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A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Accattone is a Roman pimp who lives off his girlfriend Maddalena's earnings. Pasolini's cheeky aim is to put forward this young man as a modern saint. To this end he lathers Bach's St Matthew's Passion (inspired by the Apostle's experience of the crucifixion of Christ) over scenes of Accattone's life. Indeed in one of Accattone's first scenes he's shown devouring a slice of tomato, displayed horizontally as if a cardinal's galero, whilst an sculpture of perhaps a guardian angel can be seen over his shoulder in the distance (an anti-clerical pro-Christ stance seems to be a consistent theme for Pasolini). Later, a prophecy regarding Accattone's descent is eerily similar to Christ's pronunciation of Peter's forthcoming triple renunciation.The film reminded me of a DH Lawrence poem (elliptically titled Democracy):"I love the sun in any man / when I see it between his brows / clear, and fearless, even if tiny // But when I see these grey successful men / so hideous and corpse-like, utterly sunless, / like gross successful slaves mechanically waddling / then I am more than radical, I want to work a guillotine...I feel that when people have gone utterly sunless / they shouldn't exist." Whatever Accattone is, he's not sunless; when he tries out the world of work (legitimate work involving labour), he becomes Vittorio, his Christian name, and the light goes out. The film reminds me very much of Fassbinder's Gods of the Plague in that sense, young men with brio but no skills or education who, given the choice, between drudgery or crime, choose crime. Both films polemicise against urban post-industrial capitalist societies, which have become increasingly removed from the milieu in which humanity evolved and is "designed" to cope with. When Accattone compares the chore of lifting rolls of iron with the horrors of Buchenwald the film goes a little over the top.Of course someone viewing Accattone and his friends through less of a haze of desire than the director might think that they were just a bunch of jerks. Undeniably though, Pasolini is a great poet, and there's evidence of things to come here, the film whilst looking largely Bertoluccian (he was the assistant director), has the occasional master shot, for example the rolling hills and valley in the dream sequence, par with Leonardo in quality of composition and symbolism; the countryside here representing an idealised rural precursor to Accattone's slum existence.I also applaud Pasolini for taking his arguments beyond class, Accattone's group of spongers contains educated men as well as dunces, and they are equally disdainful of the ruling class as they are of proletarians.

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.

In the poor periphery of Rome of the 60's, the despicable caftan Vittorio "Accattone" Cataldi (Franco Citti) is maintained by the hooker Maddalena (Silvana Corsini), spending the time with his useless idle friends. When the prostitute is arrested for perjury, the pimp "Accattone" has nobody to support him, but he seduces the naive worker Stella (Franca Pasut) and she becomes a whore. However, Accattone has a crush on Stella and decides to find a way to support her, with tragic consequences."Accattone" is the stunning debut of the great director Pier Paolo Pasolini. He returns to the theme of the misery of Italy in the postwar, explored in many Italian neo-realist movies such as Fellini's "Le Notti di Cabiria" (1957) and Visconti's "Rocco e i Suoi Fratelli" (1960), and magnificently shows the lifestyle of great part of the population in Italy, its lower class, with lack of perspective, starvation, prostitution and unemployment. Considering that this movie is also the debut or the beginning of the career of most actors and actresses, it is amazing how Pasolini was able to make such gem. My vote is nine.Title (Brazil): "Accattoni – Desajuste Social" ("Accattoni – Social Maladjustment")

Accatone is an interesting film because Pasolini exposes to his audience a particular lifestyle and social class which would not be accurately touched on in an American picture. If Hollywood had ever discussed Accatone's subject matter they would display it with all its stereotypical adornments and falsities which most US moviegoers are accustomed to. Pasolini is not afraid to present the grittier side of the subproletariat as is epitomized in the film's main character, Accatone, who struggles with his profession of pimping and becoming more sensitive to his women and to the world. Pasolini's debut is delicately permeated with political concepts and allegories, yet we can see that he is experimenting newly with the technique of film and developing a filmic narrative structure; more of his full-fledged sociopolitical allegories would be pursued in films like The Gospel and Hawks and Sparrows. The film stars Franco Citti who at the time of making of the film was a nonprofessional. However his performance is substantial considering him being a novice and having his voice overdubbed by another actor. Citti would soon become a Pasolini regular, starring in Oedipus Rex, Arabian Nights, and other supporting roles. However, as the film progresses the attention is centered on the female lead, who plays the naive soon-to-be callous farm worker who is duped by Accatone into prostitution. Before Pasolini ventured into the cinema he had a knack for writing. In his first two novels Pasolini had utilized the language of his mother's homeland, Friuli, for colloquial discourse amongst his characters who lived in subproletariat communities. It is not surprising that the subject of these novels would be the focal point of Accatone. In addition I believe Pasolini had rendered his ideas (from his literature) appropriately for his film, yet not becoming to carried away with fidelity and technical aspects which are profuse in films today. To this day there are apparently no film directors as consciously aware of his country and government as Pasolini was and that would transcend these beliefs into his art with controversy yet at the same time subtlety.