MAMMA ROMA
Italy, 1962, 106 minutes, Black and white.
Anna Magnani, Ettore Garofalo, Franco Citti.
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Mamma Roma was Pier Paolo Pasolini's second film. The prominent novelist, poet, philosopher had moved into films with a version of his novel A Violent Life, Accatone. In the mid?'60s he was to make The Gospel According to St. Matthew and in the late '60s move into his adaptation of classical stories and myths: Oedipus, Medea. In 1970 he began his mediaeval trilogy: The Decameron, Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights. His last film was the controversial Salo or The 120 Days of Sodom. Pasolini had a brief but distinctive career and contribution to Italian cinema.
The film is a strong vehicle for Anna Magnani. She is a very strong screen presence, a presence in Italian films from the '40s to the early '70s. She won an Academy Award for her performance in Tennessee Williams' The Rose Tattoo in 1955. Also appearing in the cast is Franco Citti, the star of Accatone and of many of Pasolini's films.
1. A portrait of Rome? Roman characters? The perspective of Pasolini?
2. Black and white photography, the wastes and suburbs of Rome? Authentic atmosphere? The choice of the Vivaldi music and its use throughout the film?
3. Anna Magnani's screen presence and contribution to the film?
4. The world of pimps, prostitutes, gangs? Urban Rome of the '60s? Its look (the youth wearing suits), lifestyle, crime?
5. Mamma and her verve? The wedding and her song, carrying on? Relationship with Carmine? Her relationship with Ettore: the new house, love for her son, the sequences in the apartment, dancing, the bike ride, the fruit stall? Her concern about Bruna? Gossips, her intervention? Friends and blackmailing the wealthy man? Carmine and his wanting her on the streets? The priest and the church? Prison? Her love for her son, concern, her final grief?
6. Ettore and his past, mother and father, age, returning to his mother, the gang and the lifestyle around the suburbs of Rome, card games etc., falling in love with Bruna, the gold chain (and the selling of the records), sexuality, job, the tenderness of his mother, the companions, the arrest, his treatment, the being tied down, his deterioration and madness, his death? The pathos of the Roman son?
7. Carmine as a pimp, the marriage, pigs, songs, hold over Mamma?
8. The prostitutes of Rome, personalities, plying their trade, their tricks, the elaborate blackmail of the wealthy businessman?
9. The stall people, their work, noticing everything, gossiping?
10. The boys, idle, forming gangs, peer pressure, passing their time, robbery, violence, sexuality?
11. The picture of the Catholic Church, its place in Italian society, Mamma and the Mass, the support of the priest?
12. The law, its attitudes towards Mamma? Towards her son? The impersonal and cruel treatment of Ettore?
13. The detail of Pasolini's presentation of characters, idiosyncrasies, behaviour, situations? His sympathetic perspective? A Roman slice of life?
