It's pretty weird, maybe even a bit nauseating, watching Pier Paolo Pasolini's La ricotta tonight right after spending the last week immersing myself (and blogging about it) in Federico Fellini's 8 1/2. The two films prompt much fascination in the way they complement each other - similar-sounding music, a "film within a film" premise, crowd scenes, sped-up footage sequences, and Fellini himself is even name-checked in an interview sequence involving La ricotta's "star" Orson Welles. But it's a bit like having a rich though unnecessary dessert right after one has gorged upon a lavish and expertly prepared banquet feast, especially since both of their flavors so closely resemble each other. But then, I guess that analogy is fitting, in that La ricotta is a story that involves over-eating, even to the point of illness and death.
Pasolini's short subject was originally released as part of a four-film anthology called RoGoPaG, a condensation of the last names of the four directors involved - Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Ugo Gregoretti and Pier Paolo, of course. The format is similar to the omnibus Love at 20, which the Criterion Collection also cherry-picked to give us Antoine and Colette, Francois Truffaut's exquisite mini-sequel to The 400 Blows, as a stand-alone supplement to the mainline offering. La ricotta is found on Disc 2 of the Mamma Roma DVD package, which may explain why some readers are not familiar with it as a Criterion title. And it begs the question as to why I would grant this half-hour excerpt its own post here on my blog. It's true, I don't often do that - for example, my recent review of This Sporting Life bypassed a few short documentaries made by Lindsay Anderson of similar length that were also included in that release's second disc. Mainly, it's due to my interest in understanding Pasolini, in exploring Italian film of this era, and especially the intriguing involvement of Orson Welles, who plays the role of an American director filming a medievalized, "primitive Catholic" rendition of the crucifixion of Jesus on location in the Italian countryside.
As it turns out, Welles doesn't really do anything all that exciting or memorable in his performance, other than insert his iconic persona into the picture on several occasions, along with a trademark smirk or two that triggers all sorts of pleasant associations in me and presumably other fans of his. His voice is overdubbed, so we don't even get the famously resonant tones to enjoy, but the Italian voice actor who supplies his lines does a decent enough job of impersonation.
Without thinking all that hard about it, I suppose that Pasolini took advantage of the opportunity to cast this legend of the cinema (who knows what kind of financial urgencies compelled Orson to take on this role?) as a way of underscoring his point about the travesty of social justice that was taking place in contemporary Italian culture at the time. What the smug, mutedly pompous director and his company were producing was to be marketed as a pious depiction of pure Christianity, sold to the faithful Catholic populace but created by a cynical bunch who were only in it for the money, or at the very least some exposure in the film industry. Pasolini's satirical reproduction of Renaissance-era paintings of Christ's removal from the cross is quite mild compared to the much more biting parody found a mere fifteen years later in Monty Python's The Life of Brian, but the four-month prison sentence he served for showing "contempt" for the state religion serves as a barometer for just how uptight Italian society was even as the Swingin' Sixties were about to get underway. (His sentence was eventually overturned.)
The gist of La ricotta's story is pretty simple: a poor man named Stracci (translation: "rags") has been cast in the role of the Good Thief, condemned to be crucified alongside Jesus, who nevertheless repents of his sins and asks to be remembered by the Savior when he returns to Paradise. Though his part in the film is relatively minor, it's not without significance. Still, Stracci is rudely taunted and scorned by the various cast members and crew of the production, who seem oblivious to both his poverty and his ravenous hunger.
In spite of his starved condition, Stracci remains generous, giving what little food comes his way first to his wife and children, who are just as economically deprived as their father, but better fed thanks to his sacrificial kindness on their behalf. Still, he neglects to take care of himself, resorting to a desperate ruse to finagle a lunch that wasn't meant for him, only to have it eaten by a dog who discovers the hiding place in which he stashed his meal. Stracci finally does manage to obtain some food, a large hunk of ricotta cheese, which he desperately gobbles up to the delight of his fellow actors and crew members. They mockingly offer him up a portion of their own dinners which he wolfs down voraciously just before he's called upon to shoot his pivotal scene, mounted upon a cross and ready to deliver his memorable line. But the sudden intake of food on an empty stomach, the hot afternoon sun and the strain on his "crucified" body make a fatal combination... though even the tragedy of a death happening right there on the set only serves to satisfy the director's wish for some event that will generate additional publicity-through-controversy for the film.
Knowing what I do about the tangent that Pasolini's career would proceed upon, his implied critique in La ricotta of directors who provoke scandal and outrage for the sake of notoriety seems presciently hypocritical on the surface, though I am not so certain that he ever abandoned his concern for the poor and marginalized members of society. He was a radical, justice-oriented practitioner of Catholicism whose life was deeply imbued with contradictions and tensions that seem to have only been exacerbated over the next decade or so of his life before it came to its brutal, premature end. Indeed, his approach was almost exactly the opposite of what Welles' character was doing, masking his self-absorbed indifference behind the surface of a morbidly conventional presentation of religious traditionalism. La ricotta is admittedly a minor piece of film, but an important prelude to Pasolini's The Gospel According to St. Matthew as it advanced his transition out of the shadow of neorealism into the realms of gaudy, playful and earthy spiritual eroticism that secured his lasting fame and notoriety.
Next: High and Low