In 1961, twenty-one-year-old Bernardo Bertolucci found himself assistant director to Pier Paolo Pasolini on Accattone. For both aspiring poet and established master, this would mean a shift from the written page to the cinema screen. For his next film, Pasolini devised the story of a prostitute's cruel murder and the intricate interrogation that follows. When a change of mind diverted Pasolini to Mamma Roma, Bertolucci inherited the project. Though it shares similarities with Kurosawa's Rashomon (July 2), the lyrical plotting of La commare secca is not a retelling of the murder, but an accumulation of details gained from each suspect's piece of this unsavory puzzle. A wooded park along the Tiber is the scene of the crime and those who were in proximity each had their own seedy intentions––the unemployed roustabouts killing time, a soldier on leave cruising, lovers necking in a secluded dell, a gay man looking for company. The fluidity with which Bertolucci intertwines these stark testimonies is startling and each is interrupted by an afternoon thunderstorm, a poetic reminder that grim death will always recur.