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The Hawks and the Sparrows

Totò (Actor), Ninetto Davoli (Actor), Pier Paolo Pasolini (Director) Rated:
Unrated
Format: DVD
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 18 ratings
IMDb7.2/10.0
$69.99
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July 22, 2003 		—
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Product Description

Product Description

THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS, a wild comic fable, stars the beloved stone faced clown Toto as an Italian everyman, and Ninetto Davoli as his good natured but empty headed son. Pasolini uses a comic crow, which philosophizes amusingly and pointedly about the passing scene, as a counterpoint to the performers, representing humanity, as they progress down the road of life. Pasolini presents a tragic fable which shows two delightful innocents caught, like many Italians, between the Church and Marxism.

Review

Complex, Mystical and fascinating. --The New York Times

Product details

  • Aspect Ratio ‏ : ‎ 1.85:1
  • Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
  • MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ Unrated (Not Rated)
  • Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.25 x 5.75 x 0.5 inches; 4 ounces
  • Item model number ‏ : ‎ WBF14039DVD
  • Director ‏ : ‎ Pier Paolo Pasolini
  • Media Format ‏ : ‎ Black & White, Multiple Formats, NTSC, Letterboxed, Widescreen, Subtitled
  • Run time ‏ : ‎ 1 hour and 28 minutes
  • Release date ‏ : ‎ July 22, 2003
  • Actors ‏ : ‎ Totò, Ninetto Davoli, Femi Benussi, Rossana Di Rocco, Renato Capogna
  • Subtitles: ‏ : ‎ English
  • Language ‏ : ‎ Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0)
  • Studio ‏ : ‎ Water Bearer Films, Inc
  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00009Y3PO
  • Number of discs ‏ : ‎ 1
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
18 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Tirso
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2015
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A film that requires more than one viewing.
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Derek Hunter
5.0 out of 5 stars but at the same time it has his same beautiful and dark vision of humanity
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2016
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An early gem from Pasolini, very different on the surface from his later films, but at the same time it has his same beautiful and dark vision of humanity.
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Yiannis P
1.0 out of 5 stars Passolini's work is just pssable at best
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2016
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I believe that Pier Paolo Pasolini is one of the most overrated film directors that ever existed. I have yet to see one of his works that I enjoyed. The untrained people he hired to act in his movies are invariably very bad actors. The storyline is usually pretentiously iconoclastic, but could better be defined as nonexistent. For every one passably funny scene, a viewer has to endure ten others of pure boredom. Basta! 1 star
One person found this helpful
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luijendijk
3.0 out of 5 stars Slow because old but good
Reviewed in the United States on October 5, 2013
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Film of the '60's. Slow of course but with very interesting dialogues. Religious matters (Catholic) and typical views of Italy.
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J. Clark
4.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing but flawed; definitely worth seeing
Reviewed in the United States on November 29, 2003
Although I find Pasolini a brilliant, provocative, and at times sublime filmmaker, I have a hard time connecting with The Hawks and the Sparrows. Of course, some viewers are passionately devoted to it and, like all of Pasolini's films, it is definitely worth seeing. It's an episodic tale of a dotty father (legendary Italian comedian Totò), his rambunctious teenage son (Ninetto Davoli, who appeared in 11 of Pasolini's films and was his lover), and a talking crow (with a passion for alluding to Marx, Brecht, and Mao) who become involved in a series of comic misadventures. Some of the film is very funny, and it works well visually and musically (score by the great Ennio Morricone), but overall it feels at once ponderous yet underdeveloped. Pasolini had set out to make an ideological comedy but, as he remarked in a 1968 interview, "perhaps it came out too 'ideo-' and not 'comic' enough." Exactly!
Some of the most effective elements derive from Pasolini's love of early comedy. The first shot, with Totò and son walking along an endless dusty road, seems to pick up where Chaplin's Modern Times (1936) left off. Totò's stony yet expressive, and hilarious, face brings to mind both Buster Keaton and, surreally, a bird (with a title like this, that means something). Ninetto Davoli is a perfect foil. He is all laughter and devil-may-care hijinks, injecting the film - often set in one form of wasteland or another - with the spirit of youth although, significantly, it is not a spirit of rebellion but more a last burst of steam being let off before following, literally and otherwise, in his father's footsteps. One of the most energetic scenes comes at the beginning, when Ninetto joins a group of teenage boys practicing a line dance to a sassy pop tune. Despite the vitality of this musical number, it shows that he is all too eager to conform his own energy to the group. In Pasolini, as in life, almost everything has multiple, and sometimes paradoxical, meanings.
The film provides ample, if often contrived, opportunities for comedy, but it is often of a violent kind, both emotionally and physically, and reminds us of Theatre of the Absurd. Playwrights like Beckett, Ionesco, and Genet clearly provided Pasolini with a philosophical blueprint for this picture, with their Existential vision of the harsh ridiculousness of life, as well as their subversive style (including illogical, even fantastical plots) that undercuts both dramatic form and the assumptions of their audience. Absurdly, the form of Totò and son's journey - like the structure of the film itself - is a giant loop, as they travel around and around Rome's periphery; always moving but never really getting anywhere. The symbolism is both obvious yet vague.
With Pasolini's encyclopedic knowledge of history and all the arts, the film could also be seen as his unique take on a favorite poet (Pasolini was himself called the greatest postwar Italian poet). Note the central episode at the grotesque, and Felliniesque, Conference of Dentists for Dante. The misadventures of Totò and son could be Pasolini's update of sections from the Divine Comedy's Inferno and especially Purgatorio sections. The omnipresent road in this film lies between two areas, Rome and the countryside, as Purgatory lies between hell and heaven. Like the damned souls in hell, and some of the luckier ones in Purgatory (where so many of the world's great, but not purely-Christian-enough, artists hang out, including Giotto - whom Pasolini played in his film of The Decameron), father and son walk in circles. If they never learn from their mistakes, they'll remain in a Hell of repetitive alienation; but if they do, and can "Purge" themselves of their ignorant and sinful ways (Pasolini's conception of "sin" is more sociopolitical than spiritual), then maybe they can finally catch one of those buses which they're always missing and get out of wherever they are.
The central symbol is, of course, the one in the title, which Pasolini dramatizes in a lengthy film-within-the-film set in the middle ages. But what are we to make of the hawks and the sparrows? The title suggests a kind of symbiotic relationship between predator and prey, even as it symbolizes the two great tendencies within Italian culture and, to a lesser degree, within Pasolini himself: Catholicism and Marxism, and the violence which can result when they clash. But which group do the hawks represent, and which the sparrows? Pasolini keeps the ambiguity coming, as he shows how each group contains elements of both victimizer and victim. Paralleling that, we see father and son in a similarly fraught dual role: They victimize the poor woman when trying to collect her rent, and are in turn victimized by their boss, the landlord. That vicious circle connects not only with all of the circular/repetitive elements in this film, but with most of Pasolini's works, beginning with the beguiling victimizer/victim Accattone in his first film.
But Pasolini needed to flesh out his ideas, to embody them in living, breathing people. Then the comedy might have been funnier, the film might have had a more visceral impact, making its intriguing political and philosophical points more meaningful. Despite my personal reservations (which are certainly not shared by all of Pasolini's admirers), I hope that you will watch this picture and see what you think.
[3-1/2 stars rounded up to 4]
17 people found this helpful
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candice donnelly
5.0 out of 5 stars toto genius
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2017
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toto , one of the most brilliant actors, almost unknown in america .
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Galina
4.0 out of 5 stars The art of not talking too seriously about serious matters
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2007
"Uccellacci e uccellini" aka "The Hawks and the Sparrows" (1964) - directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

This is a movie that begins like no other introducing the cast and the crew in the manner that is charming, original, melodious and promising of even better things to follow. The fun begins actually with its Italian title, "Uccellacci e uccellini". I don't know about you but the sound of the title simply makes me smile, it sounds like the birds themselves whispered or chirped it to the Pasolini's ear. It is possible to make a satirical philosophical fable concerned with the serious and even grave matters as religion, social and political systems and the order of things and at the same time highly enjoyable, often hilarious, sometimes sorrowful, always original, in one word -Pasolinesque. "Uccellacci e uccellini" talks about desires, death, the meaning of life, Christianity, and Marxism but first and foremost, it entertains. It is about a father (Italian clown Toto) and his young and naive son (Nino Davoli) whom Pasolini sends to the endless cyclical journey on the road of life where they soon will be joined by a talking crow, will be catapulted 750 years back in time and by the request of ST.Francis, they would become two saints (Toto with his clown's face makes a great saint) who would teach the birds (the hawks and the sparrows) the word of God, in the birds' language, of course. The birds seem to agree and accept the words of love but as we know the love comes and goes but everyone (including birds) has to eat and the hunger does not help to improve the understanding between the hawks and the sparrows and between the humans and the crows, even the talking crows. Some were born to kill and to eat the others and there is not much could be changed about it. Two men will be magically returned back to the present time, will go to funeral, will see the baby born, will meet a beautiful desirable girl named Luna who reminds them how divine the fresh hay smells and how much fun it is to make love in it... Their journey would end where it began and on and on and on they go around the world in circles turning. As for the talking crows, "Takers and fakers and talkers won't tell you. Teachers and preachers will just buy and sell you. When no one can tempt you with heaven or hell- You'll be a lucky man!"
3 people found this helpful
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hoomy
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2014
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A must seen movie.
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