REEL UNDERGROUND

FILM REVIEWS
AND CALENDAR
BY PAUL D. GOETZ




Mamma Roma: A Classic Is Reborn

The Varsity
(4329 University Way NE, 632-3131)

March 17-23
"Mamma Roma"
(1962- written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini). Virtually unseen in this country, the premiere of Pasolini's second feature is a major cinematic event. One of the luminaries of the Italian cinema from the '50s until his tragic death in 1975, Pasolini was a Marxist, an iconoclastic Christian, and a homosexual. Complex, self-contradicting, and controversial, this poet, novelist, essayist, and filmmaker created works that were at times deemed obscene by both church and state, but his preoccupation with people marginalized by and struggling against society (reflected by his own interior unrest) can only be called humanistic.

Poetic, passionate, and masterfully told, this follow-up to his classic debut Accatone (which graphically delved into the wretched lives of pimps and thieves in the slums of Rome where Pasolini lived in the '40s) provides a moral sensibility missing from the title character in that film. Set amidst Rome's dreary municipal housing and its ancient ruins (which often emphasizes the disrepair in the lives we see), it's the tragic story of a prostitute who attempts to create a new middle-class life for herself and her estranged and aimless son Ettore who, if she has her way, will never learn the truth about her past.
At its center is a riveting performance by Anna Magnani as the earthy, inflammable Mamma Roma. There have been times when Magnani's forcefulness on screen has seemed forced, but here she demonstrates an always appropriate range of emotions from toughness to tenderness. She seems perfectly suited to this desperately passionate yet haunted character who, despite her intense love - she would "climb on the cross for him" - has been taught by past experience to buy affection with money, berate and cry, scheme and conceal.
Having saved just enough money to rent an apartment and obtain a merchant's license, she retrieves Ettore from the country, takes him to Mass, and tries to get him interested in a restauranteur's daughter. But their plans are derailed as much by the return of her former pimp (who attempts to force her back into the life) as by Mamma Roma's lack of skills as a mother and Ettore's involvements with a group of delinquents and a wayward young woman named Bruna (Silvana Corsini). Ettore Garofolo is excellent as her discontented son, while Franco Citti is perfect as Carmine, the charismatic and dangerous pimp.
Even as Pasolini seems to echo the post-World War II Italian neorealism of Rossellini, De Sica, and Visconti through the use of authentic settings and mostly non-professional actors, he repudiates it by using mostly short takes and a famous actress in Magnani, and, most important, by making it clear that his intention isn't merely to recreate life as he sees it, but to infuse it with symbolism and a sometimes poetic, sometimes perverse religiosity. When Ettore gives the slutty Bruna a necklace on which hangs the Virgin and Child (she has a child of her own who will later die), it's as much to see it hovering near her breasts as it is to sanctify her in his life.
Pasolini also imbues the film with his own fascination with death. A Christian who, nevertheless, did not believe in an afterlife, he instead saw death as final and so a great motivator. He also felt that optimism breeds idleness. When Bruna asks Ettore if he fears death, he responds that he nearly died two or three times, but he was so little at the time, it meant nothing to him. His obliviousness to it seems to have engendered in him a lethal apathy.
Mamma Roma deserves to be favorably compared with Fellini's greatest masterpiece Nights of Cabiria on which Pasolini collaborated, and like Cabiria, it certainly deserves to be counted among the classics of world cinema. Both movingly tell the tale of an aging Roman streetwalker who dreams of a better life, and in both films happiness is illusory, often disappearing as suddenly as it appears like Ettore portentously disappearing from a moving carousel. In both life is a journey down a terrifying highway of self-discovery, and while the pitfalls in Cabiria come mostly from without, the road in Mamma Roma is also mined from within. The past cannot be forgotten or eradicated - it continually resurfaces and claims its consequences. As Mamma Roma says, voicing one of Pasolini's major themes, "The evil you do is like a highway - in which everyone walks, including the innocent."

911 Media Arts Center
(117 Yale Avenue N, 682-6552)

February 24-25
"God's Trombone - One Camera, One Summer, One Country"
With an extremely small crew including producer Sarah George, director George Kachadorian traversed the United States in the summer of 1993, interviewing a myriad of people on an array of topics including music, money, drugs, sex, government, welfare, racism, television, and the American Dream. Edited down from eighty hours of footage, the result is a rich and vibrant one-hour cacophony of voices expressing the joy, pain, frustration, eccentricity, paranoia, creativity, humor, and wisdom that is the American experience. Threaded through this confidently shot Hi8 video is a wide variety of music played by common folk that seems to most eloquently express the beauty of exceeding diversity springing from a common essence.

Creatively edited so that it shifts between often contrasting viewpoints, an illusion of sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant dialogue is created - a symphony of ideas that is often ironic but never feels unfairly manipulative or too severely judgmental. That non-judgmental approach encourages a sense of oneness even as it exalts differences such as John Burkholder, a Seattle 7th grade science teacher and former 2nd place Mr. America who thinks "man is basically evil" and who sees a "scary trend toward socialism" in a country destroyed by drugs, immorality and promiscuity; Christine Sibley, an Atlanta holistic potter who optimistically sees humanity in a state of awakening; a Washington D.C. man who has been a professional panhandler for twenty years; Christopher Protas who fails to see the monetary value of his collection of 100-dollar bills; a young boy who angrily says that his parents "don't give a flying fuck" about him; a police officer who reminds parents that "the law allows you to use physical discipline - smack him!" but who also fears the negative effects of television violence, and a young boy thrilled by the family's satellite dish that brings him 200 stations.
This documentary suggests that as chaotic as our national experience seems to be, it's still a country composed mostly of people searching for a common footing. Often uproariously funny, sometimes nearly heart-breaking, it's always a fascinating mirror that is sure to provide some recognition. It suggests that America is a living tapestry, a continual process, weaving and unraveling - frayed at the edges, perhaps, but still our very own creation. Producer Sarah George will attend both screenings.

The Seattle Art Museum
(100 University St, 654-3121)

SAM finishes its Winter Film Series Laughing Matters: More Classics of British Comedy with several treasures playing Thursdays at 7:30 PM through March 16. Though not a sure thing, it's usually possible to get a ticket at the door if you arrive early enough. A couple of personal favorites from the schedule:

February 2
"The Man in the White Suit"
(1951). This classic Ealing Studios satire made Alec Guinness an international star and was also a milestone for director Alexander Mackendrick whose cynical point of view would later surge to full vitriolic disaffection with Sweet Smell of Success (1957). Guinness plays Sidney Stratton, a determined chemist who has secretly invented an indestructible fabric in the Birnley Mills laboratory. Stratton naively believes that the world will shower him with praise, but as a worker warns, "What do you think happened to all the other things - the razor blade that never gets blunt, the car that runs on water? No, they'll never let your stuff on the market in a million years." Textile industrialists led by ruthless Sir John Kierlaw (Ernest Thesiger) kidnap and sequester Stratton, fearing that a leak to the press will cause widespread economic panic, while, ironically, textile workers do the same fearing the loss of their jobs. The film's cynicism widens to include Stratton who cares only for his research, not for how it might affect the world, nor for Birnley's daughter Daphne (Joan Greenwood) who loves him. Despite its sobering themes, humor abounds. In fact, Mackendrick has woven a perfect blend of indestructible comedy and tough social satire, one that has great relevance for our own throw-away society.

February 16
"The Naked Truth"
(1957). In Mario Zampi's boisterous bit of buffoonery, nearly every celebrity would rather commit suicide than have their past indiscretions revealed. Dennis Price plays Nigel Dennis, the smarmy editor of a scandal magazine called The Naked Truth who digs up the dirt and one-ups today's tabloids by blackmailing them to the tune of 10,000 pounds. The notables include a bizarre tv game show host named Wee Sonny Macgregor (Peter Sellers) whose shtick includes disguising himself as his guests; model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton); famous authoress Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount), and Lord Mayley (Terry-Thomas). Separately at first, but eventually together, they go to elaborate and hilarious lengths to turn the tables on their tormentor. Sellers' wildly diverse comic personae are a treat, but the entire ensemble is uniformly good. Best of all might be Georgina Cookson, superb as Lord Mayley's long-suffering wife. Well aware of her husband's infidelities, she doesn't hesitate to skewer him with a wry rapier-like wit. Shown with the classic 1950s English cartoon The Put On.

Pike Street Cinema
(1108 Pike at Boren, 682-7064)

February 3-5
"Food - Is It For You?"
Dennis Nyback has assembled five remarkably entertaining and revealing industrial shorts from the 50s to the 70s interspersed with vintage commercials for nourishing staples such as Frosted Flakes and Wonder Bread. He'll be serving complimentary hot dogs (meat or vegetarian) at each screening.

Included is a Frigidaire refrigerator demonstration film that is actually a sensuous technicolor meditation on the sanctification of consumerism in which the household appliance becomes a kind of phallic monolith. In this silent workprint accompanied by Schubert piano music, five models, in what look like prom dresses, are paired with sleek 50s refrigerators, and for a dreamy 18 minutes they regard and caress their lustrous surfaces and reveal their inner secrets.
Another high point is an unintentionally hilarious film produced by Tacoma's Carling Brewing Company featuring four of its representatives in an unedited round-table discussion of its new Heidelberg keg bottle and its success capturing the youth market. Under the eye of a minimalistic stationary camera, their unease is broken only by frequent cigarettes and one's declaration that the introduction of the keg bottle is "the best thing to come along since women."
On the same program: a film illustrating the joys of Lawry food products guaranteed to make cooking so easy the faux-French chef has time to read Playboy while stirring the pot; a British Ministry of Information film on the virtues of vitamins highly recommending margarine and sardines as sources of vitamin D and plenty of cod liver oil for children, and a film on the Heimlich maneuver that repeatedly examines the ejection of a piece of steak from a boozing restaurant customer.
Interestingly, filmmakers and viewers can learn from some of these poorly crafted films. There's an aesthetic freshness to them that would be difficult to achieve by anyone with much training. They also provide a look at a somewhat more relaxed, less suppressive time when a degree of honesty was valued over political correctness.

February 10-12
"Harlem in the '30s"
This collection of shorts celebrates some of the great entertainers to play The Cotton Club and other venues in the Harlem of the 30s. Performances by Duke Ellington and his orchestra, Baron Lee and his Blue Rhythm Band, the late Cab Calloway, and the great Jimmie Lunceford and his orchestra are showcased. In Jitterbug Party, Calloway does an inspired interpretation of "Long About Midnight" while in Dixieland Jamboree, singers Eunice Wilson (with The Five Racketeers) and Adelaide Hall are featured along with acrobats The Three Whippets, dancers The Nicholas Brothers, and Calloway. The Washboard Serenaders perform brilliantly on washboard, piano, guitar and kazoo in That's the Spirit while the high-octane Jimmie Lunceford Orchestra burns down the house with "Rhythm Is Our Business" in a film featuring singer Myra Johnson and dancers The Three Brown Jacks. While most of the emphasis is on performance, the highlight is the lovely expressionistic drama Black and Tan featuring Duke Ellington in his first film appearance and the acting and dancing of a then unknown Fredi Washington. Washington would later go on to some acclaim in Fanny Hurst's Imitation of Life (1934).



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Contents on this page were published in the February/March, 1995 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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Goetz