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Accattone



The debut feature of Italian filmmaker-novelist-poet-provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salò, or: The 120 Days of Sodom; The Gospel According to Matthew; The Decameron), Accattone rocked the cinema world with its depictions, at once raw and elegant, of the underside of Roman street life – and, in the process, seemed to announce a new direction for Italian films: a neo-neorealism.

On the mean streets of Rome, Accattone's eponymous pimp (played by Franco Citti, one of a remarkable cast of local non-professionals) leads a hand-to-mouth existence on the very margins of society: prostituting, scrounging, exploiting. When his prize prostitute Maddalena is arrested and jailed, the pimp’s fortunes dwindle, and he is forced to confront his own existence.

The work of one of Italy’s foremost auteurs, Accattone combines a fascination with poverty, sexual mores, and the entrapments of society, with a sense of humanity and sanctity rarely seen in cinema. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pasolini’s debut alongside his feature-length 1965 documentary Comizi d’amore [Love Meetings] in a special Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD edition.

DUAL FORMAT RELEASE INCLUDING BLU-RAY AND DVD VERSIONS OF BOTH FILMS

• New high-definition transfer of Accattone in the film’s original aspect ratio
• Pasolini’s 1965 feature-length documentary Comizi d’amore [Love Meetings], on the complementary theme of Italian attitudes towards sex, presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1
• Original Italian theatrical trailers for both films
• Feature-length audio commentary on Accattone by critic Tony Rayns
• Newly translated optional English subtitles for both films
• 36-page booklet featuring a translation of Pasolini’s 1958 poem “To a Pope”; excerpts from a 1969 interview with Pasolini on Accattone and Comizi d’amore by Oswald Stack; a 1975 essay on the film by Pasolini; Pasolini’s original 1964 treatment for Comizi d’amore; and rare archival imagery

Oh my god I'm so ordering it as soon as possible! One of my favorite films from one of my favorite directors!

"Ancora non sei morto? Eppure m'hanno detto che il lavoro ammazza la gente!"

Wonderful! So with Accattone including Love Meetings and Ro.Go.Pa.G. being released separately, that means that first Tartan Pasolini boxset is now available again plus has been upgraded to Blu!

colinr0380 wrote:Wonderful! So with Accattone including Love Meetings and Ro.Go.Pa.G. being released separately, that means that first Tartan Pasolini boxset is not available again plus has been upgraded to Blu!

Not quite - that box also included Pasolini's novel A Violent Life. But it's still available separately.

Guess I missed my window of opportunity on unloading my Tartan bricks

Are we to assume MOC also has the rights to HAWKS & SPARROWS, PORCILE & EDIPUS REX?
If so then more Pasolini BDs could be out before the middle of 2012.

It could be a safe assumption.

Woah, I'd missed that news before. Excellent!

antnield wrote:newly recorded commentary

Wow, I feared I'd never see those words again. Tony Rayns, too! That bumps this release up from 'interested' to 'definite buy', for me.

Full release details for disc and booklet, now live at the MoC site.

It looks a mighty meaty dual feature package. Excellent value. It isn't highlighted so I'm presuming Comizi d’amore isn't in 1080p? Hope I'm wrong!

I just Accattone last night in preparation for lectures and seminars this week. Pity this wasn't available already!

TMDaines wrote:It looks a mighty meaty dual feature package. Excellent value. It isn't highlighted so I'm presuming Comizi d’amore isn't in 1080p? Hope I'm wrong!

Well, it's certainly presented in 1080p, but the picture is nowhere near as well-defined as Accattone's.

This might be down to the original materials, but it could equally be an upscale: the subtitles are razor-sharp, but everything else (including the burned-in subtitles on the original print) could well be from an SD source in terms of the level of resolution on offer.

Still, hardly a deal-breaker - and the clarity of the subtitles makes this version a clear advance on the old Tartan edition, especially given the amount of spoken content.

Wow, if those caps from the blu are any indication, "Accatone" looks as stunning as never before. I've seen several other editions of this film, and none of them even only came close to the greyscale here. What a beauty!

MichaelB wrote:Well, it's certainly presented in 1080p, but the picture is nowhere near as well-defined as Accattone's.

This might be down to the original materials, but it could equally be an upscale: the subtitles are razor-sharp, but everything else (including the burned-in subtitles on the original print) could well be from an SD source in terms of the level of resolution on offer.

Still, hardly a deal-breaker - and the clarity of the subtitles makes this version a clear advance on the old Tartan edition, especially given the amount of spoken content.

COMIZI was shot on 16mm and blown up to 35mm. It's never going to look as well-defined as ACCATTONE.

The old Tartan DVD of COMIZI was cropped to 1.78:1. We've rendered it at 1.66 OAR.

Beaver

The screencaps look fucking amazing. "Fucking" being truly justified in this instance.

Looks like you're right. And even little old 16mm Comizi d'Amore looks very nice indeed.

TMDaines wrote: "Fucking" being truly justified in this instance.

I don't see one of Tooze's patented beaver shots though.

Have this playing on the deck... Lovely work, MoC!....

Have just spent the second evening in a row re-watching "Accatone", this time with the Rayns commentary. Very good track indeed; Rayns has a lot of interesting things to say about Pasolini's career in general and provides some fine insights into the way particular scenes were filmed and cut, and about the 'musical' structure of the film's form in general. There are a few points on which I can't agree, however. For instance he points out that the "Trilogia della vita" was a reaction on Pasolini's part against the arthouse success of the three preceding films, a conscious attempt to break free from being pigeonholed. Hmmm.... while it's true that these films reached a far wider audience, they nevertheless seem to me a logical consequence of Paso's (romantic) idealisation of an archaic way of living that follow straight from his documentaries on India and Africa (which Rayns doesn't take into account at all) and also "Medea" and the short film on Sana'a. A continuation of his thinking in my view, not a break caused by such secondary factors as the reaction to "Teorema" or "Porcile".

I similarly don't share his view on the late essay collections "Lutheran letters" and "Pirate Writings" (or whatever they're called in English) which he finds lose their impact today because they need too much explanation and annotation for a contemporary audience because the subjects of these essays (often other writers of the time) are not well known anymore, at least outside Italy. This is true, but these texts are much more about Pasolini himself than about anything else, and for me they still provide fascinating reading; they're really at the heart of what the man thought and stood for, with all his contradictions.

But these are minor points of disagreement, as Rayns in his usual calm manner gives a very fine introduction to Pasolini and to "Accatone", points out the references to other films (especially Dreyer's "Jeanne d'Arc") without forcing an interpretation on the viewer (personally, I see the film much more imbued by 'spiritual' ideas than he seems to do), which is probably a very good way to let the viewer come to his or her own conclusions. A great, perhaps indispensable addition to what would have been a very fine package even without it.

And lest I forget: GREAT transfer, even on SD (which is really surprising considering the 210 minutes of material crammed on the disc). The third time I purchased the film on DVD, and the first time that someone really did justice to it. Fantastic work, MoC!

This is soo good! Watched it tonight, and its only the second time I see Accettone. I probably loved it even more this time. It's an almost a religius experience for me. Like Dreyer and Antonioni combined. Tank you peerpee and all at MoC! A great disc with a great film. After I had watched it I had to start again and watch 15 minutes of it with Rayns' commentry. He always sounds like such a nice person.

Next up: The Gospel According to Matthew \:D/