Pier Paolo Pasolini
Encyclopedia
Pier Paolo Pasolini was an Italian
film director
, poet
, writer
, and intellectual
. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist
, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright
, filmmaker, newspaper
and magazine
columnist
, actor
, painter
and political figure. He demonstrated a unique and extraordinary cultural versatility, becoming a highly controversial figure in the process.
, traditionally one of the most leftist of Italian cities. He was the son of a lieutenant
of the Italian Army
, Carlo Alberto, who had become famous for saving Benito Mussolini
's life during Anteo Zamboni
's assassination attempt, and subsequently married an elementary school teacher, Susanna Colussi, in 1921. Pasolini was born in 1922 and was named after his paternal uncle. His family moved to Conegliano
in 1923 and, two years later, to Belluno
, where another son, Guidalberto, was born. In 1926, Pasolini's father was arrested for gambling debts, and his mother took the children to her family's house in Casarsa della Delizia
, in the Friuli
region.
Pasolini began writing poems at the age of seven, inspired by the natural beauty of Casarsa. One of his early influences was the work of Arthur Rimbaud
. In 1933 his father was transferred to Cremona
, and later to Scandiano
and Reggio Emilia
. Pasolini found it difficult to adapt to all these moves, though in the meantime he enlarged his poetry and literature readings (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy
, Shakespeare, Coleridge
, Novalis
) and left behind the religious fervour of his early years. In the Reggio Emilia high school, he met his first true friend, Luciano Serra. The two met again in Bologna, where Pasolini spent seven years while completing high school: here he cultivated new passions, including football. With other friends, including Ermes Parini, Franco Farolfi, Elio Meli, he formed a group dedicated to literary discussions.
In 1939 Pasolini graduated and entered the Literature College of the University of Bologna
, discovering new themes such as philology
and aesthetics
of figurative art
s. He also frequented the local cinema club. Pasolini always showed his friends a virile and strong exterior, totally hiding his interior travail. He took part in the Fascist government's culture and sports competitions. In 1941, together with Francesco Leonetti, Roberto Roversi and others, he attempted to publish a poetry magazine, but the attempt failed due to paper shortages. In his poems of this period, Pasolini started to include fragments in Friulian
, which he had learned from his mother.
and Antonio Russi. His pictures had also been well received. Pasolini was chief editor of the Il Setaccio ("The Sieve") magazine, but was fired after conflicts with the director, who was aligned with the Fascist regime. A trip to Germany helped him also to discover the "provincial" status of Italian culture in that era. These experiences led Pasolini to rethink his opinion about the cultural politics of Fascism and to switch gradually to a Communist
position.
In 1942, the family took shelter in Casarsa, considered a more tranquil place to wait for the conclusion of the war
, a decision common among Italian military families. Here, for the first time, Pasolini had to face the erotic disquiet he had suppressed during his adolescent years. He wrote: "A continuous perturbation without images or words beats at my temples and obscures me".
In the weeks before the 8 September armistice, Pasolini was drafted. He was captured and imprisoned by the Germans
. He managed to escape disguised as a peasant, and found his way to Casarsa. Here he joined a group of other young fans of the Friulian language who wanted to give Casarsa Friulian a status equal to that of Udine
, the official regional dialect. From May 1944 they issued a magazine entitled Stroligùt di cà da l'aga. In the meantime, Casarsa suffered Allied bombardments and forced enrollments by the Italian Social Republic
, as well as partisan
activity.
Pasolini tried to remain apart from these events. He and his mother taught students unable to reach the schools in Pordenone
or Udine
. He experienced his first homosexual
love for one of his students. At the same time, a Slovenia
n schoolgirl, Pina Kalč, was falling in love with Pasolini. On 12 February 1945 his brother Guido was killed in an ambush. Six days later Pasolini and others founded the Friulian Language Academy (Academiuta di lenga furlana). In the same year Pasolini joined the Association for the Autonomy of Friuli. He graduated after completing a final thesis about Giovanni Pascoli
's works.
In 1946 Pasolini published a small poetry collection, I Diarii ("The Diaries"), with the Academiuta. In October he travelled to Rome
. The following May he began the so-called Quaderni Rossi, handwritten in old school exercise books with red covers. He completed a drama in Italian, Il Cappellano. His poetry collection, I Pianti ("The cries"), was also published by the Academiuta.
(PCI).
He was also planning to extend the work of the Academiuta to other Romance language literatures and knew the exiled Catalan
poet, Carles Cardó. After his adherence to the PCI, he took part in several demonstrations. In May 1949, Pasolini attended the Peace Congress in Paris
. Observing the struggles of workers and peasants, and watching the clashes of protesters with Italian police, he began to create his first novel.
In October of the same year, Pasolini was charged with the corruption of minors and obscene acts in public places. As a result, he was expelled by the Udine section of the Communist Party and lost the teaching job he had obtained the previous year in Valvasone. Left in a difficult situation, in January 1950 Pasolini moved to Rome with his mother.
He later described this period of his life as very difficult. "I came to Rome from the Friulian countryside. Unemployed for many years; ignored by everybody; driven by the fear to be not as life needed to be". Instead of asking for help from other writers, Pasolini preferred to go his own way. He found a job as a worker in the Cinecittà
studios and sold his books in the 'bancarelle' ("sidewalk shops") of Rome. Finally, through the help of the Abruzzese
-language poet Vittorio Clemente, he found a job as a teacher in Ciampino
, a suburb of the capital.
In these years Pasolini transferred his Friulian countryside inspiration to Rome's suburbs, the infamous borgate where poor proletarian immigrants lived in often horrendous sanitary and social conditions.
(English: Hustlers), was published in 1955. The work had great success but was poorly received by the PCI establishment and, most importantly, by the Italian government. It initiated a lawsuit against Pasolini and his editor, Garzanti. Though totally exonerated of any charge, Pasolini became a victim of insinuations, especially by the tabloid press.
In 1957, together with Sergio Citti
, Pasolini collaborated on Federico Fellini
's film Le notti di Cabiria, writing dialogue for the Roman dialect parts. In 1960 he made his debut as an actor in Il gobbo, and co-wrote Long Night in 1943
.
His first film as director and screenwriter is Accattone
of 1961, again set in Rome's marginal quarters. The movie aroused controversy and scandal. In 1963, the episode "La ricotta", included in the collective movie RoGoPaG, was censored and Pasolini was tried for offence to the Italian state.
During this period Pasolini frequently traveled abroad: in 1961, with Elsa Morante
and Alberto Moravia
to India
(where he went again seven years later); in 1962 to Sudan
and Kenya
; in 1963, to Ghana
, Nigeria
, Guinea
, Jordan
, and Israel
(where he shot the documentary, Sopralluoghi in Palestina). In 1970 he travelled again to Africa
to shoot the documentary, Appunti per un'Orestiade africana.
In 1966 he was a member of the jury at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival
.
In 1967, in Venice, he met and interviewed the American poet Ezra Pound
. They discussed about Italian movement neoavanguardia
, arts in general and Pasolini read some verses from the Italian version of Pound's Pisan Cantos.
The late 1960s and early 1970s were the era of the so-called "student movement". Pasolini, though acknowledging the students' ideological motivations, thought them "anthropologically middle-class" and therefore destined to fail in their attempts at revolutionary change. Regarding the Battle of Valle Giulia
, which took place in Rome in March 1968, he said that he sympathized with the police, as they were "children of the poor", while the young militants were exponents of what he called "left-wing fascism". His film of that year, Teorema, was shown at the annual Venice Film Festival
in a hot political climate. Pasolini had proclaimed that the Festival would be managed by the directors (see also Works section).
In 1970 Pasolini bought an old castle near Viterbo
, several miles north of Rome, where he began to write his last novel, Petrolio, which was never finished. In 1972 he started to collaborate with the extreme-left association Lotta Continua
, producing a documentary, 12 dicembre, concerning the Piazza Fontana bombing
. The following year he began a collaboration for Italy's most renowned newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.
At the beginning of 1975 Garzanti published a collection of critical essays, Scritti corsari ("Corsair Writings").
. Pasolini was buried in Casarsa, in his beloved Friuli
.
Giuseppe Pelosi, a seventeen-year-old hustler, was arrested and confessed to murdering Pasolini. Thirty years later, on 7 May 2005, he retracted his confession, which he said was made under the threat of violence to his family. He claimed that three people "with a southern accent" had committed the murder, insulting Pasolini as a "dirty communist".
Other evidence uncovered in 2005 pointed to Pasolini's having been murdered by an extortionist. Testimony by Pasolini's friend Sergio Citti indicated that some of the rolls of film from Salò had been stolen, and that Pasolini had been going to meet with the thieves after a visit to Stockholm
, November 2, 1975. Despite the Roman police's reopening of the murder case following Pelosi's statement of May 2005, the judges charged with investigating it determined the new elements insufficient for them to continue the inquiry.
university students were carrying on a guerrilla-like uprising against the police in the streets of Rome and all the leftist forces declared their complete support for the students, describing the disorders as a civil fight of proletariat against the System, Pasolini, alone among the communists, declared that he was with the police; or, more precisely, with the policemen. He considered them true proletariat, sent to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they could not understand, against pampered boys of their same age, because they had not had the fortune of being able to study, referring to poliziotti figli di proletari meridionali picchiati da figli di papà in vena di bravate (lit. policemen, sons of proletarian southerners, beaten up by arrogant daddys' boys ). This ironic statement, however, did not stop him from contributing to the autonomist Lotta continua
movement.
Pasolini was also an ardent critic of consumismo, i.e. consumerism
, which he felt had rapidly destroyed Italian society in the late 1960s/early 1970s. He was particularly concerned about the class of the subproletariat, which he portrayed in Accattone
, and to which he felt both humanly and artistically drawn. Pasolini observed that the kind of purity which he perceived in the pre-industrial popular culture was rapidly vanishing, a process that he named la scomparsa delle lucciole (lit. "the disappearance of glow-worms"). The joie de vivre of the boys was being rapidly replaced with more bourgeois ambitions such as a house and a family. He described the coprophagia
scenes in Salò as a comment on the processed food industry. He often described consumeristic culture as "unreal", as it had been imposed by economical power and had replaced Italy's traditional peasants culture, something that not even fascism
had been able to do. In one interview, he said: "I hate with particular vehemency the current power, the power of 1975, which is a power that manipulates bodies in a horrible way; a manipulation that has nothing to envy to that performed by Himmler or Hitler"
He was angered by economic globalization
and the cultural domination of the North of Italy
(around Milan
) over other regions, especially the South. He felt this was accomplished through the power of TV
. He opposed the gradual disappearance of Italian dialect
s by writing some of his poetry in Friulian
, the regional language of his childhood. Despite his left-wing views, Pasolini opposed the liberalization of abortion
laws.
encyclopedia states the following regarding Pasolini's homosexuality
:
In 1963 he met "the great love of his life," fifteen-year-old Ninetto Davoli
who he later cast in his 1966 film Uccellacci e uccellini
(literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), Pasolini became his mentor and friend. "Even though their sexual relations lasted only a few years, Ninetto continued to live with Pasolini and was his constant companion, as well as appearing in six more of his films."
(1955) dealt with the Roman lumpenproletariat
. The resulting obscenity
charges against him were the first of many instances where his art
provoked legal problems. Accattone
(1961), also about the Roman
underworld, also provoked controversy with conservatives, who demanded stricter censorship
.
He then directed the black-and-white The Gospel According to St. Matthew
(1964). This film is widely hailed as the best cinematic adaptation of the life of Jesus
(Enrique Irazoqui
). While filming it, Pasolini vowed to direct it from the "believer's point of view", but later said that upon viewing the completed work, he realized he had instead expressed his own beliefs.
In his 1966
film, Uccellacci e uccellini
(literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), a picaresque - and at the same time mystic - fable, he hired the great Italian comedian
Totò
to work with one of his preferred "naif" actors, Ninetto Davoli
. It was a unique opportunity for Totò to demonstrate that he was a great dramatic actor as well.
In Teorema (Theorem, 1968), starring Terence Stamp
as a mysterious stranger, he depicted the sexual coming-apart of a bourgeois family (later repeated by François Ozon
in Sitcom and Takashi Miike
in Visitor Q
).
Later movies centered on sex-laden folklore
, such as Boccaccio
's Decameron (1971) and Chaucer
's Canterbury Tales
(1972), and Il fiore delle mille e una notte
(literally The Flower of 1001 Nights, released in English as Arabian Nights, 1974). These films are usually grouped as the Trilogy of Life.
His final work, Salò
(Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975), exceeded what most viewers could then stomach in its explicit scenes of intensely sadistic violence. Based on the novel 120 Days of Sodom
by the Marquis de Sade
, it is considered his most controversial film. In May 2006, Time Outs Film Guide named it the Most Controversial Film of all time.
neorealism
, showing a sad reality. Many people did not want to see such portrayals in artistic work for public distribution. Mamma Roma
(1962), featuring Anna Magnani
and telling the story of a prostitute and her son, was an affront to the morality of those times. His works, with their unequaled poetry applied to cruel realities, showing that such realities are less distant from us than we imagine, made a major contribution to change in the Italian psyche.
The director also promoted in his works the concept of "natural sacredness," the idea that the world is holy in and of itself. He suggested there was no need for spiritual essence or supernatural blessing to attain this state. Pasolini was an avowed atheist.
General disapproval of Pasolini's work was perhaps caused primarily by his frequent focus on sexual mores, and the contrast between what he presented and publicly sanctioned behavior. While Pasolini's poetry often dealt with his same-sex love interests, this was not the only, or even main, theme. His interest and approach to Italian dialects should also be noted. Much of the poetry was about his highly revered mother. As a sensitive and intelligent man, he depicted certain corners of the contemporary reality as few other poets could do. His poetry was not as well known as his films outside Italy.
He had also developed a philosophy of the language mainly related with his studies on Cinema; this theorical and critical activity was another debated topic by the acclimated cultural background as the collected articles still available today show pretty clearly.
These studies can be considered as the foundation of his artistic point of view, as a matter of fact they basically point out two aspects: the language - as English, Italian, dialect or other - is a rigid system in which the human thought is trapped as well; the cinema is the written language of reality which, like any other written language, enable man to see things from the point of view of truth.
His films won awards at the Berlin Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival
, Venice Film Festival
, Italian National Syndicate for Film Journalists, Jussi Awards, Kinema Junpo Awards, International Catholic Film Office and New York Film Critics Circle.
Ebbo Demant directed the documentary Das Mitleid ist gestorben about Pasolini.
In 2005 Stefano Battaglia
recorded Re: Pasolini
in dedication to Pasolini.
and Euripides
respectively, significant liberties were taken with original texts and titles do not credit anyone except Pasolini. The latter is also true in the case of St. Matthew.
Comizi d'amore (The Assembly of Love, 1964)
Appunti per un film sull'India
(1969) Appunti per un romanzo dell'immondizia (1970)
Le mura di Sana'a (1971)
12 Dicembre 1972 (long and short version) (1972)
Pasolini e la forma della città (1975)
Appunti per un'Orestiade Africana (Notes Towards an African Orestes, 1975)
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, and intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
. Pasolini distinguished himself as a poet, journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, philosopher, linguist, novelist, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
, filmmaker, newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
and magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
columnist
Columnist
A columnist is a journalist who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs....
, actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
, painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and political figure. He demonstrated a unique and extraordinary cultural versatility, becoming a highly controversial figure in the process.
Early life
Pasolini was born in BolognaBologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, traditionally one of the most leftist of Italian cities. He was the son of a lieutenant
Lieutenant
A lieutenant is a junior commissioned officer in many nations' armed forces. Typically, the rank of lieutenant in naval usage, while still a junior officer rank, is senior to the army rank...
of the Italian Army
Italian Army
The Italian Army is the ground defence force of the Italian Armed Forces. It is all-volunteer force of active-duty personnel, numbering 108,355 in 2010. Its best-known combat vehicles are the Dardo infantry fighting vehicle, the Centauro tank destroyer and the Ariete tank, and among its aircraft...
, Carlo Alberto, who had become famous for saving Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited with being one of the key figures in the creation of Fascism....
's life during Anteo Zamboni
Anteo Zamboni
Anteo Zamboni was a 15-year old anarchist who tried to assassinate Benito Mussolini in Bologna on October 31, 1926, by shooting at him during the parade celebrating the March on Rome....
's assassination attempt, and subsequently married an elementary school teacher, Susanna Colussi, in 1921. Pasolini was born in 1922 and was named after his paternal uncle. His family moved to Conegliano
Conegliano
Conegliano is a town and comune of the Veneto region, Italy, in the province of Treviso, about north by rail from the town of Treviso. The population of the city is of around 36,000 people. The remains of a castle that was built in the 10th century remain on a nearby hill...
in 1923 and, two years later, to Belluno
Belluno
Belluno , is a town and province in the Veneto region of northern Italy. Located about 100 kilometres north of Venice, Belluno is the capital of the province of Belluno and the most important city in the Eastern Dolomiti's region. With its roughly 37,000 inhabitants, it the largest populated area...
, where another son, Guidalberto, was born. In 1926, Pasolini's father was arrested for gambling debts, and his mother took the children to her family's house in Casarsa della Delizia
Casarsa della Delizia
Casarsa della Delizia, simply known as Casarsa, is a comune in the Province of Pordenone in the Italian region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, located about 80 km northwest of Trieste and about 15 km east of Pordenone....
, in the Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
region.
Pasolini began writing poems at the age of seven, inspired by the natural beauty of Casarsa. One of his early influences was the work of Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
. In 1933 his father was transferred to Cremona
Cremona
Cremona is a city and comune in northern Italy, situated in Lombardy, on the left bank of the Po River in the middle of the Pianura Padana . It is the capital of the province of Cremona and the seat of the local City and Province governments...
, and later to Scandiano
Scandiano
Scandiano is a town and comune in Emilia-Romagna, in the northeast part of Italy country, near Reggio nell'Emilia city and Secchia river . It had some 24,700 inhabitants as of 31 March 2009....
and Reggio Emilia
Reggio Emilia
Reggio Emilia is an affluent city in northern Italy, in the Emilia-Romagna region. It has about 170,000 inhabitants and is the main comune of the Province of Reggio Emilia....
. Pasolini found it difficult to adapt to all these moves, though in the meantime he enlarged his poetry and literature readings (Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Tolstoy, or Tolstoi is a prominent family of Russian nobility, descending from Andrey Kharitonovich Tolstoy who served under Vasily II of Moscow...
, Shakespeare, Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was an English poet, Romantic, literary critic and philosopher who, with his friend William Wordsworth, was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla...
, Novalis
Novalis
Novalis was the pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg , an author and philosopher of early German Romanticism.-Biography:...
) and left behind the religious fervour of his early years. In the Reggio Emilia high school, he met his first true friend, Luciano Serra. The two met again in Bologna, where Pasolini spent seven years while completing high school: here he cultivated new passions, including football. With other friends, including Ermes Parini, Franco Farolfi, Elio Meli, he formed a group dedicated to literary discussions.
In 1939 Pasolini graduated and entered the Literature College of the University of Bologna
University of Bologna
The Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating university in the world, the word 'universitas' being first used by this institution at its foundation. The true date of its founding is uncertain, but believed by most accounts to have been 1088...
, discovering new themes such as philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
and aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
of figurative art
Figurative art
Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork—particularly paintings and sculptures—which are clearly derived from real object sources, and are therefore by definition representational.-Definition:...
s. He also frequented the local cinema club. Pasolini always showed his friends a virile and strong exterior, totally hiding his interior travail. He took part in the Fascist government's culture and sports competitions. In 1941, together with Francesco Leonetti, Roberto Roversi and others, he attempted to publish a poetry magazine, but the attempt failed due to paper shortages. In his poems of this period, Pasolini started to include fragments in Friulian
Friulian language
Friulan , is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulan has around 800,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian...
, which he had learned from his mother.
Early poetry
After the summer in Casarsa, in 1941 Pasolini published at his own expense a collection of poems in Friulian, Versi a Casarsa. The work was noted and appreciated by intellectuals and critics such as Gianfranco Contini, Alfonso GattoAlfonso Gatto
Alfonso Gatto was an Italian author. Along with Giuseppe Ungaretti and Eugenio Montale, he is one of the foremost Italian poets of the 20th century and a major exponent of hermetic poetry.-Biography:...
and Antonio Russi. His pictures had also been well received. Pasolini was chief editor of the Il Setaccio ("The Sieve") magazine, but was fired after conflicts with the director, who was aligned with the Fascist regime. A trip to Germany helped him also to discover the "provincial" status of Italian culture in that era. These experiences led Pasolini to rethink his opinion about the cultural politics of Fascism and to switch gradually to a Communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
position.
In 1942, the family took shelter in Casarsa, considered a more tranquil place to wait for the conclusion of the war
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, a decision common among Italian military families. Here, for the first time, Pasolini had to face the erotic disquiet he had suppressed during his adolescent years. He wrote: "A continuous perturbation without images or words beats at my temples and obscures me".
In the weeks before the 8 September armistice, Pasolini was drafted. He was captured and imprisoned by the Germans
Wehrmacht
The Wehrmacht – from , to defend and , the might/power) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer , the Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe .-Origin and use of the term:...
. He managed to escape disguised as a peasant, and found his way to Casarsa. Here he joined a group of other young fans of the Friulian language who wanted to give Casarsa Friulian a status equal to that of Udine
Udine
Udine is a city and comune in northeastern Italy, in the middle of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic sea and the Alps , less than 40 km from the Slovenian border. Its population was 99,439 in 2009, and that of its urban area was 175,000.- History :Udine is the historical...
, the official regional dialect. From May 1944 they issued a magazine entitled Stroligùt di cà da l'aga. In the meantime, Casarsa suffered Allied bombardments and forced enrollments by the Italian Social Republic
Italian Social Republic
The Italian Social Republic was a puppet state of Nazi Germany led by the "Duce of the Nation" and "Minister of Foreign Affairs" Benito Mussolini and his Republican Fascist Party. The RSI exercised nominal sovereignty in northern Italy but was largely dependent on the Wehrmacht to maintain control...
, as well as partisan
Partisan (military)
A partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity...
activity.
Pasolini tried to remain apart from these events. He and his mother taught students unable to reach the schools in Pordenone
Pordenone
Pordenone is a comune of Pordenone province of northeast Italy in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region.The name comes from the Latin "Portus Naonis" meaning the port on the river Noncello - History :...
or Udine
Udine
Udine is a city and comune in northeastern Italy, in the middle of Friuli-Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic sea and the Alps , less than 40 km from the Slovenian border. Its population was 99,439 in 2009, and that of its urban area was 175,000.- History :Udine is the historical...
. He experienced his first homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
love for one of his students. At the same time, a Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n schoolgirl, Pina Kalč, was falling in love with Pasolini. On 12 February 1945 his brother Guido was killed in an ambush. Six days later Pasolini and others founded the Friulian Language Academy (Academiuta di lenga furlana). In the same year Pasolini joined the Association for the Autonomy of Friuli. He graduated after completing a final thesis about Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Pascoli
Giovanni Placido Agostino Pascoli was an Italian poet and classical scholar.- Biography :Giovanni Pascoli was born at San Mauro di Romagna , into a well-to-do family. He was the fourth of ten children of Ruggero Pascoli and Caterina Vincenzi Alloccatelli...
's works.
In 1946 Pasolini published a small poetry collection, I Diarii ("The Diaries"), with the Academiuta. In October he travelled to Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. The following May he began the so-called Quaderni Rossi, handwritten in old school exercise books with red covers. He completed a drama in Italian, Il Cappellano. His poetry collection, I Pianti ("The cries"), was also published by the Academiuta.
Relationship with the Italian Communist Party
On 26 January 1947 Pasolini wrote a controversial declaration for the front page of the newspaper Libertà: "In our opinion, we think that currently only Communism is able to provide a new culture." The controversy was partly due to the fact he was still not a member of the Italian Communist PartyItalian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
(PCI).
He was also planning to extend the work of the Academiuta to other Romance language literatures and knew the exiled Catalan
Catalan people
The Catalans or Catalonians are the people from, or with origins in, Catalonia that form a historical nationality in Spain. The inhabitants of the adjacent portion of southern France are sometimes included in this definition...
poet, Carles Cardó. After his adherence to the PCI, he took part in several demonstrations. In May 1949, Pasolini attended the Peace Congress in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. Observing the struggles of workers and peasants, and watching the clashes of protesters with Italian police, he began to create his first novel.
In October of the same year, Pasolini was charged with the corruption of minors and obscene acts in public places. As a result, he was expelled by the Udine section of the Communist Party and lost the teaching job he had obtained the previous year in Valvasone. Left in a difficult situation, in January 1950 Pasolini moved to Rome with his mother.
He later described this period of his life as very difficult. "I came to Rome from the Friulian countryside. Unemployed for many years; ignored by everybody; driven by the fear to be not as life needed to be". Instead of asking for help from other writers, Pasolini preferred to go his own way. He found a job as a worker in the Cinecittà
Cinecittà
Cinecittà is a large film studio in Rome that is considered the hub of Italian cinema.-History:The studios were founded in 1937 by Benito Mussolini and his head of cinema Luigi Freddi for propaganda purposes, under the slogan "Il cinema è l'arma più forte"...
studios and sold his books in the 'bancarelle' ("sidewalk shops") of Rome. Finally, through the help of the Abruzzese
Abruzzo
Abruzzo is a region in Italy, its western border lying less than due east of Rome. Abruzzo borders the region of Marche to the north, Lazio to the west and south-west, Molise to the south-east, and the Adriatic Sea to the east...
-language poet Vittorio Clemente, he found a job as a teacher in Ciampino
Ciampino
Ciampino is a town and comune in the province of Rome, Lazio, Italy. It was a frazione of Marino until 1974, when it became a comune; it obtained the city status in 2004 by presidential decree.-Overview:It is best known for the local "Giovan Battista Pastine" International Airport, best known as...
, a suburb of the capital.
In these years Pasolini transferred his Friulian countryside inspiration to Rome's suburbs, the infamous borgate where poor proletarian immigrants lived in often horrendous sanitary and social conditions.
Success and charges
In 1954, Pasolini, who now worked for the literary section of Italian state radio, left his teaching job and moved to the Monteverde quarter, publishing La meglio gioventù, his first important collection of dialect poems. His first novel, Ragazzi di vitaRagazzi di vita
Ragazzi di vita is a novel by Italian author, poet and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was published in 1956.-Plot:...
(English: Hustlers), was published in 1955. The work had great success but was poorly received by the PCI establishment and, most importantly, by the Italian government. It initiated a lawsuit against Pasolini and his editor, Garzanti. Though totally exonerated of any charge, Pasolini became a victim of insinuations, especially by the tabloid press.
In 1957, together with Sergio Citti
Sergio Citti
Sergio Citti was an Italian film director and screenwriter, born in Rome. He often worked with Pier Paolo Pasolini, but also worked for others such as Ettore Scola. His own films include We Free Kings, which won an award.His 1981 film Il minestrone was entered into the 31st Berlin International...
, Pasolini collaborated on Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , was an Italian film director and scriptwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century...
's film Le notti di Cabiria, writing dialogue for the Roman dialect parts. In 1960 he made his debut as an actor in Il gobbo, and co-wrote Long Night in 1943
Long Night in 1943
Long Night in 1943, The Long Night of '43 or It Happened in '43 is an Italian film of 1960 set during the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943 during the Second World War. It was directed by Florestano Vancini and adapted by Vancini, Ennio De Concini and Pier Paolo Pasolini from a novel by Giorgio...
.
His first film as director and screenwriter is Accattone
Accattone
Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, academics perceive Accattone as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini's earlier novels, particularly Boys of Life and A Violent Life...
of 1961, again set in Rome's marginal quarters. The movie aroused controversy and scandal. In 1963, the episode "La ricotta", included in the collective movie RoGoPaG, was censored and Pasolini was tried for offence to the Italian state.
During this period Pasolini frequently traveled abroad: in 1961, with Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante
Elsa Morante was an Italian novelist, perhaps best known for her novel La storia .-Biography:...
and Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Moravia, born Alberto Pincherle was an Italian novelist and journalist. His novels explored matters of modern sexuality, social alienation, and existentialism....
to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
(where he went again seven years later); in 1962 to Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
and Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
; in 1963, to Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, and Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
(where he shot the documentary, Sopralluoghi in Palestina). In 1970 he travelled again to Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
to shoot the documentary, Appunti per un'Orestiade africana.
In 1966 he was a member of the jury at the 16th Berlin International Film Festival
16th Berlin International Film Festival
The 16th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 24 to July 5, 1966.-Jury:* Pierre Braunberger * Franz Seitz* Emilio Villalba Welsh* Khwaja Ahmad Abbas* Pier Paolo Pasolini* Lars Forssell* Hollis Alpert...
.
In 1967, in Venice, he met and interviewed the American poet Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
. They discussed about Italian movement neoavanguardia
Neoavanguardia
The neoavanguardia was an avant-garde Italian literary movement, characterized by a strong push towards formal experimentation in language...
, arts in general and Pasolini read some verses from the Italian version of Pound's Pisan Cantos.
The late 1960s and early 1970s were the era of the so-called "student movement". Pasolini, though acknowledging the students' ideological motivations, thought them "anthropologically middle-class" and therefore destined to fail in their attempts at revolutionary change. Regarding the Battle of Valle Giulia
Battle of Valle Giulia
The Battle of Valle Giulia is the conventional name for a clash between Italian left-wing militants and the Italian police at Valle Giulia, Rome, on March 1, 1968...
, which took place in Rome in March 1968, he said that he sympathized with the police, as they were "children of the poor", while the young militants were exponents of what he called "left-wing fascism". His film of that year, Teorema, was shown at the annual Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
in a hot political climate. Pasolini had proclaimed that the Festival would be managed by the directors (see also Works section).
In 1970 Pasolini bought an old castle near Viterbo
Viterbo
See also Viterbo, Texas and Viterbo UniversityViterbo is an ancient city and comune in the Lazio region of central Italy, the capital of the province of Viterbo. It is approximately 80 driving / 80 walking kilometers north of GRA on the Via Cassia, and it is surrounded by the Monti Cimini and...
, several miles north of Rome, where he began to write his last novel, Petrolio, which was never finished. In 1972 he started to collaborate with the extreme-left association Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
, producing a documentary, 12 dicembre, concerning the Piazza Fontana bombing
Piazza Fontana bombing
The Piazza Fontana Bombing was a terrorist attack that occurred on December 12, 1969 at 16:37, when a bomb exploded at the headquarters of Banca Nazionale dell'Agricoltura in Piazza Fontana in Milan, Italy, killing 17 people and wounding 88...
. The following year he began a collaboration for Italy's most renowned newspaper, Il Corriere della Sera.
At the beginning of 1975 Garzanti published a collection of critical essays, Scritti corsari ("Corsair Writings").
Death
Pasolini was murdered by being run over several times with his own car, dying on 2 November 1975 on the beach at Ostia, near RomeRome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
. Pasolini was buried in Casarsa, in his beloved Friuli
Friuli
Friuli is an area of northeastern Italy with its own particular cultural and historical identity. It comprises the major part of the autonomous region Friuli-Venezia Giulia, i.e. the province of Udine, Pordenone, Gorizia, excluding Trieste...
.
Giuseppe Pelosi, a seventeen-year-old hustler, was arrested and confessed to murdering Pasolini. Thirty years later, on 7 May 2005, he retracted his confession, which he said was made under the threat of violence to his family. He claimed that three people "with a southern accent" had committed the murder, insulting Pasolini as a "dirty communist".
Other evidence uncovered in 2005 pointed to Pasolini's having been murdered by an extortionist. Testimony by Pasolini's friend Sergio Citti indicated that some of the rolls of film from Salò had been stolen, and that Pasolini had been going to meet with the thieves after a visit to Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, November 2, 1975. Despite the Roman police's reopening of the murder case following Pelosi's statement of May 2005, the judges charged with investigating it determined the new elements insufficient for them to continue the inquiry.
Political views
Pasolini generated heated public discussion with controversial analyses of public affairs. For instance, during the disorders of 1969, when the autonomistAutonomism
Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
university students were carrying on a guerrilla-like uprising against the police in the streets of Rome and all the leftist forces declared their complete support for the students, describing the disorders as a civil fight of proletariat against the System, Pasolini, alone among the communists, declared that he was with the police; or, more precisely, with the policemen. He considered them true proletariat, sent to fight for a poor salary and for reasons which they could not understand, against pampered boys of their same age, because they had not had the fortune of being able to study, referring to poliziotti figli di proletari meridionali picchiati da figli di papà in vena di bravate (lit. policemen, sons of proletarian southerners, beaten up by arrogant daddys' boys ). This ironic statement, however, did not stop him from contributing to the autonomist Lotta continua
Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
movement.
Pasolini was also an ardent critic of consumismo, i.e. consumerism
Consumerism
Consumerism is a social and economic order that is based on the systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen...
, which he felt had rapidly destroyed Italian society in the late 1960s/early 1970s. He was particularly concerned about the class of the subproletariat, which he portrayed in Accattone
Accattone
Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, academics perceive Accattone as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini's earlier novels, particularly Boys of Life and A Violent Life...
, and to which he felt both humanly and artistically drawn. Pasolini observed that the kind of purity which he perceived in the pre-industrial popular culture was rapidly vanishing, a process that he named la scomparsa delle lucciole (lit. "the disappearance of glow-worms"). The joie de vivre of the boys was being rapidly replaced with more bourgeois ambitions such as a house and a family. He described the coprophagia
Coprophagia
Coprophagia or coprophagy is the consumption of feces, from the Greek κόπρος copros and φαγεῖν phagein . Many animal species practice coprophagia as a matter of course; other species do not normally consume feces but may do so under unusual conditions...
scenes in Salò as a comment on the processed food industry. He often described consumeristic culture as "unreal", as it had been imposed by economical power and had replaced Italy's traditional peasants culture, something that not even fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...
had been able to do. In one interview, he said: "I hate with particular vehemency the current power, the power of 1975, which is a power that manipulates bodies in a horrible way; a manipulation that has nothing to envy to that performed by Himmler or Hitler"
He was angered by economic globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and the cultural domination of the North of Italy
Northern Italy
Northern Italy is a wide cultural, historical and geographical definition, without any administrative usage, used to indicate the northern part of the Italian state, also referred as Settentrione or Alta Italia...
(around Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
) over other regions, especially the South. He felt this was accomplished through the power of TV
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
. He opposed the gradual disappearance of Italian dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s by writing some of his poetry in Friulian
Friulian language
Friulan , is a Romance language belonging to the Rhaeto-Romance family, spoken in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. Friulan has around 800,000 speakers, the vast majority of whom also speak Italian...
, the regional language of his childhood. Despite his left-wing views, Pasolini opposed the liberalization of abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
laws.
Sexuality
The LGBTLGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
encyclopedia states the following regarding Pasolini's homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
:
While openly gay from the very start of his career (thanks to a gay sex scandal that sent him packing from his provincial hometown to live and work in RomeRomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
), Pasolini rarely dealt with homosexuality in his movies.
The subject is featured prominently in TeoremaTheorem (film)Teorema is an Italian language movie directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and starring Laura Betti, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Terence Stamp, and Anne Wiazemsky. It was the first time Pasolini worked primarily with professional actors. In this film, an upper-class Milanese family is introduced...
(1968), where Terence StampTerence StampTerence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
's mysterious God-like visitor seduces the son and father of an upper-middle-class family; passingly in Arabian Nights (1974), in an idyll between a king and a commoner that ends in death; and, most darkly of all, in SalòSalò o le 120 giornate di SodomaSalò, or the 120 Days of Sodom , commonly referred to as Salò, is a controversial 1975 Italian drama film written and directed by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini with uncredited writing contributions by Pupi Avati. It is based on the book The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade...
(1975), his infamous rendition of the Marquis de SadeMarquis de SadeDonatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
's compendium of sexual horrors, The 120 Days of Sodom.
In 1963 he met "the great love of his life," fifteen-year-old Ninetto Davoli
Ninetto Davoli
Ninetto Davoli is an Italian actor who became known through his roles in several of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films.-Biography:Davoli was born in San Pietro a Maida, Calabria...
who he later cast in his 1966 film Uccellacci e uccellini
The Hawks and the Sparrows
The Hawks and the Sparrows is a 1966 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.The movie is a post-neorealist story about Totò, the beloved stone-faced clown of Italian folk-stories. Totò and his son Ninetto, roam the neighbourhood and the...
(literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), Pasolini became his mentor and friend. "Even though their sexual relations lasted only a few years, Ninetto continued to live with Pasolini and was his constant companion, as well as appearing in six more of his films."
Works
Pasolini's first novel Ragazzi di vitaRagazzi di vita
Ragazzi di vita is a novel by Italian author, poet and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was published in 1956.-Plot:...
(1955) dealt with the Roman lumpenproletariat
Lumpenproletariat
Lumpenproletariat, a collective term from Lumpenproletarier , was first defined by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in The German Ideology and later elaborated on in other works by Marx...
. The resulting obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
charges against him were the first of many instances where his art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
provoked legal problems. Accattone
Accattone
Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, academics perceive Accattone as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini's earlier novels, particularly Boys of Life and A Violent Life...
(1961), also about the Roman
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
underworld, also provoked controversy with conservatives, who demanded stricter censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
.
He then directed the black-and-white The Gospel According to St. Matthew
The Gospel According to St. Matthew (film)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew is a 1964 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It is a retelling of the story of Jesus Christ, from the Nativity through the Resurrection....
(1964). This film is widely hailed as the best cinematic adaptation of the life of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
(Enrique Irazoqui
Enrique Irazoqui
Enrique Irazoqui is a Spanish movie actor. He's the son of a Spanish father and an Italian mother. Irazoqui became famous for his role as Jesus Christ in the 1964 film The Gospel According to St...
). While filming it, Pasolini vowed to direct it from the "believer's point of view", but later said that upon viewing the completed work, he realized he had instead expressed his own beliefs.
In his 1966
1966 in film
The year 1966 in film involved some significant events.-Events:Animation legend Walter Disney, well known for his creation of Mickey Mouse, died in 15 December 1966 of acute circulatory collapse following a diagnosis of, and surgery for, lung cancer...
film, Uccellacci e uccellini
The Hawks and the Sparrows
The Hawks and the Sparrows is a 1966 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.The movie is a post-neorealist story about Totò, the beloved stone-faced clown of Italian folk-stories. Totò and his son Ninetto, roam the neighbourhood and the...
(literally Bad Birds and Little Birds but translated in English as The Hawks and the Sparrows), a picaresque - and at the same time mystic - fable, he hired the great Italian comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
Totò
Totò
Prince Antonio Focas Flavio Angelo Ducas Comneno De Curtis di Bisanzio Gagliardi, best known by his stage name Totò and nicknamed il principe della risata was an Italian comedian, film and theatre actor, writer, singer and songwriter...
to work with one of his preferred "naif" actors, Ninetto Davoli
Ninetto Davoli
Ninetto Davoli is an Italian actor who became known through his roles in several of Pier Paolo Pasolini's films.-Biography:Davoli was born in San Pietro a Maida, Calabria...
. It was a unique opportunity for Totò to demonstrate that he was a great dramatic actor as well.
In Teorema (Theorem, 1968), starring Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
as a mysterious stranger, he depicted the sexual coming-apart of a bourgeois family (later repeated by François Ozon
François Ozon
François Ozon is a French film director and screenwriter and whose films are usually characterized by sharp satirical wit and a freewheeling view on human sexuality....
in Sitcom and Takashi Miike
Takashi Miike
is a highly prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker. He has directed over seventy theatrical, video, and television productions since his debut in 1991. In the years 2001 and 2002 alone, Miike is credited with directing fifteen productions...
in Visitor Q
Visitor Q
is a controversial 2001 film directed by Japanese director Takashi Miike. It was filmed as the sixth and final part of the Love Cinema series consisting of six straight-to-video releases by independent filmmakers via a brief but exclusive run at the minuscule Shimokitazawa cinema in Tokyo...
).
Later movies centered on sex-laden folklore
Folklore
Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...
, such as Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio
Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's Decameron (1971) and Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
's Canterbury Tales
The Canterbury Tales (film)
The Canterbury Tales is a 1972 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and based on the medieval narrative poem The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is the second film in Pasolini's 'Trilogy of Life'...
(1972), and Il fiore delle mille e una notte
Il fiore delle mille e una notte
Arabian Nights is a 1974 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Its original Italian title is Il fiore delle mille e una notte, which means "The Flower of the One Thousand and One Nights"....
(literally The Flower of 1001 Nights, released in English as Arabian Nights, 1974). These films are usually grouped as the Trilogy of Life.
His final work, Salò
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma
Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom , commonly referred to as Salò, is a controversial 1975 Italian drama film written and directed by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini with uncredited writing contributions by Pupi Avati. It is based on the book The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade...
(Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975), exceeded what most viewers could then stomach in its explicit scenes of intensely sadistic violence. Based on the novel 120 Days of Sodom
120 Days of Sodom
The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism is a novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785...
by the Marquis de Sade
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle...
, it is considered his most controversial film. In May 2006, Time Outs Film Guide named it the Most Controversial Film of all time.
Legacy
As a director, Pasolini created a picaresquePicaresque novel
The picaresque novel is a popular sub-genre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts, in realistic and often humorous detail, the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by his wits in a corrupt society...
neorealism
Italian neorealism
Italian neorealism is a style of film characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class, filmed on location, frequently using nonprofessional actors...
, showing a sad reality. Many people did not want to see such portrayals in artistic work for public distribution. Mamma Roma
Mamma Roma
Mamma Roma is a 1962 film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.- Story :An ex-prostitute, Mamma Roma , tries to start a new life selling vegetables with her 16-year-old son Ettore...
(1962), featuring Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo....
and telling the story of a prostitute and her son, was an affront to the morality of those times. His works, with their unequaled poetry applied to cruel realities, showing that such realities are less distant from us than we imagine, made a major contribution to change in the Italian psyche.
The director also promoted in his works the concept of "natural sacredness," the idea that the world is holy in and of itself. He suggested there was no need for spiritual essence or supernatural blessing to attain this state. Pasolini was an avowed atheist.
General disapproval of Pasolini's work was perhaps caused primarily by his frequent focus on sexual mores, and the contrast between what he presented and publicly sanctioned behavior. While Pasolini's poetry often dealt with his same-sex love interests, this was not the only, or even main, theme. His interest and approach to Italian dialects should also be noted. Much of the poetry was about his highly revered mother. As a sensitive and intelligent man, he depicted certain corners of the contemporary reality as few other poets could do. His poetry was not as well known as his films outside Italy.
He had also developed a philosophy of the language mainly related with his studies on Cinema; this theorical and critical activity was another debated topic by the acclimated cultural background as the collected articles still available today show pretty clearly.
These studies can be considered as the foundation of his artistic point of view, as a matter of fact they basically point out two aspects: the language - as English, Italian, dialect or other - is a rigid system in which the human thought is trapped as well; the cinema is the written language of reality which, like any other written language, enable man to see things from the point of view of truth.
His films won awards at the Berlin Film Festival, Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
, Venice Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the...
, Italian National Syndicate for Film Journalists, Jussi Awards, Kinema Junpo Awards, International Catholic Film Office and New York Film Critics Circle.
Ebbo Demant directed the documentary Das Mitleid ist gestorben about Pasolini.
In 2005 Stefano Battaglia
Stefano Battaglia
Stefano Battaglia is an Italian classical and jazz pianist.He has played extensively on the international circuit, performing as a soloist with the European Youth Orchestra in Barcelona , and winning the "J.S...
recorded Re: Pasolini
Re: Pasolini
Re: Pasolini is a double album by Italian pianist Stefano Battaglia, recorded in 2005 and released in 2007 on the ECM label. The album is dedicated to the figure of filmmaker and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini. The cover artwork features a still from The Gospel According to St...
in dedication to Pasolini.
Feature films
All titles listed below were written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini unless stated otherwise. Although obviously Oedipus Rex and Medea are loosely based on plays by SophoclesSophocles
Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...
and Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
respectively, significant liberties were taken with original texts and titles do not credit anyone except Pasolini. The latter is also true in the case of St. Matthew.
| Year | Original title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1961 | Accattone Accattone Accattone is a 1961 Italian drama film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Despite being filmed from an original screenplay, academics perceive Accattone as a cinematic rendition of Pasolini's earlier novels, particularly Boys of Life and A Violent Life... |
Accattone! | Screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini based on his novel Una vita violenta. Additional dialogue by Sergio Citti Sergio Citti Sergio Citti was an Italian film director and screenwriter, born in Rome. He often worked with Pier Paolo Pasolini, but also worked for others such as Ettore Scola. His own films include We Free Kings, which won an award.His 1981 film Il minestrone was entered into the 31st Berlin International... . |
| 1962 | Mamma Roma Mamma Roma Mamma Roma is a 1962 film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.- Story :An ex-prostitute, Mamma Roma , tries to start a new life selling vegetables with her 16-year-old son Ettore... |
Mamma Roma | Screenplay by Pier Paolo Pasolini with additional dialogue by Sergio Citti. |
| 1964 | Il vangelo secondo Matteo | The Gospel According to Matthew | Silver Lion Silver Lion The Leone d’Argento refers to a number of awards presented at the Venice Film Festival. The Silver Lion is awarded irregularly and have gone through several changes of purpose. Until 1995, Silver Lions were infrequently awarded to a number of films as second prize for those nominated for the... -Venice Film Festival Venice Film Festival The Venice International Film Festival is the oldest international film festival in the world. Founded by Count Giuseppe Volpi in 1932 as the "Esposizione Internazionale d'Arte Cinematografica", the festival has since taken place every year in late August or early September on the island of the... |
| 1966 | Uccellacci e uccellini The Hawks and the Sparrows The Hawks and the Sparrows is a 1966 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was entered into the 1966 Cannes Film Festival.The movie is a post-neorealist story about Totò, the beloved stone-faced clown of Italian folk-stories. Totò and his son Ninetto, roam the neighbourhood and the... |
The Hawks and the Sparrows | |
| 1967 | Edipo re | Oedipus Rex | |
| 1968 | Teorema | Theorem | Pasolini's novel Teorema was also published in 1968. |
| 1969 | Porcile | Pigsty | |
| 1969 | Medea | Medea | |
| 1971 | Il Decameron | The Decameron | Based on The Decameron The Decameron The Decameron, also called Prince Galehaut is a 14th-century medieval allegory by Giovanni Boccaccio, told as a frame story encompassing 100 tales by ten young people.... by Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular... . Won the Silver Bear at the 21st Berlin International Film Festival 21st Berlin International Film Festival The 21st annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from June 26 to July 6, 1971.-Jury:* Bjørn Rasmussen * Ida Ehre* Walter Albuquerque Mello* Paul Claudon* Kenneth Harper* Mani Kaul* Charlotte Kerr* Rex Reed* Giancarlo Zagni... . |
| 1972 | I Racconti di Canterbury | The Canterbury Tales | Based on The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at... by Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey... . Won the Golden Bear Golden Bear According to legend, the Golden Bear was a large golden Ursus arctos. Members of the Ursus arctos species can reach masses of . The Grizzly Bear and the Kodiak Bear are North American subspecies of the Brown Bear.... at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival 22nd Berlin International Film Festival The 22nd annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 23 June to 4 July 1972.-Jury:* Eleanor Perry * Fritz Drobilitsch-Walden* Francis Cosne* Rita Tushingham* Tinto Brass* Yukichi Shinada* Julio Coll* Hans Hellmut Kirst... . |
| 1974 | Il fiore delle Mille e una Notte Il fiore delle mille e una notte Arabian Nights is a 1974 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Its original Italian title is Il fiore delle mille e una notte, which means "The Flower of the One Thousand and One Nights".... |
A Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights) | Screenplay written in collaboration with Dacia Maraini Dacia Maraini Dacia Maraini is an Italian writer. She is the daughter of Sicilian Princess Topazia Alliata di Salaparuta, an artist and art dealer, and of Fosco Maraini, a Florentine ethnologist and mountaineer of mixed Ticinese, English and Polish background who wrote in particular on Tibet and Japan... . Won the Grand Prix Spécial Prize Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival) The Grand Prix is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. It is the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or... . |
| 1975 | Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma | Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom | Based on Les 120 journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage by Marquis de Sade Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade was a French aristocrat, revolutionary politician, philosopher, and writer famous for his libertine sexuality and lifestyle... . Screenplay written in collaboration with Sergio Citti with extended quotes from Roland Barthes Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and... ' Sade, Fourier, Loyola and Pierre Klossowski Pierre Klossowski Pierre Klossowski was a French writer, translator and artist. He was the eldest son of the artists Erich Klossowski and Baladine Klossowska, and his younger brother was the painter Balthus.-Life:... 's Sade mon prochain. |
Documentaries
Appunti per un film sull'India
Appunti per un film sull'India is a 1968 short documentary film by Pier Paolo Pasolini where he visits India in the search of a king who could give up his body to feed a starving tiger....
(1969)
Episodes in omnibus films
- La ricottaLa ricottaLa ricotta is a short film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1962 and is part of the omnibus film RoGoPaG...
in RoGoPaG (1963) - First segment of La rabbia (1963)
- La Terra vista dalla Luna in Le stregheLe stregheLe streghe is a film produced by Dino De Laurentiis in 1965 and released in 1967. It consists of 5 short stories, directed by Franco Rossi, Luchino Visconti, Mauro Bolognini, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Vittorio De Sica...
(The Witches, 1967) - Che cosa sono le nuvole? Capriccio all'Italiana (1968)
- La sequenza del fiore di carta in Amore e rabbiaAmore e rabbiaAmore e rabbia is a 1969 anthology film that includes five films directed by five Italian directors and one French director...
(1969)
Narrative
- Poems
- Ragazzi di vitaRagazzi di vitaRagazzi di vita is a novel by Italian author, poet and intellectual Pier Paolo Pasolini. It was published in 1956.-Plot:...
(The Ragazzi, 1955) - Una vita violenta (A Violent Life, 1959)
- Il sogno di una cosa (1962)
- Amado Mio - Atti Impuri (1982, originally composed in 1948)
- Alì dagli occhi azzurri (1965)
- Reality (The Poets' EncyclopediaThe Poets' EncyclopediaThe Poets' Encyclopedia is an English language poetical anthology, summarizes the literary, art and music worlds of New York City in the 1970s. 225 poets, artists, musicians and novelists transform the world's basic knowledge. Imagination trumps fact...
, 1979) - Petrolio (1992, incomplete)
Poetry
- La meglio gioventù (1954)
- Le ceneri di Gramsci (1957)
- L'usignolo della chiesa cattolica (1958)
- La religione del mio tempo (1961)
- Poesia in forma di rosa (1964)
- Trasumanar e organizzar (1971)
- La nuova gioventù (1975)
- Roman Poems. Pocket Poets #41 (1986)
Essays
- Passione e ideologia (1960)
- Canzoniere italiano, poesia popolare italiana (1960)
- Empirismo eretico (1972)
- Lettere luterane (1976)
- Le belle bandiere (1977)
- Descrizioni di descrizioni (1979)
- Il caos (1979)
- La pornografia è noiosa (1979)
- Scritti corsari (1975)
- Lettere (1940–1954) (Letters, 1940-54, 1986)
Theatre
- Orgia (1968)
- Porcile (1968)
- Calderón (1973)
- Affabulazione (1977)
- Pilade (1977)
- Bestia da stile (1977)
External links
- Piers Paolo Pasolini, Italian website with extensive commentary
- "Piers Paolo Pasolini", Senses of Cinema
- BBC News report on the reopening of the murder case
- Guy Flatley: "The Atheist Who Was Obsessed with God", MovieCrazed
- Doug Ireland, "Restoring Pasolini", ZMag
- Maria Callas in Pasolini's Medea
- Pasolini's own notes on Salo from 1974
- Pier Paolo Pasolini poems Original Italian text.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3ACSmZTejQVideo (in Italian): Pasolini on the destructive impact of television (interrupted and half-censored by Enzo BiagiEnzo BiagiEnzo Biagi was an Italian journalist and writer.-Biography:Biagi was born in Lizzano in Belvedere, and began his career as a journalist in Bologna. Active in journalism for six decades and author of some eighty books, Biagi won numerous awards, among which the 1979 Saint Vincent prize and the...
)] - Italian website dedicated to Pasolini