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At the wedding of her pimp, Carmine (Franco Citti), Mamma Ro' (Anna Magnani) announces her retirement from prostitution. She first returns to her poverty-stricken native village to reclaim her estranged son Ettore (Ettore Garofalo) and then moves into a newly constructed apartment complex in Rome. Mamma's tragicomic attempts to create a new life for herself meet with a variety of obstacles: her struggle to pay her bills, the return of Carmine into her life, Ettore s listlessness and his friendship with lowlifes and vagabonds. Set among Rome's borgate, a counter-culture of the city's lower depths, Mamma Roma depicts the social impact of emerging middle-class values in its ironic story of a mother's love for her child.
Pier Paolo Pasolini's iconoclastic vision renders the world of the borgate - a world of criminals, prostitutes and pimps - with the sacred elegance of religious paintings by Renaissance masters. This seeming lack of judgment towards society s reprobates made his work deeply controversial. Equally subversive is the casting of Oscar winning actress Anna Magnani. An Italian national treasure, her brilliant performance endows her character with the mythic dimension inherent in the name Mamma Roma.
Review
Forget Black Swan's smothering mother and the helmet-haired harridan of The Fighter; when it comes to maternal messiness currently at a theater near you, these women can' t hold an altar candle to Anna Magnani's Mamma Roma --Time Out
Compared to Anna Magnani, most film actresses look half-dead. Erupting with lust, laughter and carnivorous pleasure, the great Italian star had a diva's hauteur, a peasant bawd's temperament and a knack for obliterating any actor who dared to share the screen with her --San Francisco Chronicle
Hell hath no fury like Mamma Roma, the virago played so stormily by Anna Magnani ... seethes with the sensuality and dark iconoclasm --New York Times
Compared to Anna Magnani, most film actresses look half-dead. Erupting with lust, laughter and carnivorous pleasure, the great Italian star had a diva's hauteur, a peasant bawd's temperament and a knack for obliterating any actor who dared to share the screen with her --San Francisco Chronicle
Hell hath no fury like Mamma Roma, the virago played so stormily by Anna Magnani ... seethes with the sensuality and dark iconoclasm --New York Times
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Tim Kidner
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:DVD
One of the main things I noticed about Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1962 film is how many similarities it has with Fellini's 'Nights of Cabiria', which was made five years earlier.
Not least of all, the feisty Anna Magnani as the 40 something whore of the title, nick-named presumably due to her reputation as the best working woman in Rome. She also desperately wants to retire, set up a fruit and veg stall and finally, get to know her teenage son.
Then, there's the modern, on 'the edge of town' high-rise flats and wasteland that borders them. Many Italian directors of the day used such locations, presumably as they were easy to film on and probably didn't require the expense and red-tape of getting permission to film in the City itself. But, those landscapes show a universal sort of hinterland, between poverty and modernism and their ugly sparseness helps us concentrate on the human figures we're watching.
Giuletta Masina, as Fellini's real-life wife then, in comparison, also tries to retire but her romantic ideals go astray and she just heads for heartache, whilst Mamma Rosa wants to see the son that his father never saw. She feels guilty over her neglect and naturally wants him to steer a course away from the wayward life that she has lived.
Unfortunately, these ideals slip a little - her persistent pimp notwithstanding, as she relies more and more on using her rather dodgy contacts and past liaisons to achieve her goal. The boy, sickly as a young child, Ettore (Ettore Garofolo) is, frankly not a handsome lad and when he gets to know a plain local girl who doesn't quite meet with his mother's high ideals, she asks a much prettier call-girl to introduce him to women for the first time, if you get my drift.... Read more ›
Not least of all, the feisty Anna Magnani as the 40 something whore of the title, nick-named presumably due to her reputation as the best working woman in Rome. She also desperately wants to retire, set up a fruit and veg stall and finally, get to know her teenage son.
Then, there's the modern, on 'the edge of town' high-rise flats and wasteland that borders them. Many Italian directors of the day used such locations, presumably as they were easy to film on and probably didn't require the expense and red-tape of getting permission to film in the City itself. But, those landscapes show a universal sort of hinterland, between poverty and modernism and their ugly sparseness helps us concentrate on the human figures we're watching.
Giuletta Masina, as Fellini's real-life wife then, in comparison, also tries to retire but her romantic ideals go astray and she just heads for heartache, whilst Mamma Rosa wants to see the son that his father never saw. She feels guilty over her neglect and naturally wants him to steer a course away from the wayward life that she has lived.
Unfortunately, these ideals slip a little - her persistent pimp notwithstanding, as she relies more and more on using her rather dodgy contacts and past liaisons to achieve her goal. The boy, sickly as a young child, Ettore (Ettore Garofolo) is, frankly not a handsome lad and when he gets to know a plain local girl who doesn't quite meet with his mother's high ideals, she asks a much prettier call-girl to introduce him to women for the first time, if you get my drift.... Read more ›
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Mamma Roma is an Italian film about a mother and her son. The story starts out at a wedding, where Mamma Roma is there to haunt her ex-husband and his new bride. Momma Roma is a loud woman that is often on the crude side. She brings three pigs and tells the guests the in-laws have finally arrived. Mamma makes many jabs and jokes about the couple, and we soon see she had a son with this man, who witnesses this entire spectacle even if he doesn't fully understand it.
The story resumes when her son Ettore is now a teenager and Mamma Roma wants to give him a chance to get away from the country life to live with her in Rome. Ettore is set in his ways by this point, so it isn't easy to mold him into something else. Although Ettore walks like a tough guy and is always giving some cold looks to those he meets, he is naive and inexperienced, and his mother knows this.
There are a couple scenes that approach having a surrealistic feeling where Mamma Roma is walking at night. There are many lampposts in the background that give off their light, and as Mamma Roma walks, there always seems to be more of the same lights everywhere. She talks to someone next to her and as one person leaves, another comes. But as the lights in the background still look more or less the same, it seems she hardly went anywhere at all. It makes an interesting backdrop as Momma tells her life story to people on the street.
Mamma Roma is haunted by her past; she was a prostitute and her reputation still follows her. Roma takes many steps to better her life and she wants the same for her son, but shaking free of the past isn't easy. Ironically, Ettore is attracted to a young woman that has the reputation of sleeping with the entire city.... Read more ›
The story resumes when her son Ettore is now a teenager and Mamma Roma wants to give him a chance to get away from the country life to live with her in Rome. Ettore is set in his ways by this point, so it isn't easy to mold him into something else. Although Ettore walks like a tough guy and is always giving some cold looks to those he meets, he is naive and inexperienced, and his mother knows this.
There are a couple scenes that approach having a surrealistic feeling where Mamma Roma is walking at night. There are many lampposts in the background that give off their light, and as Mamma Roma walks, there always seems to be more of the same lights everywhere. She talks to someone next to her and as one person leaves, another comes. But as the lights in the background still look more or less the same, it seems she hardly went anywhere at all. It makes an interesting backdrop as Momma tells her life story to people on the street.
Mamma Roma is haunted by her past; she was a prostitute and her reputation still follows her. Roma takes many steps to better her life and she wants the same for her son, but shaking free of the past isn't easy. Ironically, Ettore is attracted to a young woman that has the reputation of sleeping with the entire city.... Read more ›
2 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Maybe MAGNINI is an excellent actress but the environment of this film is so unremittingly without anything pleasant that her talents are wasted. Her son, on whom she dotes, is without redeeming features.
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