Pasolini’s Rome
Dec 2, 2008Ian Thomson has written a fascinating piece on Pier Paolo Pasolini for the Times Online, on the occasion of the publication of two books on the Italian filmmaker-writer-poet...
Synopsis
Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy, and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Though banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity, today Mamma Roma remains a classic, featuring a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses and offering a glimpse at a country’s most controversial director in the process of finding his style.
Cast
| Mamma Roma | Anna Magnani |
| Ettore | Ettore Garofolo |
| Carmine | Franco Citti |
| Bruna | Silvana Corsini |
| Biancofiore | Luisa Loiano |
| The priest | Paolo Volponi |
| Zacaria | Luciano Gonini |
| Il signore Pellissier | Vittorio La Paglia |
| Piero | Piero Morgia |
| Carletto | Franco Ceccarelli |
| Tonino | Marcello Sorrentino |
| Pasquale | Sandro Meschino |
| Augusto | Franco Tovo |
| Lino | Pasquale Ferrarese |
| Begalo | Leandro Santarelli |
| Gennarino, the worker | Emanuele Di Bari |
| Un pompieretto | Antonio Spoletini |
| Un pittoretto | Nino Bionci |
| A client | Nino Venzi |
| The bride | Maria Bernardini |
| The bride's father | Santino Citti |
| A patient | Renato Montalbano |
Credits
| Director | Pier Paolo Pasolini |
| Screenplay | Pier Paolo Pasolini |
| Producer | Alfredo Bini |
| Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
| Editing | Nino Baragli |
| Art director | Flavio Mogherini |
| Music coordinator | Carlo Rustichelli |
Disc Features
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
- New high-definition digital transfer, with restored image and sound, enhanced for widescreen televisions
- Three new interviews about director Pier Paolo Pasolini, featuring Bernardo Bertolucci, an assistant director to Pasolini on Accattone; Tonino Delli Colli, cinematographer on eleven of Pasolini’s fourteen films; and Enzo Siciliano, author of Pasolini: A Biography
- Pier Paolo Pasolini (1995), a 58-minute documentary by filmmaker Ivo Barnabò Micheli covering the career of the controversial artist
- La ricotta (1963), a 35-minute film by Pasolini starring Orson Welles as a director who sets out to make a film about the Passion of Jesus
- Original theatrical trailer
- Poster gallery
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
- Plus: A 32-page booklet featuring excerpted interviews with Pasolini on Mamma Roma and La ricotta, and essays by novelist and culture critic Gary Indiana and Pasolini biographer Enzo Siciliano
From the Current
Pasolini, Mamma Roma, and La Ricotta
by Jun 21, 2004Indefatigably productive, ingenious, exasperating, narcissistically didactic, slyly self-promoting, abject, generous, exploitative, devoted to the wretched of the earth with honest fervor and deluded romanticism: Pier Paolo Pasolini can easily exhaust the adjective-prone, as man and artist, his...
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