Accattone

Accattone (lit. "vagabond", "scrounger") is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was Pasolini's first film as a director and premiered at the Venice Film Festival. In 2008, the film was included on the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage’s 100 Italian films to be saved, a list of 100 films that "have changed the collective memory of the country between 1942 and 1978."
Plot
Vittorio, nicknamed "Accattone", leads a mostly serene life as a pimp in the outskirts of Rome until his prostitute, Maddalena, is hurt by a rivaling gang and sent to prison for false testimony. Finding himself without either a steady income or much inclination for working himself, he first tries to reconcile with the estranged mother of his child, but is driven away by her relatives. He meets simple working girl Stella and tries to lure her into prostituting herself for him. She is willing to try, but when her first client begins pawing her she cries and is thrown out of his car. Accattone tries to support them both as an iron worker, but gives up after one day. Following a dream of his own death, he goes stealing with a couple of friends and gets killed in a traffic accident when he tries to evade the police on a stolen motorcycle.
Cast
Franco Citti as Vittorio "Accattone" Cataldi
Franca Pasut as Stella
Silvana Corsini as Maddalena
Paola Guidi as Ascenza
Adriana Asti as Amore
Luciano Conti as Il Moicano
Luciano Gonini as Piede D'Oro
Renato Capogna as Renato
Alfredo Leggi as Papo Hirmedo
Galeazzo Riccardi as Cipolla
Leonardo Muraglia as Mammoletto
Giuseppe Ristagno as Peppe
Roberto Giovannoni as The German
Mario Cipriani as Balilla
Roberto Scaringella as Cartagine
Silvio Citti as Sabino
Monica Vitti (uncredited) as Ascenza (voice)
Production
The film was initially supposed to be produced by Federiz, a short-lived production company founded by Federico Fellini and Angelo Rizzoli. Test shoots were arranged to assess Pasolini's work as a debuting director, but the test was flunked by Rizzoli's main collaborator Clemente Fracassi and the project was dismissed. Tonino Cervi was also interested, but failed to convince Carlo Ponti to produce the film. Thanks to the efforts of Mauro Bolognini, who had previously collaborated with Pasolini and had been impressed by the film script, the project was eventually taken over by Alfredo Bini, who had just produced Bolognini's box office hit Il bell'Antonio, and who eventually involved Cino Del Duca in the film's funding.
The first choice for the title's role was Franco Interlenghi.
Reception and legacy
Critic Gino Moliterno, writing for Senses of Cinema magazine, described Accatone and its successor Mamma Roma as cinematic renditions of the world of the "borgate" (Roman shanty towns) of Pasolini's novels Ragazzi di vita (The Ragazzi or The Street Kids, 1955) and Una vita violenta (A Violent Life, 1959). Nick Barbaro of The Austin Chronicle titled it the possibly grimmest film he had ever seen.
Awards
Franco Citti was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor in 1963 for his performance.
References
External links
1961 films
Films directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
1961 drama films
Italian black-and-white films
1960s Italian-language films
Films set in Rome
1961 directorial debut films
Italian drama films
1960s Italian films