Rome Journal XIII: Passion

People often reference the lustiness or passion of Rome, to which a Northern city like Milan, which is referred to as cold, industrial, business like, is invidiously compared. But is passion an attribute of climate? Rome with its palm trees definitely exudes as certain tropicality, particularly during the summer when the oppressive temperatures are worsened from the body heat produced by the influx of tourists. But if we are, in fact, weighing our view of Rome towards its geography then we might conclude that Naples and cities in Sicily like Palermo or Siracuse would be all that more bastions of passion. If you read works of the Sicilian born playwright Luigi Pirandello like Six Characters in Search of an Author you might very well conclude that while Rome is a melting pot due to its cosmopolitan atmosphere, Southern Italy is the place where the pot runneth over. Reason and passion, north versus south were traits that the German writer Thomas Mann dealt with in exploring the personality clashes between regions of his own country and it’s probably true that there're more blond Nordic types in Milan than in the south where dark hair and swarthy skin are more common. But the only way to really describe Rome and its particular temperament is to deal with the stage set which the average Roman inhabits. The visitor's first impression of Rome is that he's entered a newly opened branch of Disney World where new rides with names like Circo Massimo,  Colosseo and Foro Romano all compete for our attention. Only this tropical paradise is not an amusement park and we are not in Orlando. So the lustiness of Rome has an almost primeval quality. When you go to an institution like Da Augusto in Trastevere in which patrons wait in line to eat their pollo a la Romana in a densely packed space you partake of a spectacle that feels like it’s thousands of years old. Yes, Rome lives up to its soubriquet. It's really the eternal city and that's also where its passion resides. Look at the face of Anna Magnani, the star of the mythic Pasolini film, Mamma Roma and you begin to understand La Dolce Vita.

Rome Journal I: The Whores of Rome

"Death of the Virgin" by Caravaggio (c.1606)

In ancient times Rome was a palace of debauchery. Gore Vidal wrote the script for Caligula, the story of the emperor who epitomized the debauchery that was Rome. In Mamma Roma, Pier Paolo Pasolini tells the tragic story of a retired prostitute who seeks to better herself and the life of her son. Indeed, the poverty of post-war Rome forced many women into prostitution. But today Rome’s primary business is tourism and as you negotiate your way through the buses of American, German and Japanese tourists who flock to the Colosseum, the Baths of Caracalla and the famed wedding cake, (the monument to Victor Emmanuel II), there’s nary prostitute in sight. Where are the whores of Rome? Well here is a comment on TripAdvisor written by a guest who stayed at a hotel on the Viale Guglielmo Marconi in the EUR, the area where Mussolini built his fascist housing  (remember that scene in Mamma Roma where Anna Magnani goes to locate one of her old sex worker friends in a similar part of town?): “THERE ARE PROSTITUTES ALL UP AND DOWN THE AVENUE!!! SO as you are walking back from the metro to your hotel you are bombarded by women with bras showing and butt cheeks hanging out. I was horrified and immediately felt unsafe.” In an article in The Guardian (“Rome red light district given green light,” 2/7/15) a neighborhood organizer named Cristina Lattanzi, who has lobbied for restrictions and who originally spoke to La Repubblica is quoted thusly, “Eur is already the city’s red light district with more than 20 streets under siege day and night. There are streets for transvestites, streets for very young girls, streets for male prostitution. Us residents need a bit of peace.” So Rome hasn’t really changed since ancient times. It’s just that the prostitutes have merely moved from the great monuments of antiquity, where they once openly plied their trade, to a different part of town.When in Rome...but even in Rome whores today are not what they used to be.

 

Rome Journal XII: Pasolini, Ancora!

she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus

Pasolini’s great masterpiece Mamma Roma was an inadvertent form of mythmaking, that ended up rivaling the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus. The movie begins with Anna Magnani leading three pigs into the wedding feast of her pimp Carmine (Franco Citti). The pigs are laughingly called the "Fratelli d’italia,” the brothers of Italy. But the reception is modeled on da Vinci’s Last Supper and the pigs are a proto-Holy Trinity, comprised of Marxism, Christianity and Antiquity, three elements that the film points to as the driving forces of Roman life. Today Pasolini’s vision holds more true than ever. Up until recently the country was run by a billionaire tycoon whose fortune came from media. He stayed in power longer than any post-war prime minister. The Brigate Rosse are no longer an everyday threat, as they were back in the 70’s when they kidnapped and murdered, Aldo Moro, the Christian Democratic prime minister. But the class divisions in the country are still readily apparent and the disparity between poor and rich underlined in Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century are as evident in Italy’s capital as any place in the world. As for Christianity it’s still a huge force with Pope Francis proving to be a charismatic figure who has extended the political influence of the papacy in a way that may be greater than any time since the Risorgimento. As far as antiquity is concerned, the past is to Italy, what oil is to the Saudis. It constitutes the wealth of the country, both economically, in terms of tourism, but also spiritually to the extent that history is written on literally every street corner and to quote Santayana, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Rome Journal IX: Piazza Tommaso di Cristoforis

photograph by Hallie Cohen

In one of the most moving scenes from Pasolini’s Mamma Roma, Anna Magnani and Ettore Garofolo, who plays her son, stand perched on the edge of opportunity, of a new life which manifests itself in the form of better housing. The scene takes place in front of a dramatic archway leading to a housing unit on the Piazza Tommaso di Cristoforis. We’re on the outskirts of Rome, near the Porta Maggiore—which is one of the ancient entrances to the city. Pasolini’s shots are like tableau vivants which exude a profound sense of place. Antonioni's setups have a similar sense of place, but his movies end up looking like Di Chirico paintings. By contrast, Pasolini’s style, his esthetics, which were as immersed in art history (he studied with art historian Roberto Longhi), also drew their power from the director's left-wing politics. When Pasolini filmed Mamma Roma the area was poor and not far from a church on a long street, Via Casal Bertone. Here he shot the iconic opening scene in which Mamma Roma leads three pigs she calls the “Fratelli d’Italia" into the wedding reception of her pimp, Carmine (Franco Citti). The scene is modeled on da Vinci’s Last Supper, which itself is painted on the wall of Milan’s Santa Maria delle Grazie and records a niche similar to the one which Pasolini created for his movie. Though Piazza Tommaso di Cristoforis is still an outer borough, there’s now a majesty to the location. The apartment house is gated, presided over by a guard and is reminiscent of grand old Upper West Side buildings in Manhattan like the Apthorp, with its courtyard and auspicious entranceway. How times have changed! If you walk from Piazza Tommaso di Cristoforis to Via Casal Bertone you will come to Favole di Pizza at Via Cesare Ricotti, 8. They have sublime slices.

Rome Journal VIII: Aqueduct Park

photograph by Hallie Cohen

If you want to spend an afternoon in Rome watching trains speeding by ancient aqueducts, pick up the B at Circo Massimo change at Termini for the A and get off at Guilio Agricola. Viale Guilio Agricola is a long street that leads to a church at the edge of a place called Aqueduct Park. The park is not far from Cinecitta (the film studio complex in Rome) and perhaps it’s greatest  notoriety derives from the the fact that it was the location for the famed opening scene of La Dolce Vita (1960) where Christ hangs from a helicopter. In Pasolini’s Mamma Roma (1962), it’s the place where Anna Magnani son Ettore (Ettore Garofolo) is savagely beaten before his inamorata Bruna (Silvana Corsini) goes off to have group sex with the victors. The varying ways in which Fellini and Pasolini used the park speaks to the world of difference that characterizes the two directors’ views of post-war Rome. Fellini pictured the city as a circus redolent of hope and a gritty glamour. Pasolini looked at its urbanity through the lens of Marxism and class struggle. Today the Viale Guilio Agricola is lined with housing developments that are reminiscent of Co-op or LeFrak city in New York, the kind of middle class housing in which convenience is traded for affordability. Both the neighborhood and the park itself reveal another side of Rome for the tourist, to the extent that the dwellings and the antiquity partake of a certain quotidian reality. The Circo Massimo may long have outlived its use as a racetrack for chariots, but aqueducts are still a source of water and the streets are inhabited by the kind of people you’re not likely to find starring in La Grand Bellezza  (2013). The Marina Abramovic-like performance artist in La Grand Bellezza  bangs her head against one of the aqueducts in the park.