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Anna Magnani: Life
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In Pier Paolo Pasolini's beautiful drama, Mamma Roma (Anna Magnani) is an ex-prostitute who tries to leave behind her past and make a life for her and her son but her evil pimp stands in her way. Dubbed obscene by contemporary critics, this breakthrough film for Pasolini was never seen in the United States until 33 years after its premiere.
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Details of Anna Magnani's early life could have provided plot elements for the grim Italian "neo-realist" films that later made her an international star. She was born in Rome, Italy, on March 7, 1908, an illegitimate child who never knew her father and was deserted by her mother. Responsibility for her upbringing fell upon her maternal grandmother. The pair led a poverty-stricken existence in the harshest parts of Rome.
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Anna Magnani, as Camilla, the leading lady of a touring Commedia Dell'Arte theatrical troupe, provokes the amorous attention of three men; a bullfighter (Rioli), a soldier (Campbell) and the Viceroy (Lament). Each man sees in Camilla their perfect mate---but for completely different reasons---while neither can see Camilla as she sees herself. Romantic jealousies, a colorful recreation of the commedia dell'arte, and an insightful view of the interrelationship between art and life and round out this nearly perfect Renoir film.
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Magnani's jubilation is linked to a change in profession: Freed from whoring, and liberated from a Roman slum, she's got a new gig hawking fruits and vegetables in an open-air market. In her mind it's paradise: Now, at last, she can give her son, 16-year-old Ettore (Ettore Garofolo), the ``respectable life'' she never had.
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Like far too many authors of biographical plays, Theresa Gambacorta fails to cite her sources in her look back at the life of the great but volatile Italian actor Anna Magnani. (There are none listed in the program, and press materials merely say the play was fashioned from "biographical and historical information, primarily available in Italian.") But there's no need to guess where Gambacorta the actor got her acting tips: She must have watched every piece of Magnani film available, probably over and over.
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