Product Details

• Actors: Franco Citti, Franca Pasut, Silvana Corsini, Paola Guidi, Adriana Asti
• Format: Box set, Black & White, DVD, Full Screen, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 3
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Water Bearer Films, Inc
• DVD Release Date: July 22, 2003
• Run Time: 346 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00009Y3PG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,199 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Pier Paolo Pasolini Collection, Vol. 2 (Accatone / The Hawks and the Sparrows / The Gospel According to Saint Matthew)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

PASOLINI VOLUME 2 - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Yet more misfires from Waterbearer, February 1, 2004

By 

Scott Richardson (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pier Paolo Pasolini Collection, Vol. 2 (Accatone / The Hawks and the Sparrows / The Gospel According to Saint Matthew) (DVD)

Unfortunately, Waterbearer didn't correct any of the problems that plagued their first set of Pasolini DVD's: the transfers are all sub-par, with burned-in subtitles (that are sometimes very wrong: did you know that one of the ten commandments is "thou shalt not steel"?) and no chapter stops. The discs are overpriced, especially considering that, despite what it says on the back of the case, none of the discs appear to have undergone any restoration whatsoever.

Pasolini was a master filmmaker, and it's a shame that only one of his films (The Decameron) has a quality Region 1 release. The others (the six released by Waterbearer and Vanguard's release of Medea) are poor transfers that simply don't do justice to this great man's life work.

For now, however, Pasolini fans stuck in Region 1 (I understand superior editions of most of his films exist in Region 2) are limited to these sub-par releases. If you're a Pasolini fan, I'd advise you to buy the discs used, because what Waterbearer's asking for these discs is ridiculous.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 1 masterpiece, 1 exceptional film & 1 controversial fable, November 29, 2003

By 

J. Clark (metro New York City) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pier Paolo Pasolini Collection, Vol. 2 (Accatone / The Hawks and the Sparrows / The Gospel According to Saint Matthew) (DVD)

This three-film box set includes Pasolini's exceptional debut film (ACCATTONE), his first masterpiece - one of the greatest films I have seen (THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW), plus his controversial political fable (THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS). I have written about these DVDs individually elsewhere at Amazon.com. Each disc includes the same half-hour 1970 documentary on Pasolini, but no other features. The Pasolini Foundation in Rome, which controls all rights to these films, supplied the prints: good quality for ACCATTONE and HAWKS but not for THE GOSPEL (my Amazon review offers a suggestion on how to adjust your TV to make it look better). The Pasolini Foundation also had the U.S. distributor release the DVDs without any chapters (i.e., in one continuous track), to encourage people to watch each picture in its entirety. Despite those limitations, all these films are very much worth seeing.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Water Bearer = unconscionable, June 26, 2011

By 

Octave - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pier Paolo Pasolini Collection, Vol. 2 (Accatone / The Hawks and the Sparrows / The Gospel According to Saint Matthew) (DVD)

I concur with Scott Richardson's comments, though it would be helpful to give this item a one-star rating to reflect how poor a job the fly-by-night Water Bearer company has done with this release. (To say the least, I'm not giving the actual films by Pasolini one star; the greatness of the films is the _reason_ this shoddy product should receive one star.) The picture/transfer quality is mediocre, and it is so ridiculous (not merely inconvenient, but _lazy_ and unhelpful to close study of these films) to not include chapter index points. Let me emphasize: you CANNOT SKIP THROUGH THE MOVIE: if you hit the forward "skip" button on your control, the movie begins all over again. _If_ it's true that the Pasolini Foundation requested that chapters be removed---and I cannot remember ever seeing a DVD inhibited this way---then they should just go all the way and only allow the films to be available on 16mm reels for home viewing. Or better yet, just seal them all in a vault so that people can only remember/talk about them. Except that _memory_ includes a "skip" function.

And also, at least on two different-model DVD players I used, the fast-forward (shuttle) option doesn't not work well with these discs, either. (Though it works fine with all other DVDs.)

Just to emphasize the problems with the transfers, let me take one example; I should mentioned that a number of times during the wonderful ACCATONE, with its gorgeous B&W photography; you can see a horizontal, distorted line---like a "warp" in the image---travel from the bottom to the top of the screen. This isn't a flaw in the DVD; it almost seems that the DVD transfer was from a flawed videotape, and nobody bothered to watch the final DVD image before they pressed and released the product.

Finally, and perhaps most egregious, Water Bearer hasn't bothered to use decently formatted subtitles. They are not optional---you can't turn them off, if you happen to know Italian, or if you'd like to re-experience the movie without the distraction of subtitles---and they are in an non-outlined white that becomes almost completely invisible when the compositions of the films (especially B&W film) provide a white or light-colored background to the subtitles. This is absolutely ridiculous, and convinces me that the crooks at Water Bearer don't watch the products that they ask us to pay for. Do they even particularly care about cinema at Water Bearer, or is it a cheap identity-politics/niche-market game? How much more would it cost to simply DO THIS JOB RIGHT? So, to reiterate, if you don't know Italian and _need_ the subtitles, you won't be able to read them easily or at all for long stretches of time; if you know Italian, and would like the subtitles optionally, you _won't_ be able to turn them off. Based on their Pasolini issues, I'd say Water Bearer are amateurs who operate without competence or ethics. Not every independent/foreign/art film distributor needs to operate at the standards of the Criterion Collection, but Water Bearer should be ridiculed out of business for dragging Pasolini through the mud. Better to just downloaded these films illegally. Shame on the Pasolini Foundation, or whoever passes out licenses, for caring so little about the master's legacy; at least in N. America, where Pasolini's style and his messages and his complexity are perhaps more badly needed than anywhere else in the world, still. The life of this complicated, flawed, thoughtful, dissident, humane filmmaker deserves better than a shoddy money-grab.