Accattone

Poet and painter turned filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini courted controversy with his very first feature by using Catholic iconography and liturgical music to render a plaintive, brutally beautiful portrait of a shiftless Roman pimp and thief (then-nonprofessional Franco Citti, in a revelatory performance) whose life of petty crime turns increasingly desperate when the woman who supports him is imprisoned. Melding a hardscrabble neorealist milieu with classical influences, Pasolini offers a vision of underclass struggle as a kind of modern sainthood.

Film Info

  • Italy
  • 1961
  • 117 minutes
  • Black & White
  • 1.37:1
  • Italian

Available In

Collector's Set

Pasolini 101

Pasolini 101

Blu-ray Box Set

9 Discs

$199.96

Accattone
Cast
Franco Citti
Vittorio Cataldi, a.k.a. Accattone
Franca Pasut
Stella
Silvana Corsini
Maddalena
Paola Guidi
Ascenza
Adriana Asti
Amore
Mario Cipriani
Balilla
Roberto Scaringella
Cartagine
Silvio Citti
Sabino
Polidor
The undertaker
Elsa Morante
The prisoner
Credits
Director
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written by
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Dialogues cowritten by
Sergio Citti
Produced by
Alfredo Bini
Produced by
Cino Del Duca
Produced by
Tonino Delli Colli
Edited by
Nino Baragli
Production design
Flavio Mogherini
Set decoration
Gino Lazzari
Sound
Luigi Puri

Current

The Elegiac Heart: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Filmmaker
The Elegiac Heart: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Filmmaker

With a divided self that reflected the fissures in his country in the wake of World War II, the most courageous and dangerous Italian artist of his generation transcended dogma and resisted affiliations.

By James Quandt