Pasolini
like theorem lots, the scene walking along the sands is awesome-- love the way pasolini integrates an obviously amazingly incompatible catholicism and marxism without it all going totally over the top and mental...the girl in it, anna wiazemsky married godard.
but my favourite pasolini thing is in the anthology film 'RoGoPag'- orson welles tries to direct a film about the cruxifixion with a v restive cast (and dubbed into italian by pasolini) wonderfully nasty satire
also there are at least two great songs about pasolini ('farmer in the city' by scott walker, 'ostia' by coil) which is more than you can say for bertolucci...
but my favourite pasolini thing is in the anthology film 'RoGoPag'- orson welles tries to direct a film about the cruxifixion with a v restive cast (and dubbed into italian by pasolini) wonderfully nasty satire
also there are at least two great songs about pasolini ('farmer in the city' by scott walker, 'ostia' by coil) which is more than you can say for bertolucci...
Diggedy Derek
Stray Dog
I've not seen anything of Pasolini's after Curd Cheese (the RoGoPag one Owen alludes to). And in a way, it put me off further exploration. I love love love the monochrome earlier stuff- Accatone, Mama Roma and Gospel According To St Anthony- it looks sublime, has a hint of classical influence, but with his colour films, the painterly aspect seems to take over somehow. And Curd Cheese I didn't find very funny, but perhaps it's funnier/more offensive if you're a catholic.
come to think of it, I did see a bit of Madea once- that looked good. It stars Maria Callas- crazy eh?
come to think of it, I did see a bit of Madea once- that looked good. It stars Maria Callas- crazy eh?
actually it wasn't the blasphemy i liked in Curd Cheese, more the chaos and the meta element...
Medea
is excellent, also Gospel according to Matthew. there's an element of camp that creeps in which i spose annoys people, andI would possibly avoid the later epic things like The 1001 Nights, they're fun but rather softcore and silly. Haven't seen Salo, I know some people swear by it...
Medea
is excellent, also Gospel according to Matthew. there's an element of camp that creeps in which i spose annoys people, andI would possibly avoid the later epic things like The 1001 Nights, they're fun but rather softcore and silly. Haven't seen Salo, I know some people swear by it...
Just watched La Ricotta and Mamma Roma, wow !! The former being very funny especially when Orson Welles does that put down on the journalist and says that technically he doesn't exsist. Funny to think it was so contraversial then but then again not really. I love the way that extreme politics infuses every facet of Italian life. Mamma Roma was so captivating and amazing to watch, starting to see a pattern forming in PPP's films whereby all the boys are emaculately dressed and like models whereas the women are downtrodden and worn out, no surprises there.
Diggedy Derek
Stray Dog
Yeah, Accatone is like that too- no surprises there- but it's a quite wonderful film, and the music is brilliant (all the music is Bach).
O
Omaar
Guest
I found teorema pretty funny when i saw it, it's pretty over the top eh. thought salo was great, though I saw that more recently.
He died in pretty mysterious circumstances, didn't he?
He died in pretty mysterious circumstances, didn't he?
hawks and sparrows is very silly, but cheered me up when i was stuck up a mountain in a cloud on the edge of vancouver. i'd recommend it, whether youre in a cloud or not.
but i also like the later epic things. for thier campery and (retrospective) monty pythonism, but also for the amazing scenery. its strange when you see for example the mud citys in 1001 nights, how those incredible locations are not more widely used.
he got his head kicked in on a beach supposedly by a teenage rent boy, but more likely by people working with him. for robbery or because people hated salo.
there's also a song by the yummy fur about pasolini (theyre a slampt diy postpunkish band from the mid nineties... they did one minute fire engines style circusy things)
but i also like the later epic things. for thier campery and (retrospective) monty pythonism, but also for the amazing scenery. its strange when you see for example the mud citys in 1001 nights, how those incredible locations are not more widely used.
he got his head kicked in on a beach supposedly by a teenage rent boy, but more likely by people working with him. for robbery or because people hated salo.
there's also a song by the yummy fur about pasolini (theyre a slampt diy postpunkish band from the mid nineties... they did one minute fire engines style circusy things)
woops
is not like other people
Songs about Pasolini
there's also a song by the yummy fur about pasolini (theyre a slampt diy postpunkish band from the mid nineties... they did one minute fire engines style circusy things)[/QUOTE]
Yah! "Republic of Salo".
Alex from Franz Ferdinand was in the Yummy Fur, before he changed his name. He's always knocking them in interviews. I have heard that John, who I rate as the all-time greatest lyricist ever, works in Sainsbury's in Glasgow now.
"Pier Paolo" by Blonde Redhead too.
there's also a song by the yummy fur about pasolini (theyre a slampt diy postpunkish band from the mid nineties... they did one minute fire engines style circusy things)[/QUOTE]
Yah! "Republic of Salo".
Alex from Franz Ferdinand was in the Yummy Fur, before he changed his name. He's always knocking them in interviews. I have heard that John, who I rate as the all-time greatest lyricist ever, works in Sainsbury's in Glasgow now.
"Pier Paolo" by Blonde Redhead too.
Jim Daze said:
If you liked Teorema you would enjoy watching Porcile (Pigsty), the two film form a dittico, so should be watched both in sequence. The two best Pasolini films, for me. (Ok, Accattone too... and also "...a cosa servono le nuvole", who had a wonderful song written by Pasolini and sung by Domenico Modugno... "questo folle amore".
Pasolini probably was killed by a group of fascists llnked to the magliana malavita, but really is still a well obscured mistery, except that it was not an "accident".
version
Well-known member
Is his writing any good? Just learned he did stuff other than film after seeing someone talk about his unfinished novel, Petrolio. I remember Luke posting that thing he wrote where he keeps saying "I know... " about various things to do with Gladio, but thought that was just a one-off.
thefiendjournal.wordpress.com
Late Article by Pier Paolo Pasolini – “Is this a Military Coup D’Etat? I Know…”
[This prose journalism was written in Italy’s “Corriere della Sera” (a major left-leaning newspaper) on 14th November 1974. Pasolini died just under a year later, on 2nd November …
thefiendjournal.wordpress.com
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version
Well-known member
There's an interesting piece called The Power Without a Face where he seems to be mapping the arrival of neoliberalism.
I write “Power” with a capital P—which is why Maurizio Ferrara accused me of being
irrational, in L’Unità (June 12, 1974)—only because I sincerely do not know what this
new Power consists of and what it represents. I only know that it exists. I do not identify
it with the Vatican, or the powerful Christian Democrats, or the Armed Forces. I do not
even identify it with big industry, because it no longer consists of a limited number of big
industrialists; for me, at least, it appears rather to be a totality (total industrialization) and,
moreover, a non-Italian totality (transnationals).
I also know, because I see and experience them, certain characteristics of this still-
faceless new Power; for example, its rejection of the old sanfedismo and clericalism, its
decision to abandon the Church, its determination (crowned with success) to transform
peasants and sub-proletarians into petty bourgeois and, above all, its mania, one might
even say its cosmic mania, to pursue “Development” to its logical conclusions: produce
and consume.
The police file of this face of the new Power, whose sketch still remains a blank sheet of
paper, vaguely attributes it with “modern” features, due to its tolerance and its perfectly
self-sufficient hedonistic ideology: but also ferocious and essentially repressive traits. Its
tolerance is in fact false, because in reality no one has ever been compelled to be as
normal and as conformist as the consumer; and as for its hedonism, it obviously conceals
a decision to reconfigure everything so ruthlessly as to be without historical precedent.
This new Power therefore represents no one, and due to a “mutation” of the ruling class it
is in reality—if we would like to preserve the old terminology—a deadly form of
fascism. But this Power has also culturally “homogenized” Italy; it is therefore a
repressive homogenization, even if it was obtained by way of the imposition of hedonism
and joie de vivre. The strategy of tension is a telltale sign, although essentially
anachronistic, of all of this.
Starts at the bottom of page 25 under the heading: June 24, 1974 - The Real Fascism, and Therefore the Real Anti-fascism
I write “Power” with a capital P—which is why Maurizio Ferrara accused me of being
irrational, in L’Unità (June 12, 1974)—only because I sincerely do not know what this
new Power consists of and what it represents. I only know that it exists. I do not identify
it with the Vatican, or the powerful Christian Democrats, or the Armed Forces. I do not
even identify it with big industry, because it no longer consists of a limited number of big
industrialists; for me, at least, it appears rather to be a totality (total industrialization) and,
moreover, a non-Italian totality (transnationals).
I also know, because I see and experience them, certain characteristics of this still-
faceless new Power; for example, its rejection of the old sanfedismo and clericalism, its
decision to abandon the Church, its determination (crowned with success) to transform
peasants and sub-proletarians into petty bourgeois and, above all, its mania, one might
even say its cosmic mania, to pursue “Development” to its logical conclusions: produce
and consume.
The police file of this face of the new Power, whose sketch still remains a blank sheet of
paper, vaguely attributes it with “modern” features, due to its tolerance and its perfectly
self-sufficient hedonistic ideology: but also ferocious and essentially repressive traits. Its
tolerance is in fact false, because in reality no one has ever been compelled to be as
normal and as conformist as the consumer; and as for its hedonism, it obviously conceals
a decision to reconfigure everything so ruthlessly as to be without historical precedent.
This new Power therefore represents no one, and due to a “mutation” of the ruling class it
is in reality—if we would like to preserve the old terminology—a deadly form of
fascism. But this Power has also culturally “homogenized” Italy; it is therefore a
repressive homogenization, even if it was obtained by way of the imposition of hedonism
and joie de vivre. The strategy of tension is a telltale sign, although essentially
anachronistic, of all of this.
Starts at the bottom of page 25 under the heading: June 24, 1974 - The Real Fascism, and Therefore the Real Anti-fascism
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version
Well-known member
Criterion doing a big box for his 101st birthday.
www.criterion.com
Pasolini 101
One of the most original and controversial thinkers of the twentieth century, Italian polymath Pier Paolo Pasolini embodied a multitude of often seemingly contradictory ideologies and identities—and he expressed them all in his provocative, lyrical, and indelible films. Relentlessly concerned...
www.criterion.com
version
Well-known member
Who really killed Pier Paolo Pasolini?
A biopic by Abel Ferrara at the Venice biennale will reconstruct the last hours of the Italian film director, who was murdered in 1975
www.theguardian.com
version
Well-known member
He's a fascinating figure, but a bit of a tosser. There's a clip of him on TV where he's talking about how the people he loves most are the simple and illiterate because they aren't tainted by the impurity of culture. I get what he means, but it strikes me as romantic and condescending.
There's also a clip of Terence Stamp claiming he was essentially ripped off when he made Theorem, although it isn't clear whether that was down to Pasolini himself or to other people involved in the financing of the film.
There's also a clip of Terence Stamp claiming he was essentially ripped off when he made Theorem, although it isn't clear whether that was down to Pasolini himself or to other people involved in the financing of the film.
IdleRich
IdleRich
That's not exactly him is it?
version
Well-known member
He says once you get into high culture that purity comes back, it's just conventional culture that corrupts, but yeah, he definitely doesn't fit into that first category himself. That wasn't what bothered me about the comment though.
craner
Beast of Burden
Looking forward to seeing your contribution to culture and humanity too, Version. I'm sure it's going to be fantastic!
version
Well-known member
Appreciate the support, man. Love you.