Taglines: The Poor Man’s “Dolce Vita”.
Accattone movie storyline. In a seedy section of Rome, Vittorio Cataldi – “Accattone” (“beggar” in Italian) to those that know him – lives off the avails of prostitution, Maddalena being his one and only girl. He is married to Ascenza with who he has one young son named Iaio, but he does not live with them – they who live with her father and brother – provide for them, or play any important part of their lives.
He generally hangs out with his similarly slack life friends playing cards and drinking. His source of income is threatened when Maddalena is injured being hit by a motorcyclist, then beaten by rivals of his, which leads to her being arrested and jailed for a year. Largely because of Iaio, Accattone contemplates going straight and getting a real job.
Then he meets Stella, a young innocent woman who has had a hard life, but who is not as naive to the ways of the world as she first appears. Accattone falls in love with her, but as the thought of working a steady job now becomes abhorrent, contemplates pimping for Stella. As Accattone and Stella’s relationship progresses, Accattone’s past may come back to haunt him.
Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, Accattone is often perceived as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini’s earlier novels, particularly The Ragazzi and Violent Life. It was Pasolini’s first film as director, employing what would later be seen as trademark Pasolini characteristics; a cast of non-professional actors hailing from where the movie is set, and thematic emphasis on impoverished individuals.
While many people were surprised by Pasolini’s shift from literature to film, he had considered attending the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome before World War II. Pasolini had collaborated with Federico Fellini on Le notti di Cabiria and considered cinema to be writing with reality. The word accattone [akkatˈto:ne] is an informal term meaning “vagabond” or “scrounger”.
Accattone is a story of pimps, prostitutes and thieves, types also represented in his novels. The life of the working (and not-working) poor is depicted, in contrast to Italy’s postwar economic reforms. Pasolini’s choice of topics was scandalous at the time, as was his blurring of the lines between the sacred and the profane. Although Pasolini tried to distance himself from neorealism, the film is considered to be a kind of second-generation neorealism, with one critic believing it “may be the grimmest movie” he’d ever seen.
Accattone (1961)
Directed by: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Starring: Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini, Paola Guidi, Adriana Asti, Luciano Conti, Luciano Gonini, Renato Capogna, Alfredo Leggi, Leonardo Muraglia, Giuseppe Ristagno
Screenplay by: Sergio Citti, Pier Paolo Pasolini
Production Design by: Flavio Mogherini
Cinematography by: Tonino Delli Colli
Film Editing by: Nino Baragli
Set Decoration by: Gino Lazzari
Makeup Department: Cesare Biseo
Music by: Johann Sebastian Bach
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Brandon Films
Release Date: August 31, 1961 (Venice Film Festival), November 1961 (Italy)
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