The debut feature of Italian filmmaker-novelist-poet-provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salò, or: The 120 Days of Sodom; The Gospel According to Matthew; The Decameron), Accattone rocked the cinema world with its depictions, at once raw and elegant, of the underside of Roman street life – and, in the process, seemed to announce a new direction for Italian films: a neo-neorealism.

On the mean streets of Rome, Accattone’s eponymous pimp (played by Franco Citti, one of a remarkable cast of local non-professionals) leads a hand-to-mouth existence on the very margins of society: prostituting, scrounging, exploiting. When his prize prostitute Maddalena is arrested and jailed, the pimp’s fortunes dwindle, and he is forced to confront his own existence.

The work of one of Italy’s foremost auteurs, Accattone combines a fascination with poverty, sexual mores, and the entrapments of society, with a sense of humanity and sanctity rarely seen in cinema. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pasolini’s debut alongside his feature-length 1965 documentary Comizi d’amore [Love Meetings] in a special Dual Format Blu-ray + DVD edition.

FEATURES:
New high-definition transfer of Accattone in the film’s original aspect ratio
Pasolini’s 1965 feature-length documentary Comizi d’amore [Love Meetings], on the complementary theme of Italian attitudes towards sex, presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.66:1
Original Italian theatrical trailers for both films
Feature-length audio commentary on Accattone by critic Tony Rayns
Newly translated optional English subtitles for both films
36-page booklet featuring a translation of Pasolini’s 1958 poem “To a Pope”; excerpts from a 1969 interview with Pasolini by Oswald Stack; a 1975 essay on the film by Pasolini; Pasolini’s original treatment for Comizi d’amore; and rare archival images