236 Mamma Roma

[Michael]

All I was trying to say earlier that I saw Mamma Roma and Rocco the same weekend, last weekend that is. Last month I devoted to revisiting Pasolini's filmography and I found Rocco, yes even that film alone, to be so much superior as a film than anything Pasolini directed. I have concluded that Pasolini is not that great. Why? His films are very flat and stale - they do not hold up at all. That was it and then I received comments arguing that there is no sense in comparing between those two artists. That I disagree and added my thoughts. Their coping with being famously gay in a homophobic, Catholic country is found in every bit of their art.

[Soothsayer]

"Flat" and "Stale" are about the last words on Earth I'd ever use to describe Pasolini, and I'm not hesitant to say that I think you're saying this due to your dislike of Pasolini's use of Magnani. Salo, flat and stale? The Gospel According to Saint Matthew? Oedipus Rex? Medea? I could go on...

And sure their homosexuality played a large part in all their output, I've never disagreed with that(or even implied it). You were the one who originally wanted to compare the two, and I stand by my original thought that the comparison is misguided. And the "flat" and "stale" comment only reinforces that for me. Their films are hard to compare beyond their choices of Mise en Scene(which were nearly always radically different, and I am quick to disagree with your thoughts on Pasolini), and the similarities you listed certainly don't go into the artistic merit of either Visconti or Pasolini.

[Michael]

David - yesterday was a loooong, dreadfully loooong day and I was probably talking out of my ass. This thread popped back up to the top and I just felt the urge to throw in the bit of my new reaction to Mamma Roma while my mind was (and still is) whirling around Rocco. Yes, Pasolini and Visconti are "apples and oranges" or better "parmigiano and pecorino". Pasolini may never deal with gay characters but I feel that his films would have never been made if Pasolini was straight. (I know I'm going to get burned for saying that.) Imagine a straight guy rubbing questions about homosexuality against old ladies in 1960s Italy (in one of his documentaries). And the Terrence Stamp. Salo. Pasolini's filmmaking style does not do much for me. It's too dry and stiff for my taste.

Heading to the other side of the country, Rocco! That film is so rapturously beautiful. Such a rarity - neorealism meeting up with grand opera complete with high-art homoeroticism. Visconti makes love to the principal guys and you feel it in every shot of them. The vulnerable and intense beauty of the guys all out in the full display for us to view - from trains to gym showers to boxing rings to winter fields to mamma's beds. I just can't help thinking how radical and gutsy this film must had been when it was released.. and still is. With no arguments, Visconti’s style is a whole world or two apart from Pasolini’s and I regretted bringing up Visconti here because it seems to have opened a can of worms, my laziness and all, my apologies. That's what happens when I get lost from being consumed fresh from viewing films like Rocco and my mind stops functioning.

[zedz]

I think making comparisons between Pasolini and Visconti is perfectly valid, for the reasons you've already mentioned and because they're also both reacting against neo-realism, though in quite different (illuminatingly so) ways. I'm personally a Pasolini guy, because I like the idea of him as a filmmaker, and the ideas he explores as one, so much, even when the films themselves don't work for me. Actually, I'd even say that his greatest films (e.g. Medea, Porcile, Edipo Re) are no less clunky than his worst ones, but when they work, the clunkiness is radical, provocative and thrilling. Visconti is a filmmaker who's made several films I absolutely adore even though his general approach and concerns are ones I don't have as much sympathy with, though this means that the lesser (and like David, that for me is pretty much synonymous with 'later') films prove very hard to take.

[ambrose]

Slant magazine

[Drucker]

Had no idea Visconti and Paosolini were gay, but that certainly helps explain the scenes in both Rocco and Mamma where a woman is grabbed by a group of or at least one man, and the man she's taken away from seemingly does nothing to protect her!

Really enjoyed this. Perhaps not as grand as Rocco in scope, but I thought the acting in this one might've even been a little better. Doesn't seem like one of the more popular/more discussed titles, but does anyone have any complaints/comments on the film quality? Seemed to be a lot of blurring going on. In addition, lots of times the brights looked really bright...perhaps too much so.

Not really a big complaint, as a lot of the film still looked great and the film itself was great. Just something I noticed.

Also, if I liked Rocco, should I blind-by Senso/The Leopard? They seem like very different movies from what I've read and I'm not sure if I'll like them as much...

[Michael]

Had no idea Visconti and Paosolini were gay, but that certainly helps explain the scenes in both Rocco and Mamma where a woman is grabbed by a group of or at least one man, and the man she's taken away from seemingly does nothing to protect her!

You gotta be kidding.

[Tom Hagen]

Had no idea Visconti and Paosolini were gay, but that certainly helps explain the scenes in both Rocco and Mamma where a woman is grabbed by a group of or at least one man, and the man she's taken away from seemingly does nothing to protect her!

You gotta be kidding.

On multiple levels.

[Drucker]

How so?

[triodelover]

Had no idea Visconti and Paosolini were gay, but that certainly helps explain the scenes in both Rocco and Mamma where a woman is grabbed by a group of or at least one man, and the man she's taken away from seemingly does nothing to protect her!

Are you perhaps a Republican candidate for President traveling incognito? That's the only group of folks I know that can make breathtakingly stupid statements evidencing neither shame nor embarrassment.

[Drucker]

I'm really not understanding the craziness of this statement. What I was just trying to say was pointing out was a possible poor treatment of a woman by a gay man. Passive/active misogyny is not unheard of by gay men...What am I missing, cus I'm honestly at a loss...

[tarpilot]

I find it's less offensive than it is thoroughly confusing

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm really not understanding the craziness of this statement. What I was just trying to say was pointing out was a possible poor treatment of a woman by a gay man. Passive/active misogyny is not unheard of by gay men...What am I missing, cus I'm honestly at a loss...

What on earth does being gay have to do with misogyny? Do you think people are gay because they hate women?

[MichaelB]

I'm really not understanding the craziness of this statement. What I was just trying to say was pointing out was a possible poor treatment of a woman by a gay man. Passive/active misogyny is not unheard of by gay men...What am I missing, cus I'm honestly at a loss...

Sorry, are you saying that the characters are gay or that they're misogynists because they were created by gay men? The first statement is at least defensible (though needs supporting evidence), but the second is gobsmackingly offensive.

Or rather, it might stand up if you knew anything about Visconti or Pasolini and could cite specifics relating to their own psychological makeup - but since you've also admitted that you didn't know that either man was gay at the time you originally made your observation, I'm not going to hold my breath.

[TMDaines]

I'm really not understanding the craziness of this statement. What I was just trying to say was pointing out was a possible poor treatment of a woman by a gay man. Passive/active misogyny is not unheard of by gay men...What am I missing, cus I'm honestly at a loss...

Sorry, are you saying that the characters are gay or that they're misogynists because they were created by gay men? The first statement is at least defensible (though needs supporting evidence), but the second is gobsmackingly offensive.

I don't really see what Drucker said here that was offensive. I read it more as men were rather feeble when a woman they were supposedly with was taken away from them (cuckolded or such for lack of a better word), especially in comparison to some of the much stronger relations between men e.g. Rocco. As the directors of these films were gay, the men didn't portray normal actions of a heterosexual man in protecting his relationship of the woman he is with.

[Drucker]

I'm going to try to be as clear as I can be...and I am truly sorry if I seemed to ruffle any feathers...

All I meant, and this was really in the MOST GENERAL OBSERVATION imaginable, and not an indication of the habits of all gay individuals or anything---HOWEVER, there have been situations (from personal experience I'm drawing from but also other literary sources, such as behavior of musicians I'm a fan of e.g. Pete Kember of Spacemen 3) where gay men are ANTI-WOMEN. Again, not all are, and it's not biological, etc. etc. but there are times where that is an element of a personality. It has the ability to manifest itself in a way differently than say a heterosexual misogynist (who would just, for example, possibly directly harm a woman).
Therefore, if someone was coping with sexual identity and was either more ambiguous or homosexual than they might realize, their reaction to a situation in which a woman they are close to is abused could be different, as they might be more emotionally detached from them.

FWIW, I hold an extremely liberal, pro-gay, pro-woman, anti-racism view of the world. No statement was meant to reflect anything else. The two scenes where women are abused/at risk of abuse (in Rocco rape, in Mamma just pulled away from Ettore) did raise questions in my mind as to why the men would act that way towards woman. If the male leads are a reflection of the director, that could explain the observation I illustrate above.

[knives]

So you're saying that some people are misogynistic? Shocking. I would have never known that as possible for an individual to believe in something stupid.

Seriously though saying that some people are assholes regardless of their other characteristics doesn't mean anything and shouldn't be considered indicative to of the non-asshole shared characteristic group. Your observation means nothing with regards to these two directors unless you can find actual evidence of misogyny. I mean Senso is one of the most pro-woman movies this side of Sirk. What you're saying is almost like calling Fassbinder a misogynist.

[matrixschmatrix]

Yeah, I appreciate the attempt to walk back something you realized sounded bad, but fundamentally either you're drawing a connection between being gay and being a misogynist (which is seriously a pernicious and problematic myth, though it occurs more often with accusations that lesbians are man haters) or you're saying something that doesn't mean anything (Did you know some left handed people are dog murderers?)

Doesn't mean you're a bad person or anything, but this would be a really good opportunity to examine your premises- where do you draw this connection between gay and anti-women from? Is it personal, anecdotal experience, something you've heard, just the feeling you get, or what?

[Drucker]

I fear how much further I'll back myself into a corner...but more or less, the acts/scenes I am still referring to are in a way misogynistic. I see the lack-of-defending a woman in need of help as being a different manifestation of misogyny, (furthered by Rocco, for example, saying that a woman should be with a man who raped her to serve him). Why the lack of caring? Especially when you're supposed to be romantically involved with this woman. Being in a relationship you shouldn't be in could lead to the inaction of our protagonists. That inaction is anti-woman. That relationship problem could be homosexually driven.

[matrixschmatrix]

Ok, the thing is, describing the behavior within the movie as misogynistic isn't the problem- it's debatable, I suppose, but it's not the thing I'm taking issue with. If your claim is that the behavior is motivated because the characters are gay- that their relationships with the women are fundamentally a sham because they aren't sexually interested in women- as MichaelB said, that's relatively defensible, although obviously there are lots of reasons a relationship could be insincere without homosexuality entering into it.

The problem is, the link you made is with the director's homosexuality. What that implies is that you think that directors who are gay cannot (or at least are more likely to not) care about women, or treat them as fully human, and so they treat their characters badly. That's problematic for a couple of reasons- one, it discounts the artistry of the work, and the artistic motivation for those events, and two, it's just not a good stand to take on what it means to be gay. I dislike essentializing what any group is 'like' artistically, but I think if you try to do so for gay directors and playwrights, you get if anything an extreme sensitivity to women, women's problems, and the genre that's usually known as 'women's pictures'- look at Todd Haynes, Tennessee Williams, Almodovar, and as Knives mentioned, Visconti's own Senso.

[jbeall]

I'm going to try to be as clear as I can be...and I am truly sorry if I seemed to ruffle any feathers...

All I meant, and this was really in the MOST GENERAL OBSERVATION imaginable, and not an indication of the habits of all gay individuals or anything---HOWEVER, there have been situations (from personal experience I'm drawing from but also other literary sources, such as behavior of musicians I'm a fan of e.g. Pete Kember of Spacemen 3) where gay men are ANTI-WOMEN. Again, not all are, and it's not biological, etc. etc. but there are times where that is an element of a personality. It has the ability to manifest itself in a way differently than say a heterosexual misogynist (who would just, for example, possibly directly harm a woman).
Therefore, if someone was coping with sexual identity and was either more ambiguous or homosexual than they might realize, their reaction to a situation in which a woman they are close to is abused could be different, as they might be more emotionally detached from them.

I'll try to avoid adding to the pile-on because I don't think you meant to offend anybody, but why do you assume the two scenes are more indicative of the directors' homosexual misogyny than they are of the directors' Italian misogyny? Especially when it hasn't been established that either director was particularly misogynist in the first place? In other words, your insinuation is really arbitrary. You're extrapolating from a really small sample that ignores not only all the other scenes in these two films (and Rocco is three hours long!), but all the other (abusive and non-abusive) scenes in Pasolini's and Visconti's other films, all the abusive scenes in films directed by non-Italians, by heterosexuals, by women, etc. Even just within the larger context of the two films you mention, your explanation doesn't hold up.

FWIW, you could compare the gang-rape in Mamma Roma with a similar scene in Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher. Ramsay is a married Scottish woman, so you'd have a difficult time arguing that the corresponding scene in her film reflects homosexual or Italian (or even Scottish) misogyny.

In all three films, those scenes can tell you a lot about the characters involved and possibly the social conditions that play a role in the development of their personalities, but you're on much, much shakier ground when you suggest that one isolated scene in one film gives a particular insight into the psychology of the director. It's legitimate, in other words, to critique the function of that scene within the larger film and the reality it depicts. If such scenes are fairly commonplace within a director's larger oeuvre, then it's legit to speak about the director's overriding concerns, but a conscious critique of a particular phenomenon is still different from an unconscious psychobiographical expression of one's sexuality,nationality, etc.

[Drucker]

That's an excellent point which yes I did not consider. And I have only watched these two films by these two directors, so I can't go further on their own work.

I wasn't trying to say the directors ARE misogynistic, but if those lead characters are written in a way to resemble the directors (which I also said above), it could indicate an event in which they themselves wrestled with this issue. From the get-go, though I didn't spell it out, I was working on the assumption that these characters reflect the directors. So learning a director is gay could affect the perspective one views their work with.

Again, the fact that they have a romantic relationship with a woman but choose not to physically come to their defense is where it becomes a gay issue in my eyes. In that, if they weren't gay and therefore more romantically attached to the victim, they might act stronger to avoid the incident/do more to deal with it after the fact.

[knives]

I'm not trying to come across as mean. Honestly I'm trying to be as kind as possible, but defending an other person has nothing to do with sexuality. This topic has actually been broached on the site before and I suggest you read this thread.

[Michael]

Why can't you accept that heterosexual men can be spineless, brutal assholes without blaming on gay people? Martin Scorsese must be gay for insisting Jake not to get a hard on and allowing him to beat his wife nearly to death in Raging Bull.

[Brian C]

Again, the fact that they have a romantic relationship with a woman but choose not to physically come to their defense is where it becomes a gay issue in my eyes. In that, if they weren't gay and therefore more romantically attached to the victim, they might act stronger to avoid the incident/do more to deal with it after the fact.

This is exactly what's getting you in trouble here: making a causal link between the director's homosexuality and characters' misogyny. Stop doing it until you at least think about why people would find this demeaning.

You can't say that you don't mean to offend and then keep repeating the offensive thing after it's pointed out!