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Introducing Accattone

2023; Wayne State University Press; Volume: 64; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/frm.2023.a914981

1559-7989

Jane Mills,

Italian Literature and Culture

Introducing Accattone Jane Mills (bio) . . . go on, go on, Tonino,use the fifty, don't worryabout the light bursting through—we're doingthis tracking shot against nature! —Pier Paolo Pasolini, from "Poem in the Shape of a Rose"1 Introduction Ignoring widespread cinematic convention, Pier Paolo Pasolini's first film begins not with an establishing shot but with an epigraph that presages death from Dante's Divina Commedia/The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321): God's angel took me, and he from Hell cried: "Oh you from Heaven, why do you rob me? You are carrying off with you this man's eternal part for a little tear that takes him from me."2 The first live-action shot also dispenses with an establishing shot: next to a bunch of flowers, a man, almost toothless, grins at us, a character who isn't even the main protagonist. Death and non-professional actors with bad teeth will figure in many of Pasolini's films. They're not—or not only—part of the films' stories but a part of his style, that is, how he tells his film stories. It's a style that was often mistaken for a lack of filmmaking skill—most famously by Federico Fellini, on whose film, Le notti di Cabiria/Nights of Cabiria (IT/FR, [End Page 25] 1957), Pasolini had collaborated on the Roman dialect. Fellini initially agreed to finance Accattone (IT, 1961) but, upon seeing some early rushes, withdrew his offer. It's a criticism that has never totally subsided: a highly esteemed film writer turned down the invitation to introduce one of Pasolini's films for this dossier because they considered it so badly made. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. 1961 Italian film poster by Vecchioni & Guadagno. However, Pasolini's assistant director on Accattone, Bernardo Bertolucci (also a first-timer), was in awe of how Pasolini crafted the film, later commenting: "Pasolini found himself inventing cinema with the fury and spontaneity of a person who experiments with a new means of expression and cannot but [End Page 26] master it entirely, erase its history, give it a new beginning, drink its essence like in a ritual." For Bertolucci, the tracking shot Pasolini writes about in his poem quoted at the start of this introduction was "the first tracking shot of film history."3 Because audiences often find Pasolini's films puzzling—not only for what they show and tell but also for the ways in which they do it—in this introduction, I'll share my thoughts on how one might look at this film. But first, the story: I always think it's a good idea to get this out of the way to focus on how the story is told. Narrative Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 2. Vittorio Cataldi, nicknamed "Accattone" (Franco Citti). "Accattone," the nickname of Vittorio Cataldi (Franco Citti), is variously translated as "scrounger," "pimp," "beggar," or "vagabond." The slang term implies "a street urchin, a bum, a down-and-out . . . a ne'er do well . . . a petty criminal . . . a dropout, someone more marginal than shiftless, one who perhaps traffics in stolen goods: not quite a thug."4 Accattone is all these. He's also a faithless husband, an appalling father, a failed pimp, a failed thief, an untrustworthy friend, and unlucky in love. In short, he's a loser. But none of these shortcomings capture his charm, energy, cunning inventiveness, and the vigor of his Romanesco dialect (partly written by Citti's older brother, Sergio Citti, Pasolini's go-to dialogist). Nor his existential despair. Whether he's ultimately victorious and redeemed, as we might infer from his real name and the Dante quotation, or a [End Page 27] loser is something Pasolini asks us to think about. We follow the story of this young man, living—and partly living by his wits and the meager income of his prostitute, Maddalena (Silvana Corsini)—in the borgate (slums) on the outskirts of Rome. His is an economically, socially, culturally, and geographically marginalized existence at a time when postwar Italy was shakily moving toward an economic boom. As Patrick Rumble comments...