, which
literally means 'beggar' or 'scrounger.' Ironic, yes; but also
poignant, that he is so downtrodden that he takes pride in a
nickname proclaiming his desperation. For comparison, recall how the
young African-American men, alternately victims and victimizers, in
the Hughes brother's astonishing 1993 film, Menace II Society, refer
to themselves with the same racial slur used on them by bigots.
From the first moments of the film, we like Accattone, despite
ourselves. Naturally handsome, Citti brings out the character's
insouciance, passion, and appeal. Then he proceeds to reveal his
dark, volatile side, not to mention the exploitative way he "earns"
his living at the expense of the women who are drawn to him.
Pasolini reveals Accattone's many, sometimes contradictory, faces
throughout the course of the film, from a cocky young buck to a guy
who gets a kick out of drag (at least for a little while) to a man
who smears his face with mud in self-loathing to, well, all of his
many other faces.
Pasolini begins exploring Accattone's, and by extension his
milieu's, contradictions from the very first scene. These young men
know will live poor, nasty, brutish and short lives (as Thomas
Hobbes once put it), but Pasolini begins by playing this for laughs
– a strategy which would tickle them. A guy tells Accattone and
their cronies that if you eat and then swim right away, you'll die.
Accattone scoffs, and a dare is made. Bare-chested, showing off his
muscles and gold chains, Accattone wolfs down a plate of potatoes,
then climbs a bridge, crosses himself saying "Okay, let's satisfy
the masses" – a big crowd is watching – and dives into the river.
[See the frame at the top of this page.] The crowd goes wild, and
Accattone is vindicated, not to mention a rung higher on the social
ladder. Beyond the often funny, not to mention portentous, jokes
about death (Accattone says that at his funeral he wants "everybody
laughing; and if anybody cries, he pays for the drinks"), the scene
also sets up the increasingly important theme of eating (more to the
point, hunger). And it offhandedly reveals another of Accattone's
(some would say few) good points: Rather than just receiving
accepted opinion, even on so trivial a topic as 'potatoes and
diving,' he wants to prove it for himself.
The scene also shows us what Accattone's peers are like. These guys
provide real, albeit low-key, emotional support for each other
(although they'd smack you if you phrased it that way), when they're
not tearing each other down. If backbiting were an Olympic event,
they'd all take home the gold. Near the end of the film, when
Accattone is at last forced to get a job (even if he only lasts one
day), his cohorts mercilessly taunt him with "Hey victim! Hey
pathetic case!," until he throws his shoe at them (!), then tears
into the whole gang. (Pasolini shows us the real-life counterparts
of these men, arguably from a more objective point of view, in Love
Meetings, his 1964 documentary about Italians' sexual attitudes.)
Pasolini often finds the same-sex undercurrents which another
director might miss. With the men in this film, especially Accattone
himself, he shows the frequent and diverse ways they find to touch
each other, whether in congratulations, horseplay, drunkenness or
even rage. One of the film's strangest scenes is the fight between
Acccattone and his brother-in-law, who wants him to get the hell
away from his sister whom he got pregnant and dumped. The two men
lock bodies, rolling all over the ground. But it looks more like
they are clutching each other in embrace than fighting to the death.
Pasolini has a sometimes wicked sense of humor, so in this film
which so often looks at men and maleness, note that the "big caper"
at the end involves stealing a truckload of salamis.
Pasolini also shows us the narrow, but distinct, range of what life
holds for women in the slums. In fact, with the exception of
Accattone, all of the film's most fully-realized and vivid
characters are female. As mentioned in the summary above, there is
Maddalena, who expresses a powerful emotional range in her brief
scenes throughout the film – from her blind devotion to Accattone at
the beginning to her wrath at the end, when from jail she sets the
cops on him – as she had done when she left her previous pimp for
him). Accattone's ex-wife Ascenza (whose voice was dubbed by Monica
Vitti, who a year earlier had starred in Antonioni's landmark film,
L'Avventura), the distraught young mother Nannina (Adele Cambria)
who can barely handle the many young children she's already had (but
who still finds room for Accattone and his new girlfriend to stay in
her one-room flat), the cynical and hilarious streetwalker Amore,
and Stella.
Franca Pasut gives an excellent performance in this pivotal role.
Although Stella could have come off as another sugar-coated,
stupidly-naive innocent, the combination of Pasolini's writing and
direction with her performance brings the character to life. It's
worth noting that although the men in this world hang together, the
women are much more isolated and even competitive, at least when it
comes to claiming or holding onto their guy.
Children run throughout the film both literally (in a barefoot
sense) and figuratively. Although they often come across as
metaphorical – their buoyancy contrasting with the harsh reality
which waits to break them – they are nonetheless effective. One of
the most heartbreaking, and heartfelt, scenes finds Accattone with
Iaio, the young son he had abandoned along with his estranged wife.
The little kid has nothing to play at except throwing stones at a
bottle in a garbage-strewn lot. Accattone bends down and embraces
his boy, but then, almost crying, he whispers "The things I have to
do" as he takes his little gold chain to pay for food (Accattone is
actually starving at this point). As if the scene were not poignant
enough, Pasolini layers it with the haunting strains of Johann
Sebastian Bach, who provides the film's only source of music.
Throughout, Pasolini's use of music and sound is very effective, and
revealing. Bach's music (usually orchestral, sometimes choral)
provides an inspired, unexpected, and at times overwhelming
counterpoint to the drama. And Pasolini never uses it for ironic
effect. Rather, the music's formal yet emotional, and even
spiritual, power offers a vision – albeit an aural one – which
Accattone and his friends can never express, yet which you suspect
they feel. (By contrast, in The Gospel According to Saint Matthew
Pasolini's disjointed compilation score – Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev,
and various folk music – is the one element which does not work for
me.)
At the other extreme, Pasolini also uses silence to devastasting
effect, especially near the end in Accattone's dream. That is one of
the few extended dream sequences I have seen – along with say the
opening of Bergman's Wild Strawberries or Pasolini's wasteland
scenes in Porcile – which perfectly captures the disassociated yet
concrete feel of the unconscious. Pasolini also implies a sly
political commentary, as naked children run around the well-dressed
priests who lead the way to the churchyard. There is also a moment
of genuine pathos, when Accattone tells a lone worker to dig his
grave in the sunlight. The beautiful, lush valley in the distance is
the only vision we have of a world truly outside the engulfing slums
– but Accattone will only be able to enjoy those beauties, even in
his dream, after he is buried.
The destitute Roman locations where Pasolini filmed provide a
naturalistic, and evocative, backdrop to the action, even as it
tacitly reveals much about the people's despairing lives. (Some
people have noted that, historically, the worst of Rome's slums were
about to be cleared away; one wonders whether Pasolini's books and
films might have influenced such social progress.) Beyond simply
photographing the locale, Pasolini draws on his poet's eye for image
and his vast knowledge of art history to create – in a conscious but
unobtrusive way – austere compositions which at times recall early
Renaissance religious painting and sculpture. Pasolini has mentioned
such influences as "Masaccio, perhaps deep down Giotto and
Romanesque sculpture as well.... [Accattone] was religious in the
style rather than the content... I was telling the story in the
first person...."
Pasolini informs some of his images with sacred art in a manner
analogous to how he uses Bach on the soundtrack. It gives a more
layered, even somewhat mythic, perspective on Accattone, in addition
to being beautiful in its own right. [Note again the image at the
top of this review.] On yet another level, the relatively simple,
even flat-appearing, design meshes psychologically with Accattone's
vision of his world and himself. Photographed in a gritty, yet
sometimes lyrical, style in black and white (of course), all of
these elements come together in visually simple yet emotionally
resonant ways.
On a less aesthetically exalted level, with such a severely limited
budget Pasolini's filmmaking is occasionally a bit more gritty than
intended. You can see the shadow of a microphone boom in a couple of
tracking shots, such as the one in which the camera truck dollies
just ahead of Accattone and his ex-wife carrying a baby. It should
also be noted that Pasolini makes judicious but effective use of
camera movement. In an expository early scene, while we are still
getting to know Accattone, he is near a water fountain. The camera
arcs around him and the fountain, and as he walks away the camera
pulls away at a right angle. The effect is straightforward but
dynamic. And although I don't want to press the following (perhaps
overly-imaginative) interpretation, on one level perhaps there is a
connection between Accattone's nature and what the camera is doing;
at first it moves around something, then jerks away in a quick,
disorienting manner.
Even the few major scenes in which Accattone does not appear bear
his distinctive way of seeing the world. One of the film's most
perfectly-realized, and harrowing, scenes – which is even more
astonishing considering Pasolini's novice status behind the camera -
is the brutalization of Maddalena. The cronies of her
ex-pimp/boyfriend – remember she betrayed him to the cops to be with
Accattone – use sweet talk, and the promise of her fee, to get the
limping Maddalena into their car. But when they drive her to a dark,
deserted spot, we know things are about to go from bad to much, much
worse. After one of the guys has his way with her, behind a looming
boulder, they dump her, slapping her, knocking her down –
overwhelming – heartbreaking Bach on the soundtrack expressing the
complex pathos of the moment. Even after all that, Maddalena begs
for them to stay; she hangs onto the car as it pulls out, and is
dragged along, screaming for them not to leave her alone. Utterly
raw, stunning beyond words. (For all of the artistry of Pasolini's
technique and vision, just writing about the scene is painful.)
The one element of the film which falls a bit short for me comes
near the end, when Pasolini incorporates a series of quick extreme
close-ups of someone's eyes. Not only is this visually jarring -
without adding anything to the substance - but he never makes it
clear whose eyes they are. Is it one of the cops tailing Accattone?
One of his friends? Or even a more metaphysical force, like Fate?
God? Also, this film is from Accattone's point of view (whether he
is onscreen or not), so why is some other man's eyes getting so much
prominence? (Pasolini uses a similar series of extreme close-ups in
The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, but there it is effective
because we know the the perspective belongs to one of the apostles,
and his subjective vision meshes with that of the film's vision.)
Let's return to Pasolini's provocative insight that neorealism never
transcended the culture which it depicted. Does Pasolini correct
that limitation in Accattone? Although others will certainly
disagree, I feel that he does. This film is remarkable, in part,
because while he does not judge Accattone (which is not the same as
condoning his base actions), he does judge the world which created
him, and hence gives us a broad perspective in which to view the
benighted pimp.
Pasolini, using both narrative and visual devices, probes deeply
into the assumptions and traps of the Roman slums, and even, by
implication, the broader socioeconomic forces which created them.
Mercifully, the film is not some polemical tirade; it suggests
rather than shouts. It makes its points not because it scorns
Accattone (although some people will certainly want to) but because
it lets us understand him. And because we understand, and see so
many of his different – and sometimes contradictory – faces, we care
about him, for all of his faults. And perhaps Pasolini inspired (or
still inspires) some people to work for social progress, although no
one would ever confuse his writings and films with public service
announcements.
Pasolini even digs into some of the institutions which are so
ingrained in Accattone's world, including the church. We see that it
both nourishes the people, both through religion and sometimes
literally with food. But he also shows how it traps them by
encouraging huge families which they can never really support (Pasolini,
always a staunch critic of unthinking faith, satirizes this
lifestyle in The Hawks and the Sparrows,where the main character,
poor as a bedbug, has eighteen children). Pasolini also shines a
light on the police, who certainly perform an indispensable job. But
sometimes they seem to enjoy the violent aspects of it as much as
Accattone and his cronies. Again, Pasolini never hammers home his
insights. Rather he presents them, with much of their complexity
intact, and lets us decide what we will.
It is also remarkable that one of Italy's most accomplished postwar
literary artists – as poet, novelist, and theoretician – could
create a film which is so intrinsically, and creatively, cinematic.
Perhaps no other member of that rare breed, the
novelist-turned-filmmaker, has ever so decisively shown such mastery
in a first film at using image and sound, instead of just words, to
tell a story, convey such complexity of character, and explore
themes with such – sometimes shocking – depth.
Accattone focuses relentlessly on a specific time and place, yet the
deeper humanity of its vision is universal. There have always been
Accattone's, in all the slums of the world; and, unfortunately, that
won't change until the larger society does. Despite the world of
pain this film reveals, it is ultimately a work of visual and
dramatic beauty. It reminds us that sometimes we can find
affirmation in the sheer expressive gift of art, whether or not we
agree with the artist's view of life.
Pasolini is here just at the beginning of his career as one of the
last century's most astonishing filmmakers. And of course, that was
only one of the many forms he used to express his complex,
revelatory, and sometimes unnerving, genius.