Mamma Roma (1962)

Synopsis:
Mamma Roma is a middle-aged whore of Roma. Now she can quit her job to become a fruit seller. And she can take back her 16-year-old son, Ettore. For him, she dreams of a good position. But it is perhaps too late for Ettore, whose company includes mostly teenaged louts.
Italian with English subs.

"Like Pasolini's Accattone, Mamma Roma draws from the neo-realist tradition, but Pasolini goes beyond the tradition to play with the form and structure. He leaves unanswered questions hanging throughout the film and leaps over the scenes you expect to see in more traditional films, giving the film an abrupt, jolting quality. (...) Pasolini punctuates the drama with stream-of-consciousness monologues that Magnani's Mamma delivers while revisiting the streets of her past life as a whore, venting aloud as people drift in and out of the scene (...) As with many of Pasolini's earlier works, including his first film, Mamma Roma was controversial for its portrait of life in the borgate. It was protested at its premiere at the Venice Film Festival and censured in Italy for "offending against the common sense of decency," released only after a long legal battle. "

Starring:
Anna Magnani
Ettore Garofolo
Franco Citti

Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
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