Accattone

1968 "The Poor Man's "Dolce Vita""
7.6| 1h57m| NR| en
Details

A pimp with no other means to provide for himself finds his life spiralling out of control when his prostitute is sent to prison.

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Cino del Duca

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Also starring Franca Pasut

Also starring Silvana Corsini

Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.
StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.
Scarlet The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
evening1 Here is a devastating portrayal of a masterful manipulator.Accatone is offended by the idea of work and thinks only "animals" should do labor. So he lives off the prostitution of Maddalena until she gets herself arrested, perhaps in an unconscious bid to escape him.We watch with amazement and contempt as the increasingly hungry Accatone tries to reconcile with Ascenza, who walks with baby in arms. "Believing you was the biggest mistake of my life!" she snarls. Accatone's plying mewling inflames Ascenza's father, who lunges for a knife to finally still him. (To its credit, this highly psychological film, whose cluster of macho bit players is so reminiscent of that in "The Godfather," includes not even one murder.) Accatone, played mesmerizingly by Franco Citti, has left a trail of neglected children across the barren, sun-bleached terrain of a Roman slum. He begrudges one who is playing in the dirt for not acknowledging him -- even as he lifts a chain from the toddler's neck. A man's gotta eat...Out of desperation, Accatone approaches the non-prostitute Stella (Franca Pasut), seemingly the only one in town who doesn't know his reputation. We watch him transform from wishing to feed off, and then be the one who feeds, this compelling woman. It's a very hard life and Accatone doesn't have it in him to continue for long, so it's his suicidal depression that liberates him in the end.I found the film's abrupt ending a little too facile and wished for a more profound conclusion. Yet maybe part of the message here is that life is harsh and then it stops -- no dress rehearsal, no warning. "Accatone" was my introduction to the work of Pasolini and I'm definitely eager to see more.
tomgillespie2002 The term 'accattone' is an old Italian phrase intended to brand a character with an aura of absolute repulsiveness. Thieves and low-lives would usually coin the term when referring to a character that is so despicable, so without moral or social decency, that even the criminals would look down upon them. In Pier Paolo Pasolini's incredibly assured debut, 'Accattone' is Vittorio (Franco Citti), a low-life pimp who when he is not sitting around squeezing money out of people with wagers and tricks, is abusing his lone prostitute who cannot work after breaking her leg in a motorcycle accident. It's a tale of a despicable scumbag, set during a dark period in Rome, where men viewed working as slave labour, and enjoyed themselves by beating prostitutes to within an inch of their life.It's an incredibly bleak tale, told without sentiment and moral preaching. Pasolini's doesn't seem to want to dictate a larger social message, or make Accattone a sympathetic character who is the victim of political or social oppression, but to simply tell a tale, a real tale, of a group of low-lives who are the way they are because they want to be. After all, the true soul of neo-realism is to portray life the way actual people experience it, not to romanticise or sentimentalise it with the kind of scripts Hollywood are responsible for. Of course, many neo-realist directors would almost betray the genres roots the kind of way only auteurs can manage, and Pasolini would go on to make more surrealistic and interpretive movies, but this is true neo-realism without any kind of magical reward for the audience, or a moment of redemptive enlightenment for its protagonist. It's a story of grit, one that is thrilling and fascinating in equal measures, and with the stamp of a great director.The film I felt it more akin to is Luis Bunuel's Los Olvidados (1950), a film of equal disregard for cinematic wonder, and one that is also punctured by an impressive dream sequence. Whilst Bunuel's sequence came around the middle section, and was a burst of absolute surrealistic beauty amongst social depravity, Accattone's comes during its climax; a strange, moody set-piece in which Accattone witnesses his own funeral, amongst other things. At first I felt like it was almost betraying what came before, but then I realised it was Pasolini's way to try and get into its characters head, and the outcome is as confusing and as futile as Accattone himself. Though I haven't seen much of Pasolini's work, this is the best I've seen, beating even the distressing brilliance of his final film Salo (1975). Though he would move away from neo-realism, Pasolini achieves more with his debut than some of the greats of the genre would manage to achieve.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com
Sean Reilly This just might be the greatest movie I've ever seen. There are two key elements here: the first is Pasolini's genius. Martin Scorcese, or however his name is spelt, is, was, and always will be the poor mans poor mans poor mans Pasolini. Pasolini's subtleness, his understanding of human nature... where does one stop? The second incredible element is that Citti is LANGUID CHARISMA personified. I used to think Jimmy Coburn was the king of such effortless charisma, but I've never seen a performance like this in my life. And I believe the cast were all pretty much amateurs also.Bach's genius is used hauntingly, in many ways this provides a link to his movie on Our Lord. This is just too beautiful a movie experience for words. I joined IMDb today solely to comment on what I consider to the worst movie I ever saw, two nights ago, called 'love actually'. Well, Accattone is probably the best.
cogs Accattone is a relentless study of the suffering that accompanies poverty. Pasolini utilises the well worn techniques of the Italian neo-realist moment to represent the depressing and oppressive life of a pimp - Accattone (played by the astonishing Franco Citti) - in the slums of post-war Rome. His life is beleaguered by guilt and self-disgust; his occupation, which is ostensibly the exploitation of women, causes the titular character untold despair. Ultimately he is unable to rationalise his need to eat with the suffering he causes to the women who work for him; they are, after all, also his lovers. Yet, Pasolini is careful to maintain the humanity of his protagonist by representing his hopeless situation as equally a result of his own doings as that of the social environment. Pasolini's Accattone is a masterful debut which expertly calls into service the devices of the cinema to convey a depressing but also compassionate narrative. His style is equal parts poetry and melodrama; a tough combo for any director. Some moments of this film are as tragically lyrical as those to be found in a film by Robert Bresson or Roberto Rossellini. Accattone is a commendable combination of style and substance which will leave few viewers unaffected.