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THE RAGAZZI by Pier Paolo Pasolini

THE RAGAZZI

By

Pub Date: Sept. 1st, 1968
ISBN: 1857549724
Publisher: Grove

Out of a depressed area--Rome after World War II, a downright depressing story of a group of slouching, swaggering toughs--the Ragazzi of the title. Scavenging in garbage cans, stealing manhole covers they later sell to the junk dealer, swimming, swearing, whoring, these pubescent youths include Marcello, who bartends on the side, and is a light accident victim of a crumbling school building; Amerigo who is shot by the carabinieri; Alduccio whose home scene is as dismal as the streets; and above all Riccetto, seemingly, the most assured and resilient of them all who begins by assisting at a gambler's card games, ends witnessing a younger boy's death in the river ""full of foam, sawdust and burned oil."" Mr. Pasolini is a film director and this is a graphic montage; it is also realismo Italian style, at a price. . . inattention? indifference?