darnthatdream Basically everyone is so desperate, brutal and cynical in this film. Felt like biteing the bullet.

hasosch "Accattone" was Pasolini's first film. Besides his huge engagement for the under-privileged, we have already here practically all motives that go like a "fil rouge" through Pasolini's whole work: The use of dialects and generally linguistic substandard instead of the literary language, the decision for the suburbs instead of the city, the atheist world in concurrence with a very often negative Catholic substrate, the mavericks who live at the edges of society in comparison to a bourgeoisie that turns out to be fascist in Pasolini's Marxist interpretation, and possibly also Pasolini's imperturbable belief in educating the uneducated, the illiterate, the so-called scum of society. (It is a more than tragic fact that while Pasolini in his real life even went so far as to have lectures in the slums in the front of an audience that could not understand him, he finally got a victim from exactly the same people who did accept him as he accepted them."Accattone" is the story about a wasted, senseless and hopeless life. The title-hero leaves his wife and children in order to become a pimp. With his colleagues he spends his days drinking, gambling, betting. He does not mind to send back to street-walking his severely hurt prime-whore "Maddalena". In the night he dreams that he is dead and forbidden to attend his own funeral. On the other side, he squeals on his friends for a plate of pasta. For a short time there is light in Accatone's dark life: He meets Stella, the "star", and spoils her with gifts that he pays from the money of items robbed from his own son. However - and here we have a "prodromus"-motive from "Mamma Roma" - Accattone learns that Stella, too, was a whore once. So he forces her to street-walking, too. But he forgot Maddalena while she had not forgotten what he had done to her. When she hears from Accattones new luck, she gives the police a tip. Now they can observe him and his gang during a major robbery. Before they catch him, he tries to flee, but dies by driving with full-speed into a truck. While he lies dying at a curb of the street, one of his colleagues makes the cross-sign with handcuffed arms. Accattonne - the "Anti-Christ" or better "Counter-Christ" in the word's most original sense. Pasolini himself wrote: "I wish that only very few people will see in the crossing at the end a sign of hope".

dbdumonteil First movie by PPP,it displays the influence of Neo-realism with its depictions of rooms where adults and brats cram into,its pimps and its hookers,its gangs roaming on wasteland.The hero is a loser whose fate is sealed as soon as his "protégée" is jailed .His longing for purity is very intense,in spite of his "mean" job ,and the meeting with Stella (=star)which apparently should lead him to redemption actually causes his downfall:hence the intriguing scene of the burial (a premonitory dream?or day dream?),the only supernatural sequence in the whole movie :this scenes show Luis Bunuel's influence in the cemetery where the doors are locked and the undertaker digging a hole in the black earth.Working behind the scenes ,the hypocrite bourgeoisie exploits the poverty of the people ."Teorema" in 1968 can be seen as Pasolini's revenge."Accatone" can be looked upon,with hindsight,as a (good) blueprint for "Mamma Roma" ,the young hero of which almost dies like a crucified Christ.But ,chiefly "Mamma Roma" features La Magnani,whose talent combined with that,burgeoning,of the director,produced a masterpiece.

crlsimon Just to start with, Accattone was not filmed in Naples but in Rome. Someone might have brought to that understanding by some Neapolitans gangsters that appear at some point in the movie As for the "ruins" that scatter the landscape, they are mostly buildings that will soon replace the barracks such as the one in which Accattone lives, or the Acquedotto Felice, an ancient Roman aqueduct that runs close to Prenestina and Casilina, two Roman suburbs, that you can see in Mamma Roma as well. Franco Citti, the character of Accattone, perfectly embodies the roman lumpenproletariat of the time: idle, fatalistic and desperate. Pasolini met Franco's brother Sergio, a plasterer, hanging around Cinecittà in 1951. He introduced him to his brother Franco that became Pasolini's dialectical adviser for Accattone, Mamma Roma and his book "Ragazzi di vita"; his "living vocabulary" as he called him. Indeed, Pasolini interests for dialects and slangs (Roman is not really a dialect anymore but a slang) was not disappointed. The dialogues between the characters are full of fantasy: rude and in some way reminiscent of their peasant past. A must see if you're interested in Neorealism and in the "ways of the underworld lumpenproletariat". Someone connected this movie with Bunuel's "Los Olvidados". I definitely agree.