Accattone
£10 / £8 Concessions / £7 ICA Members
Initially perceived on its release as a return to the Italian neo-realism of the 40s, this was something more complex. Seen now in the context of Pasolini's emerging body of work as a novelist, poet and filmmaker (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Salo) we get one of the key emerging queer sensibilities of cinema and a milestone in the story of film. Accattone is a struggling Roman pimp who, finding himself caught between crime and poverty, chooses the former as a means of survival. It's a portrait of a self-destructive man completely self-aware of how his class has trapped him into a life of struggle from which escape is impossible. Brimming with humanity and vitality, shot with a non-actor cast on the streets of its protagonists, Accattone announced Pasolini to the world.
Presented in a new digital restoration.
Dir: Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1961, Italy, Italian with English subtitles, 120mins
Cast: Franco Citti, Franca Pasut and Silvana Corsini.