#109
Italy | 89 min.
1.85:1 OAR anamorphic
black & white
monaural
Special Features
• New high-definition transfer in the film’s original aspect ratio
• Original Italian theatrical trailer
• Newly translated optional English subtitles
• 28-PAGE BOOKLET featuring a new essay on the film by critic and scholar Pasquale Iannone; a 1969 interview by Oswald Stack with the director about the film; a new English translation by Iannone of a 1974 interview with Pasolini discussing the film’s star Totò; and rare archival imagery.
Hawks and Sparrows
Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1966
One of the handful of films that found Pier Paolo Pasolini sustaining a merrier mode of cultural assault, Hawks and Sparrows [Uccellacci e uccellini] features Italy’s popular comic actor Totò (known to cinephiles as the star of Roberto Rossellini’s Dov’è la liberta…?) and Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli in a picaresque fable that lampoons politics, religion, and the legacy of neorealism.
A crow gifted with the power of speech accompanies wandering duo Totò and Ninetto on a trail that leads to their roles as Franciscan friars who preach to the literal “hawks and sparrows”, before returning in time to gaze upon slum-dwellers, Danteist dentists, itinerant actor-hippies, and, ultimately, the state of the modern world.
Featuring a score by the legendary Ennio Morricone, Pasolini’s anarchic comedy remains a time-capsule of the giddy tensions torqued by the dawn of the late Sixties. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Hawks and Sparrows in a special DVD edition from a new HD master.