Rogopag

Rosselini's "Chastity" deals with an attractive air hostess who receives the unwelcome attentions of a middle aged American. Godard's "New World" illustrates a post-apocalypse world the same as the pre-apocalyptic one but for an enigmatic change in attitude in most people, including the central character's girlfriend. In Pasolini's "Curd Cheese", a lavish film about the life of Jesus Christ is being made in a poor area. The impoverished people subject themselves to various indignities in the name of movie-making in order to win a little food. The central character is hoisted up on a cross for filming, and dies there. Finally comes Gregoretti's "Free Range Chicken" in which a family of the materialist culture inadvertently illustrate the cynical, metallic voiced doctrine of a top sales theorist.

If IMDb is to be believed, not too many people have actually seen this film. And I have to wonder why, when it has three or four of the biggest names in Italian cinema, not to mention Orson Welles. This makes a great introduction to Italian film for those who need such an introduction. Others have compared it to "Four Rooms", which is an interesting parallel. Stylistically, the two have nothing in common, but it does have that interesting approach of four different directors creating one film...

I think Godard's segment is the best of this quartet: it is a quiet but powerful science-fiction story of the kind "The Twilight Zone" would have aired if that show were half as cerebral as it pretended to be. It reminds me a bit of Chris Marker's "La Jetee." Pasolini's film, by contrast, is of little interest to those of us who aren't tortured ex-Catholics; Rosselini's is pointless and boring; and Gregoretti's is a belabored presentation of a single joke -- and not a particularly funny or insightful joke at that.

Four short films by three Italians and one Jean-Luc Godard on our "new" era still seem fresh (especially Gregoretti's segment) after nearly thirty years. They all share the pessimistic thread that the world is becoming worse and individuals no longer control the course of their own lives. Each part is engrossing, yet The Range-Grown Chicken (Part IV) is particularly brilliant. Structuring a film on consumerism from the perspectives of a commercially bombarded father and a capitalist professor sets up a great division between consumerism and free will. Overall, interesting and worth seeing.

The short movie "La Ricotta" (the curd cheese) is one of four films by four Italian directors in a move called "Ro.Go.Pa.G (1963). Pier Paolo Pasolini directed this segment.

This is a movie about making a movie. Pasolini's film-within-a-film is about the death of Jesus. Orson Welles portrays the director of this movie. I read that we're supposed to understand that his career has declined to the point where he can only make low-budget movies in Italy. (That's reasonable enough, although I don't understand how we would know that.)

In Welles' movie, we learn that, with the exception of a few stars, who play Mary and Mary Magdalene, the rest of the cast are supposed to be local people from the surrounding poor community. (Some of them may actually be those local people, but one of the angels is played by Ettore Garofolo, who co-starred with Anna Magnani in "Mama Rosa.")

Mario Cipriani stars as Stracci, the character who portrays the Good Thief. There is a running joke throughout the movie about Stracci somehow missing out on every meal. He ultimately steals a dog and sells it to make money. Then he buys an immense amount of cheese. (That's where the title of "La Ricotta" comes from.)

The movie switches back and forth between color for the movie-within-a-movie, and black and white for the movie itself.

The whole movie has a rough, slapped together quality about it. It's not a great film, although reviewers who have seen all four segments say it's the best one.

We saw this film on the smal screen, because it was a bonus DVD packaged with the Pasolini movie "Mama Rosa." Mama Rosa is worth seeing. If you buy it as part of the Criterion Collection, you will have "La Ricotta." Because it's short, and it's there, I would watch it. I don't think it's worth seeking out otherwise.

In all, RoGoPaG is not a great film, but Pier Paolo Pasolini's segment, "La ricotta", is one of the controversial Italian director's best film alogside his "Momma Roma", "Accatone", "Teorema", and (many others will disagree and appalled with this) "Salo". It works as a parody on Hollywood-styled religious epics, false religious faith, harsh life of the lower class, and revelation on the bitterness of life as an outsider (with Orson Welles playing a director and with his reading of Pasolini's poem from "Momma Roma" to a reporter who cared nothing but useless interviews). It's a multi-layered film, but is also enjoyable. (As a footnote, the segment was condemned by the Italian Catholic church and the entire film was held from release until the segment was edited slightly. It is not, however, in any way, blasphemous.)