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Synopsis
One of the most original and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century, Italian polymath Pier Paolo Pasolini embodied a multitude of often seemingly contradictory ideologies and identities—and he expressed them all in his provocative, lyrical, and indelible films. Relentlessly concerned with society’s downtrodden and marginalized, he elevated pimps, hustlers, sex workers, and vagabonds to the realm of saints, while depicting actual saints with a radical earthiness. Traversing the sacred and the profane, the ancient and the modern, the mythic and the personal, the nine uncompromising, often scandal-inciting features he made in the 1960s still stand—on this, the 101st anniversary of his birth—as a monument to his daring vision of cinema as a form of resistance.
Picture 7/10
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma receives a Blu-ray upgrade from The Criterion Collection and is presented on the second dual-layer disc of their latest director-centric box set, Pasolini 101. As with their previous DVD edition, the film is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The 1080p/24hz high-definition presentation has been sourced from a new 4K restoration performed by Cineteca Nazionale in association with Infinity+ and Cine 34. The 35mm original camera negative was used as the primary source for the scan, while later-generation prints filled in spots where the original elements were too severely damaged.
The end presentation is cleaner and far more stable than Criterion’s DVD, with contrast and range looking wider as well. Blacks are very deep and inky, as shown in the nighttime walks, which also manage to show a bit more detail in the shadows, though not much. The blacks can still be very heavy in those sequences, but I suspect it is more a product of the photography.
Detail is okay, but the image can have a smudgy appearance, and the finer details rarely impress. It’s hard to say if it’s the elements or has something to do with the restoration itself. Grain is there and looks primarily okay, but sometimes it feels like it’s been managed a little. However, the restoration has been far more thorough than the DVD’s, getting most of the marks and scratches, removing pulses and flicker, and finally stabilizing the image. Jumps to the later generation sources are noticeable as contrast weakens and grain gets a bit heavier, but the leaps aren’t all that severe.
Overall it’s better than the DVD’s presentation by a good margin but falls a bit short of what Accattone and some of the other films in the set managed to pull off.
Audio 6/10
The PCM audio soundtrack sounds fine. Dialogue is clear, while music shows moderate range without coming off all that harsh or edgy. Dialogue has been dubbed, but it's not all that evident outside of a handful of moments.
Extras 7/10
Outside of the absence of a poster gallery the supplements replicate Criterion's previous DVD edition. This time the features start off with Pasolini’s 35-minute short film La Ricotta, which was originally part of the 1963 omnibus film RoGoPaG. Pasolini's segment, controversial on its original release (a text introduction opening the film states his intent was not to mock), tells the story about a film production of the Passion of Jesus, with Orson Welles as the director. The film focuses on an extra who is playing one of the thieves hanging on a cross next to Jesus. I recall this film catching me off guard upon my initial viewing simply because it was quite funny in its own way, something I wasn't expecting after Mamma Roma and Salo. But after viewing some of his other films (his segment from another omnibus film, The Witches, along with The Hawks and the Sparrows), it seems to fit right in with his other work from the same period.
The film is also presented from a new 4K restoration, which is a welcome upgrade after the shoddy presentation found on the DVD (Eureka released the entire RoGoPaG but I have yet to see it and cannot comment how the segment looks there). It's significantly sharper and cleaner with a wider grayscale (not blown out like before). The encode is also decent, though open to improvement as grain can get a bit buzzy. Still, it's at least not the macroblocking mess that Toby Dammit was in Criterion's Fellini set.
The 58-minute documentary Pier Paolo Pasolini, directed by Ivo Barnabo Micheli, is also ported over, though sadly from what looks to be the same video source. The piece is probably too short for it to offer as thorough a portrait of the filmmaker as one may hope, but it does well with its time as it delivers his views of Italian society and politics through readings of his written work along with interview clips. It examines common themes found throughout his films, specifically death, and offers plenty of clips from a selection of his films. It is pretty good and does offer an effective examination of the man, though the 98-minute program on the previous disc for Accattone (featuring several interviews with Pasolini) was probably more rewarding.
25 minutes worth of interviews are then included (all recorded 20 years ago), starting with Bernardo Bertolucci, who worked with Pasolini as an assistant director on Accattone. For six-and-a-half minutes the filmmaker discusses Italian cinema of the time, mentioning the popularity of spaghetti westerns and comedies and how Pasolini’s first film, Accattone, very different from those genres, was still widely accepted. He then quickly compares the styles of it and his follow-up film, Momma Roma.
The second interview, running about 9 minutes, is with Tonino Delli Colli, director of photography for most of Pasolini’s films, starting with Accattone, where he was brought in to replace the current director of photography after producers expressed a dislike for how the film was looking. Interestingly, Colli wasn't fond of how that first film turned out, to the point where he wanted his name removed. Despite that, he still did Momma Roma (and more), but the two still had different ideas about how the film should look and would ultimately compromise. Issues also arose with the child performers since Pasolini didn't cast professionals and was more concerned about their look than anything else. It turns out that none of them could remember their lines While dubbing was a common practice and Colli's solution is something that would be used frequently, he had the children simply count, with the intent of dubbing in their dialogue later. Colli also mentions working with Magnani and her concerns over her appearance on film, further propagated by the fact that Pasolini insisted on keeping the camera in tight on her. His reasons for it were simply because she liked to act with her hands and Pasolini couldn’t stand it. Of the three interviews, this one focuses the most on Mamma Roma, with more firsthand accounts, making it my favorite.
The third interview is with Pasolini biographer Enzo Siciliano, also running for about 9 minutes. Siciliano talks about Pasolini’s overall career, including how he went from writing to filmmaking, before then discussing his visual style, and religious visuals. He even talks about the director's artistic influences. Some good information and analysis here, though at 9 minutes it is only skimping the surface.
The disc then closes with the film's trailer, which looks to be a standard-definition upscale ported directly from the DVD.
They're still a fine set of features, but there really isn't a lot that ends up being specific to Mamma Roma, the material focusing on the director's career as a whole instead.
Closing
No new features, but the new presentation still improves over Criterion's previous DVD edition.
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