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Mamma Roma March 14, 2006

Posted by clydefro in : Classic Films, 1960s , trackback

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Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1962 Italian language film Mamma Roma is an extraordinary work of art depicting the struggles of a middle-aged prostitute who moves to Rome with her teenage son in hopes of giving him an opportunity to make something of himself. Apparently controversial for its time, the film is not so much shocking when seen today as it is a refreshing look at the downtrodden segment of Italian society. Using a neorealist style, Pasolini effectively contrasts the theatrical performance of Anna Magnani in the title role with the more subdued and natural work of the other actors. Magnani is ebullient as the woman who seizes the opportunity to move to Rome from the country when her pimp gets married. In the process, she brings along her seventeen-year-old son Ettore and tries to provide him with a strong foundation to begin his life, even if she may not be the most conventional mother. One scene has Magnani arrange for her prostitute friend to help blackmail a local restaurant owner into giving Ettore a job. After feeling that the local tramp Bruna is a bad influence on Ettore, Magnani also asks the same prostitute friend to seduce her son into forgetting about Bruna.

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It turns out Magnani’s feeling about Ettore being around the girl, as well as his new friends, was prescient. After Ettore is unable to buy Bruna the gold necklace he promised her, he sells some records to a second-hand store owner who offers to buy anything Ettore will sell him in the future, even if it’s stolen. This sets up the tragic ending as Ettore and his friends attempt to steal things from sleeping hospital patients to then sell to the shop owner. The film’s final shot is of Magnani looking out her window, after being prevented from jumping by the crowd that has followed her up, to see the domed basilica presumably of St. Peter’s. Pasolini frequently shows the audience this exact same shot throughout the film. It seems as though Pasolini is saying that despite Mamma Roma’s troubles, the church is unable to help her. This is alluded to earlier as well when Magnani visits a priest to ask him to put in a good word for Ettore with the restaurant owner she eventually blackmails. When the priest says he cannot help her, Magnani then takes matters into her own hands.

Mamma Roma is a tremendous film. This was my introduction to Pasolini and I hope to see more of his work. His politics and death are probably forever entwined with his art but films like this one speak for themselves. Pasolini allows his audience to see several sides of the title character and, while she may not be perfect, it’s obvious she cares deeply about her son and wishes to give him things she was unable to have. It’s also difficult to blame Ettore completely for what happens to him since he is young and anxious to fit in with his new peers in the city. I believe that Pasolini is blaming the two characters’ social circumstances for what happens and he would seem to have a valid point.

The Criterion Collection released a superb edition of Mamma Roma in 2004 that included a documentary on Pasolini, as well as his portion of the anthology film RoGoPaG entitled La ricotta and starring Orson Welles as a filmmaker trying to make a movie about the Passion of Christ. The disc menus and thick booklet are beautiful and this remains one of Criterion’s finer overall packages.

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