Mamma Roma (Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy 1962, 110 min.)

Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a middle-aged prostitute who attempts to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. Filmed in the great tradition of Italian neorealism, Mamma Roma offers an unflinching look at the struggle for survival in postwar Italy, and highlights director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s lifelong fascination with the marginalized and dispossessed. Though banned upon its release in Italy for obscenity, today Mamma Roma remains a classic, featuring a powerhouse performance by one of cinema’s greatest actresses and a roughhewn, neorealist aesthetic that nevertheless manages to organically incorporate the artistic sensibilities of master artists including Leonardo, Caravaggio, Masaccio and, even though Pasolini denied it, Andrea Mantegna’s stunning Lamentation of Christ (1480).

Reviews:

“Extraordinarily moving… A cry of social protest.”

--Sight and Sound

“As the titular, tragic prostitute, Anna Magnani executed one of the great roles of her career in Mamma Roma.”

--Slant

“Mamma Roma remains a delicate and at times beautiful work… Pasolini’s final image of blighted urban wasteland, a vacant lot surrounded by grimy buildings and a church…, reverberate[s] like an El Greco.”

--Chicago Reader

Trailer