A Vision Before Death
Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1966 allegorical film, Uccellacci e uccellini (Hawks and Sparrows), presents the difficulty of interpreting an enormous range of ideas from the mind of a filmmaker who simultaneously displayed in his films a gift for visual poetry and a direct polemical approach, the two methods merging in a dialectical framework both challenging to mind and emotions. In Hawks and Sparrows, this synthesis produces an overall structure that makes the film both intellectually vibrant but also hard to fathom, at least after one viewing.
Still, even as I didn't understand much of it, I found the situations and performances enjoyable to watch; the director's eye, too, performs with an effort towards making the world look fascinating, as in every other Pasolini film. Some of his movies depict as backgrounds what could be called the Cinema of Rundown Locations. Junk heaps, shacks, the stasis of poverty. Being a Marxist, Pasolini's concern for the welfare of the proletariat and of the sub-proletariat, of rough workers and prostitutes, the ordinary folk of industrialized nations run from the top on down, comes through, I think, in all of his movies.
In Hawks and Sparrows we see society (with a comparison in the film's middle to medieval society) through the movements down the road of life (a literal dusty road like a path Charles Chaplin's Tramp character walks) of a father (Totò) and his son (Ninetto Davoli). Totò, the Italian film comedian, and the relative acting newcomer, Davoli, make a good pair, the former a glum-faced little man, the latter a curly-headed bright-eyed boy-man always ready to smile and always easily moved by the beauties of the world. He represents faith, religion, God's vitality. The father, with his concerns as a landlord (in one sequence), his darker views, brings in a political thrust. Along comes a crow who speaks like a left-wing intellectual. In Oswald Stack's book of interviews with Pasolini, the director speaks about the difficulties of working with the trained crow, but also says the bird's statements are like what Pasolini thinks himself.
The three travelers walk on and on, the bird tells them a story about St. Francis of Assisi from the thirteenth century. Due to cinema magic, we're in the story, with father and son as monks receiving instructions from Francis to preach to and convert hawks and sparrows. This plays on the hagiographic stories of Francis himself preaching to animals. In the film, after many tries, the monks finally communicate with the hawks, apparently converting them. They work on the sparrows next, using the hopping motion of the birds to convert them to worship of God. A hawk goes after and kills a sparrow, showing how the Christians' efforts ran up against the essential nature of the aggressor-type, thus reflecting humankind's dual nature, the angel that makes machine guns.
The film's experimentalism, its use of symbols, of parody (Jesus's contention with the moneychangers in the Temple is acted out by Totò), its use of fast and slow motion, the usual Pasolini close-ups of ordinary people with their non-movie star faces, can be seen too in his inclusion of documentary footage of the funeral of Palmiro Togliatti, the head of Italian Communist Party from 1927 to 1964. The authentic footage has a religious feel to it even though it's about the death of a Marxist.
Hawks and Sparrows, strangely, is presented as a comedy, but it's not funny overall. There are amusing moments, certainly, perhaps the best of these being the opening credits, with music by Ennio Morricone; a song sung comic opera style the lyrics of which are the credits themselves, including the names of actors as well as technical crew, all sung with equal gusto, putting everybody, even the bigwig producer, on the same level. This bold beginning to a film prepares the viewer for anything to come. The father and son walking on the endless road shows right away that the struggles of humankind, of the tensions between worship of God and obedience to the State, continue on and on, as the optimistically faithful try to make something of the worldly limitations placed upon all of us by organized power systems, including, I imagine Pasolini would agree, the excesses of Marxism.
Vic Neptune
Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1966 allegorical film, Uccellacci e uccellini (Hawks and Sparrows), presents the difficulty of interpreting an enormous range of ideas from the mind of a filmmaker who simultaneously displayed in his films a gift for visual poetry and a direct polemical approach, the two methods merging in a dialectical framework both challenging to mind and emotions. In Hawks and Sparrows, this synthesis produces an overall structure that makes the film both intellectually vibrant but also hard to fathom, at least after one viewing.
Still, even as I didn't understand much of it, I found the situations and performances enjoyable to watch; the director's eye, too, performs with an effort towards making the world look fascinating, as in every other Pasolini film. Some of his movies depict as backgrounds what could be called the Cinema of Rundown Locations. Junk heaps, shacks, the stasis of poverty. Being a Marxist, Pasolini's concern for the welfare of the proletariat and of the sub-proletariat, of rough workers and prostitutes, the ordinary folk of industrialized nations run from the top on down, comes through, I think, in all of his movies.
In Hawks and Sparrows we see society (with a comparison in the film's middle to medieval society) through the movements down the road of life (a literal dusty road like a path Charles Chaplin's Tramp character walks) of a father (Totò) and his son (Ninetto Davoli). Totò, the Italian film comedian, and the relative acting newcomer, Davoli, make a good pair, the former a glum-faced little man, the latter a curly-headed bright-eyed boy-man always ready to smile and always easily moved by the beauties of the world. He represents faith, religion, God's vitality. The father, with his concerns as a landlord (in one sequence), his darker views, brings in a political thrust. Along comes a crow who speaks like a left-wing intellectual. In Oswald Stack's book of interviews with Pasolini, the director speaks about the difficulties of working with the trained crow, but also says the bird's statements are like what Pasolini thinks himself.
The three travelers walk on and on, the bird tells them a story about St. Francis of Assisi from the thirteenth century. Due to cinema magic, we're in the story, with father and son as monks receiving instructions from Francis to preach to and convert hawks and sparrows. This plays on the hagiographic stories of Francis himself preaching to animals. In the film, after many tries, the monks finally communicate with the hawks, apparently converting them. They work on the sparrows next, using the hopping motion of the birds to convert them to worship of God. A hawk goes after and kills a sparrow, showing how the Christians' efforts ran up against the essential nature of the aggressor-type, thus reflecting humankind's dual nature, the angel that makes machine guns.
The film's experimentalism, its use of symbols, of parody (Jesus's contention with the moneychangers in the Temple is acted out by Totò), its use of fast and slow motion, the usual Pasolini close-ups of ordinary people with their non-movie star faces, can be seen too in his inclusion of documentary footage of the funeral of Palmiro Togliatti, the head of Italian Communist Party from 1927 to 1964. The authentic footage has a religious feel to it even though it's about the death of a Marxist.
Hawks and Sparrows, strangely, is presented as a comedy, but it's not funny overall. There are amusing moments, certainly, perhaps the best of these being the opening credits, with music by Ennio Morricone; a song sung comic opera style the lyrics of which are the credits themselves, including the names of actors as well as technical crew, all sung with equal gusto, putting everybody, even the bigwig producer, on the same level. This bold beginning to a film prepares the viewer for anything to come. The father and son walking on the endless road shows right away that the struggles of humankind, of the tensions between worship of God and obedience to the State, continue on and on, as the optimistically faithful try to make something of the worldly limitations placed upon all of us by organized power systems, including, I imagine Pasolini would agree, the excesses of Marxism.
Vic Neptune
Comments
Post a Comment