As Good As It Gets

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Pasolini's first film "Accatone" is exactly as one would expect a typical Pasolini film to be: wreathed in raw violence, and shot with a brilliant sense of poetic slash brutal realism, reminiscent of the neo-realism era, and perhaps, if not for sure, a semi-autobiographical portrait of life in the streets of Rome's peripheries. "Accatone" is, at its best, a chunk of life, which Pasolini managed to extract not as it initially was, but dramatically filtered through his own personal lyrical gaze. Gangs, prostitutes, lies and deceit lie in this film's core. A sense of irresponsible opportunism is seen in this film, almost no regrets for the past and no fears for the future. In fact, the movie's tragic hero, Vittorio Accatone, is a dark alter-ego of yet another favored Italian movie character, embodied only a year before by Marcello Mastroianni in "La Dolce Vita". Perhaps, in this case, Accatone was not a party animal journalist who sought ephemeral pleasure in social middle-class gatherings and women, but the spirit is, by itself, maintained astonishingly faithfully: Accatone is no longer a protagonist in Pasolini's movie, doomed to descend lower and lower in social class, losing both his dignity, his social acceptability and his profound "style", but a symbol, a metaphor for Pasolini's own political beliefs. Under this figure of a brute, behind the otherwise repelling image of a short dirty man with a sly smile and a peculiar walk, lies the failure of post war Italian government, a government which, according to this movie's subtext, strove so hopelessly to attain social and economical success for Rome's population, and somehow neglected or marginalized Rome's peripheries, causing people like Accatone and his girlfriends to result in prostitution and theft. A kind of pretension and make-belief well being which was also visible, at the time, in America. Yes, Accatone is the result of this American Dream's pastische.

In the poor periphery of Rome of the 60's, the despicable caftan Vittorio "Accattone" Cataldi (Franco Citti) is maintained by the hooker Maddalena (Silvana Corsini), spending the time with his useless idle friends. When the prostitute is arrested for perjury, the pimp "Accattone" has nobody to support him, but he seduces the naive worker Stella (Franca Pasut) and she becomes a whore. However, Accattone has a crush on Stella and decides to find a way to support her, with tragic consequences."Accattone" is the stunning debut of the great director Pier Paolo Pasolini. He returns to the theme of the misery of Italy in the postwar, explored in many Italian neo-realist movies such as Fellini's "Le Notti di Cabiria" (1957) and Visconti's "Rocco e i Suoi Fratelli" (1960), and magnificently shows the lifestyle of great part of the population in Italy, its lower class, with lack of perspective, starvation, prostitution and unemployment. Considering that this movie is also the debut or the beginning of the career of most actors and actresses, it is amazing how Pasolini was able to make such gem. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Accattoni – Desajuste Social" ("Accattoni – Social Maladjustment")

don't be a fool, this movie is not about pimps! It is about the periphery of Rome during the post-war years and the better life that capitalism created for the masses yet fundamentally forgot about these denizens of the borgate. If you like contradictions, dichotomies and are a film of uber-neo-realism, read this film. The protagonist, Accattone, is yes a pimp, but he is a pimp because that is how he is rendered through society. Pasolini gives a weird sort of dignity to the slummy atmosphere and seedy characters that reside in it. Christological imagery is prevalent!!! If you are mildly cognizant of Renaissance and Baroque art, you will see what I am talking about.

Accatone is an interesting film because Pasolini exposes to his audience a particular lifestyle and social class which would not be accurately touched on in an American picture. If Hollywood had ever discussed Accatone's subject matter they would display it with all its stereotypical adornments and falsities which most US moviegoers are accustomed to. Pasolini is not afraid to present the grittier side of the subproletariat as is epitomized in the film's main character, Accatone, who struggles with his profession of pimping and becoming more sensitive to his women and to the world. Pasolini's debut is delicately permeated with political concepts and allegories, yet we can see that he is experimenting newly with the technique of film and developing a filmic narrative structure; more of his full-fledged sociopolitical allegories would be pursued in films like The Gospel and Hawks and Sparrows. The film stars Franco Citti who at the time of making of the film was a nonprofessional. However his performance is substantial considering him being a novice and having his voice overdubbed by another actor. Citti would soon become a Pasolini regular, starring in Oedipus Rex, Arabian Nights, and other supporting roles. However, as the film progresses the attention is centered on the female lead, who plays the naive soon-to-be callous farm worker who is duped by Accatone into prostitution. Before Pasolini ventured into the cinema he had a knack for writing. In his first two novels Pasolini had utilized the language of his mother's homeland, Friuli, for colloquial discourse amongst his characters who lived in subproletariat communities. It is not surprising that the subject of these novels would be the focal point of Accatone. In addition I believe Pasolini had rendered his ideas (from his literature) appropriately for his film, yet not becoming to carried away with fidelity and technical aspects which are profuse in films today. To this day there are apparently no film directors as consciously aware of his country and government as Pasolini was and that would transcend these beliefs into his art with controversy yet at the same time subtlety.