The Grim Reaper (La commare secca)Bertolucci's directorial debut, at 21 years of age, followed his formal initiation into cinema as Assistant Director to Pier Paolo Pasolini during production of Accattone (1961). Bertolucci collaborated with screenwriter Sergio Citti (Accattone, Saló) on the script for La commare secca, which elaborated on a treatment by Pasolini centering on a police investigation following the violent death of a Roman streetwalker.
Weeks before the film's unveiling at the 1962 Venice Film Festival, Bertolucci received the coveted Viareggio Prize for poetry following publication of his first collection of poetry, In cerca del mistero (In Search of Mystery). As he was the eldest son of celebrated poet, Attilio Bertolucci, the younger Bertolucci's precocious literary and filmmaking talents elicited undue scepticism from certain quarters of Italy's mainstream press.
Despite Bertolucci's conscious and highly assured attempts to impress his own visual style upon La commare secca, Italian critics of the time overwhelmingly concentrated on the film's "Pasolinian" Roman milieu and characters.
Notwithstanding inevitable comparisons to his mentor - whom Bertolucci held in the highest esteem - the film's remarkably fluid camerawork, intuitive use of temporal shifts and visually striking excursions into lyricism signalled the emergence of a style that would become Bertolucci's signature aesthetic.
New 35mm print.
