• Mamma Roma is Pasolini’s sophomore effort- and a brilliant companion piece to his 1961 debut Accattone
  • Like Accattone it is an acidically-laced religious (catholic in this case) parable rooted in the foundation of Italian neorealism (poverty/peasants in Italy, post-war ruins, forced into crime/theft). Like Accattone Pasolini eschews one of the so-called tenets of neorealism with the score- here instead of Bach it is Vivaldi.
  • Opens on a wedding, the tableau arrangement like Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper (unmistakable intention given the artist) with Anna Magnani (our titular sacrificial heroine) giving the gift of pigs to her ex-lover and father of her son. Magnani is such a livewire—she’s singing, laughing, just chewing every scene for everything its worth without going too far over the top. She brings volume to the role, presence with her trademark quick-witted dialogue, heavy emotion and the bags under her eyes

Opens on a wedding, the tableau arrangement like Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper (unmistakable intention given the artist)

Anna Magnani is Pasolini’s sacrificial heroine- Magnani is such a livewire—she’s singing, laughing, just chewing every scene for everything its worth without going too far over the top. She brings volume to the role, presence with her trademark quick-witted dialogue, heavy emotion and the bags under her eyes

  • Like Accattone characters speak in scripture as often as they do talk about the narrative at hand—she says “you don’t know what an awful place this world can be” and someone says to her “you’d hang on the cross for him? (her son)” and “did you see the devil or what?”
  • A magnificent formal/stylistic achievement at the 23 minute mark- a long tracking shot—the camera is peddling backwards as Magnani walks at night (the streetlights in the background). It is a five minute shot- going to the 28 minute mark. She’s walking the entire time and other characters come in for 30 seconds here and there and talk to her. She’s leaving the past behind here- making a new start

A magnificent formal/stylistic achievement at the 23 minute mark- a long tracking shot—the camera is peddling backwards as Magnani walks at night (the streetlights in the background)

  • Exactly one hour later, Pasolini repeats the shot— instead of leaving the profession (prostitution) she’s going back to it- defeated, her demeanor has changed. “if they had money they would have been fine people” “whose fault is this?” and “you’re the king of kings?”—religious and political. This twin shots not only make for great connective tissue in the film- but it could be shot the same long road spot as where Franco Citti (here as Magnani’s ex) stalks his women in Accattone except that was during the day and here it is night- auteur cinema

a five minute shot that is not only repeated in the film —with an entirely different meaning–tragic– but it makes for a companion piece to the shot of Citti hawking his two women in Accattone

  • The shot/reverse-shot with characters talking directly to the camera, clearly shot separately, is a little distractingly bad at times – obviously this can be done effectively (Demme- Barry Jenkins) but it isn’t here, there’s also a few truncated slow-motion attempts that don’t quite work
  • Like Bunuel, Kurosawa- nihilistic- the world is an awful place, incredibly bleak– as soon as she’s on the ascent and things are going well and her son has a good job- you know the shoe is about to drop and sure enough Citti shows up
  • The last five minutes are sublime- her son has a fever that last three days (the same amount of days Accattone lived after being resurrected in Pasolini’s debut), he steals, “divine comedy” is in the text and her son is in jail looking up through the window in the ceiling at the heavens strapped down like Christ on the cross

The last five minutes are sublime- her son has a fever that last three days (the same amount of days Accattone lived after being resurrected in Pasolini’s debut),

formal repetition- the wide shot here at the end that looks like the wedding last supper shot

he steals, “divine comedy” is in the text and her son is in jail looking up through the window in the ceiling at the heavens strapped down like Christ on the cross

  • Highly Recommend/Must-See border