Pasolini’s magnificent directorial debut, a chronicle of the life of a petty criminal and pimp, reveals the young director’s indebtedness to postwar Italian neo-realism with its episodic narrative, location shooting on city streets and use of nonprofessional actors. Much remarked at the time was Pasolini’s then-startling use of stately music by Bach on the soundtrack to accompany contemporary urban squalor and the static frontal shots that often evoke early Renaissance painting and immediately stamp Accattone with Pasolini’s distinctive style. In his first screen appearance, Franco Citti as the pimp establishes himself as the most important member of Pasolini’s ensemble of actors.