PASOLINI, PIER PAOLO

(1922-1975)

Poet, playwright, novelist, painter, essayist, film director. Although he would become one of the foremost directors to emerge in the second wave of postwar Italian cinema in the early 1960s, Pasolini came to cinema relatively late in life, after having already established a strong reputation as an innovative poet, novelist, and radical cultural critic, in search of an alternative medium for self-expression.

Having been expelled from both his teaching post and the Communist Party for alleged homosexual activities, in 1950 Pasolini moved from the northern Italian town of Casarsa, where he had lived with his mother since the end of World War II, to one of the poorer outlying districts of Rome. Despite continuing financial hardship, he quickly became part of the city's bustling literary scene and published several acclaimed collections of poetry before also beginning to work in the cinema, his first involvement being a collaboration on the screenplay ofMario Soldati'sLa donna del fiume(The River Girl, 1954). In the wake of the publication of his controversial novelRagazzi di vita(1955), which presented a vivid portrait of the precarious existence lived by so many in theborgate(shantytowns) that he had come to know so well, Pasolini was approached more frequently to work on the screenplays of films that were set in the seamier side of Rome. He thus contributed to writing the dialogue ofFederico Fellini'sLe notti di Cabiria(The Nights of Cabiria, 1956) before also working withMauro Bologninion the screenplays of half a dozen films, includingLa notte brava(On Any Street, 1959),Il bell'Antonio(Bell'Antonio, 1960), andLa giornata balorda(A Crazy Day, 1960).

After playing a small role inCarlo Lizzani'sIl gobo di Roma(The Hunchback of Rome, 1960), an experience that allowed him to become familiar with the more technical aspects of filmmaking, he finally wrote and directed his first film,Accattone(Accattone!1961), the story of a truculent layabout in one of the Romanborgatewhose wayward existence and baneful ordeals nevertheless mark him out as a sort of negative Christ figure.The film's nonmoralistic portrayal of prostitutes and petty thieves, coupled with its use of Christological imagery in a profane context, immediately drew censure from the authorities who originally sought to ban the film outright but eventually allowed its release under an R rating. Pasolini's second film,Mamma Roma(1962), also set in the Romanborgateand featuringAnna Magnaniin one of the most forceful roles of her career, was also denounced for obscenity at its first screening but later absolved of the charge. An even harsher reaction attendedLa ricotta(The Curd Cheese), a short self-contained episode that Pasolini contributed to the compilation filmRo.Go.Pa.G. (Let's Have a Brainwash, 1963), with the film's being impounded by the authorities for its alleged offense to the Catholic religion and Pasolini himself receiving a four-month suspended jail sentence.

Almost as a rejoinder, Pasolini then made a powerful but iconoclastic adaptation of what he regarded as the most socially committed of the Gospels,Il vangelo secondo Matteo(The Gospel According to St. Matthew, 1964). The film, screened to great acclaim at theVenice Festivalthat year, received both the Special Jury Prize and the Office Catholique International du Cinema (OCIC) Award, and also went on to win threeNastri d'argentoand three nominations for Academy Awards. FollowingComizi d'amore(Love Meetings, 1964), an illuminating documentary-inquest into the sexual attitudes of contemporary Italians, filmed largely while Pasolini was scouting locations forII vangelo, he directedUccellacci e uccellini(Hawks and Sparrows, 1966), a surreal road movie that utilized the great acting talents ofTototo construct what was effectively a filmic essay on the death of political ideologies in the guise of a picaresque adventure. A bizarre filmic concoction but typical of Pasolini's way of using the cinema to present his provocative ideas,Uccellacciwas nominated for the Golden Palm at Cannes and won two Nastri d'argento at home. Toto would also feature in two subsequent short films,La terra vista dalla luna(The Earth Seen from the Moon), which was Pasolini's contribution to the compilation filmLe streghe(The Witches, 1967), andChe cosa sono le nuvole?(What Are the Clouds?), a charming existential fable that became one of the episodes ofCapriccio all'italiana(Caprice Italian Style, 1968).

After playing the part of a revolutionary Mexican priest in Lizzani's political Western,Requiescant(Kill and Pray, 1967), Pasolini made the first of his screen adaptations of ancient tragedies,Edipo Re(Oedipus Rex, 1967). Stunning in its creation of an archaic mythopoetic setting that avoided all the usual iconography of ancient Greek culture (the film was, in fact, shot mostly in Morocco),Edipowas also remarkable for the way in which it succeeded in faithfully adapting Sophocles' text while also subjectively expressing Pasolini's oedipal conflict with his own father.

Pasolini's next film,Teorema(Theorem, 1968), adapted from a book he had already published the same year, profoundly divided the critics at Venice and again put Pasolini at the center of controversy. A highly ambivalent allegory that could be read both as a profanity and as a spiritual epiphany, the film was given the OCIC Award but at the same time also strongly attacked by other religious authorities. Following what had by now become a pattern, the film was impounded by the authorities on the usual charges of obscenity but eventually acquitted of the charges and released. FollowingAppunti per un film sull'India(Notes for a Film on India, 1968), a short documentary eventually shown on television, Pasolini madePorcile(Pigpen, 1969), another highly idiosyncratic and ambiguous allegory that appeared purposely structured to resist univocal interpretation. This was followed by the second of Pasolini's adaptations of ancient Greek tragedy,Medea(1969), which was memorable for, among other elements, a brilliant performance in the lead role by opera diva Maria Callas. After so many difficult works, Pasolini lightened up with his next three films,Il Decameron(The Decameron, 1971),I racconti di Canterbury(The Canterbury Tales, 1972), andIl fiore delle mille e una notte(A Thousand and One Nights, 1974). United under the rubric of what he called his Trilogy of Life, all three were creative but relatively transparent adaptations of major literary works and all celebrated the body and human sexuality. Pasolini's own appearance as a fresco painter in one of the frame stories ofIl Decameronand as Geoffrey Chaucer himself inThe Canterbury Talesalso added a self-reflexive and personal dimension to the films. This lightness of tone, however, was short lived. In 1975, largely in response to what he had come to see as an ever more degraded Italian reality around him, Pasolini made his bleakest and most nihilistic cinematic statement,Salb o le 120 giornate di Sodoma(Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, 1975). In the event, the film was first screened at the Paris Festival on 23 November 1975, three weeks after Pasolini himself was brutally murdered. An unflinching representation of naked power at its worst, the film was so confrontational that it was completely banned in Italy and in most other countries until quite recently, its dark shadow at times succeeding in obscuring the extraordinary overall achievement of Pasolini's remarkable body of work.