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.

Director

Producted By

Cino del Duca

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Trailers & Clips

Also starring Franca Pasut

Also starring Silvana Corsini

Reviews

Lovesusti The Worst Film Ever
Teddie Blake The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.
Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
JoeKulik Pasollini's Accattone (1961) is a film that clearly shows the writer/director was not only uninformed, but even naive about the social situation to which his film related. This film is so detached from the slum life of the big city, and the realities of the life of pimps and prostitutes that it could better be called an example of Un-Realism, than Neo-Realism.This filmmaker couldn't even stage a good street fight, just showing two guys rolling around in the street locked in bear hugs.The protagonist's first prostitute is portrayed getting a broken leg, and is soon shown thereafter walking around with a cast on the leg, yet with no limp, or crutches. Sorry, but having a broken leg doesn't work that way.This first prostitute is shown getting badly beaten, yet then is shown in the police station without a bruise on her. Now that Neo-Un-Realism, if I ever saw it.That the protagonist is shown almost starving after his only hooker is jailed is just STUPID. Pimps are street savvy guys who have more than one girl in their stable, and are street smart enough to make money in a variety of ways besides pimping.I could go on and on, but what's the point? The costumes, the characters, and dialogue is nothing close to appropriate for the social situation that this film is supposedly portraying. This filmmaker obviously never entered the slums of a big city, and never met real pimps and prostitutes. He was making a supposedly realistic account of a social scene of which he was obviously ignorant.This is the first Pasollini film that I've viewed, and it's his first film that he made. But solely on the basis of viewing his first film, I really don't think that this guy showed enough here to merit a second chance.
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.
MisterWhiplash Accattone announces a director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, who is a haunting/haunted poet from his surroundings and realist, someone who wants to put his eye on the world without flinching on the details of how 'ordinary' (of the street) people speak and interact, how raw and uninhibited they can be, these being the guys on the streets who are vulgar and coarse at best and at worst are abusers of women. But at the same time what one comes away with is poetry in documentary form - it's another level of neo-realism, a little more like an urban story than a post-war treatise that still throbs with the importance of those in poverty. Anytime I hear the song Matthaus Passion I'll immediately contemplate those harsh images of Vittorio Accattone, being cast aside by his family for being a pimp, or that poor girl being beaten at night by that gang of men, which is something that elevates such hard scenes into art.Vittorio Accattone is the main character- charming and attractive, and also a perpetual scoundrel who also is a total outcast. He has a wife and kid(s), but is estranged from them by choice - her choice most likely - and he finds himself in big trouble once his main prostitute, Maddalena, is sent to prison for a bad informing job. It's after this we see Accatone on his potential path to redemption when he meets a supremely sweet and average girl from out of town, Stella, who he may eye as a new girl on the street... or perhaps not, as his attachment to her grows more and stronger, in spite of what and who are around him every day and night in the dirty province.He's someone we want to root for in being a better person, or, perhaps even, better at what he does. He's a tragic anti-hero in a New-Wave sort of sense, cool looking and aspiring to be modern and cool (and maybe he is, up to a point), but also poor and uneducated, so much so that being on the fringe and being called "PIMP!" is what he's been reduced to by default. The performance from Franco Citti is one thing that keeps the viewer locked in: he's so good here because he looks plucked right off the street by Pasolini, as would turn to be his method with choosing most of his 'actors' on camera. There's a reality to his interactions with his friends (so called) or his business associates. Some of their dialog and tones of speech aren't refined or look trained. At one point when Citti's Vittorio breaks down in tears- a sudden turn from a previous scene showing more attitude- is authentic, even as another actor could have possibly played it "better".It is what Pasolini wants, and he gets it, much in the same way he also gets a view of this side of Rome in a way that hasn't been seen before up until this time. His DP Tonino Delli Colli shoots simply often, and sometimes not so much - there's complexity, say, to a tracking shot in front of Accatone talking to a girl who is on a bicycle, or when we see the horrorshow of the men taking Maddalena at night in the middle of nowhere, the only lights starkly coming from the car. The effect is nothing short of a slow-burn. While a few of the actors do fall a bit too flat, and some scenes come close to lagging around (the editing might be the most significant flaw here), the raw emotion and fire in the subject matter keeps things fascinating. You want to see what happens with this young guy, and it's his tragedy that gets us absorbed, even as the Bach music abstracts the sorrow, and agonizing poetry of the streets, and it's this that makes it a classic.Only downside I must mention - if you live in the US, or happen to watch it on a DVD or online from Walter Bearer films, the print is just not very good. It's the sort where the white subtitles drop in and out of view depending on who's standing where in a frame. It's not totally detrimental, but some scenes become hard to follow due to the poor quality of the subtitles with the print. This, if for no other reason, demands the film receive the Criteron treatment.
candide777 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.