Pasolini’s Wastelands

This chapter analyses peri-urban spaces, for example the Pigneto district in Accattone, and Cecafumo in Mamma Roma. Weeds, huge mounds of dirt, architectural remains or ruins of the past: Pasolini’s vacant lots are undefined, abandoned spaces. They may be disorganized, but they are also territories where ruins and wastelands, past and future coexist. This chapter emphasizes that it is therefore not apt to associate exclusively the vacant lot, in Pasolini, with notions of disappearance and dereliction. This chapter invokes the notion of the “non-place” (Marc Augé) and shows that in Mamma Roma, the wasteland that is the central location of the film does not amount to a non-place. Pasolini establishes a cinematographically balanced situation, wherein humans and places stand in perceptual equality – and the wasteland is the fulcrum: its function is to be a daily landmark, rather than an occasional crossing point.