Mamma Roma (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

The legendary Pier Paolo Pasolini was an essayist, poet, political activist, and a film maker who made Mamma Roma in the 60s as Anna Magnani requested to make a film with him. The result of the collaboration between the two left the world with a marvelous cinematic experience. However, Mamma Roma was condemned after its release as it was deemed immoral. Mamma Roma is not Pasolini's most famous film, but it is an essential piece of cinematic history as it tackles many different issues such as the catholic church, prostitution, and parenting.The tale begins with Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani) who has recently gotten rid of her pimp boyfriend as he has married another woman. Delighted Mamma Roma seeks out her 16-year-old son Ettore whom she has not seen since infancy as she struggles with her guilt of deserting Ettore when he was a baby. She is also ashamed of her past as a prostitute and wants to start over as a fruit vendor and be the mother she never was for Ettore. However, Mamma Roma has no skills in raising a child and is even less equipped to handle a teenager that has been neglected since childhood. This is in the backdrop of Mamma Roma's old boyfriend threatening to unveil her secret to her son, and her political thoughts of injustices in the 60s Italy.Mamma Roma is an exploration of the symbiosis that exists between mother and son, but Pasolini removes this connection between the Mamma Roma and Ettore as she abandoned Ettore at infancy. The abandonment leaves the audience with the gap between Mamma Roma and Ettore. This gap is closely examined as Mamma Roma and Ettore initially reunite in order to later drift apart due to years of missing parental guidance. Pasolini personifies neglect and poor parental guidance through Anna Magnani, Mamma Roma, who is frenetically trying to be a good mother. Mamma Roma's parental attempts bring an understanding of the symbiosis that connects a mother and her son through parental care, yet her love for Ettore is not enough as her words do not mean anything to Ettore.

In his first feature film, Pier Paolo Pasolini uses a neorealist aesthetic to critique petit-bourgeois mores, training his sights on a poor outcast who strives and fails to become a respectable member of Italy's postwar society. Played to triumphant perfection by the fiery Anna Magnani, Mamma Roma is a hearty, proud woman willing to do anything for her boy, and Ettore Garofalo is appealing and believable as her son. An early gem by an Italian master, "Mamma Roma" is a moving, perceptive study of how love and sacrifice can still lead to an unjust outcome.

Five stars plus for this Pasolini masterpiece! Only praise for Magnani's performance and Criterion's presentation. Anna Magnani affects me unlike any other film artist. Criterion people would you please release more Anna Magnani or Pasolini films?

the most important film about mother's love - the ideal combination of fluid cinema storytelling with sophisticated, tough intellectual proposition creates a cinematic masterpiece about human spiritno film school will teach you any better - see this film, go and make your own...

Slow moving film, in which Anna Magnani always seems bigger than the film. Always energetic and upbeat. Meantime her son is a listless attractive doofuss. Her hopes for him are essentially dashed by films end. I found nothing unique in the message or the delivery of the message, except the transcription of the facts seemed to move at the actual pace of life. Very slowly. Interesting as a time piece.

"Mamma Roma" was Pasolini's second feature; his later films became increasingly avant-garde up until the director's death in 1975. This picture is interesting for various reasons, particularly Anna Magnani's performance. In Chapter 6 of this DVD, and again in Chapter 20, La Magnani is filmed in one continuous take, as she makes the rounds of the nighttime streets and is approached by admirers and potential customers; in Chapter 6, Mamma Roma is upbeat, vivacious, laughing; in Chapter 20, she's putting on a brave face, the difficulties she faces in dealing with her son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo) having started to weigh her down. Much of this film takes place in the bleak, sunny, fields of the "periferia" of Rome, punctuated by ruins, with projects and mountains in the background. The score, that is both sacred and melancholy, features the "Concerto in Do Maggiore di Vivaldi", and provides a formal contrast to this gritty world of this film; on the other hand, the profane, in the form of rustic circus music, occasionally embellishes certain scenes with a brighter mood. Pasolini has a unique style of composing scenes; he often gives his various leads actors their own solo visual space, to highlight their faces, and the expressions on those faces. On Disc Two (The Supplements), it is revealed that Pasonlini preferred working with amateur actors, since he was more interested in their look than in their acting ability. Disc Two includes interviews with Bernardo Bertolucci and other former collaborators of Pasolini, and provides valuable insight into the context/subtext of "Mamma Roma", and also that of "La Ricotta" (a 34 minute film with Orson Welles [1963] featured on Disc Two). In an interview on Disc Two with writer Enzo Siciliano ("Pasolini: A Biography", 1982), Siciliano discusses the symbolism used by Pasolini in "Mamma Roma"--for example, Ettore's pose in the final scene (Chapter 24) is taken directly from Andrea Mantegna's 15th century painting, "Lamentation over a Dead Christ". Also, the composition of the opening scene, "Carmine's Wedding" (Chapter 2), is modeled after Leonardo Da Vinci's "The Last Supper" (Luis Bunuel staged a similar, albeit more blatantly comic, scene in "Viridiana"). Disc Two also features a 58 minute documentary about Pasolini, through which I learned more about this director.Stephen C. BirdAuthor, "To Be to Is to Was"

EXCELOENT FILM.BUT THEN I KNOW WHAT I LIKE AND OLD MOVIES ARE MY FAVORTES, ESPCIALLY THE ITALIAN CINEMA.LOVE ANNA MAGNANI IN THIS FILM, HIGHLY RECOMENDED..