Happy Birthday, Pier Paolo Pasolini! Born today in 1922, this Italian intellectual, poet, writer and film director also distinguished himself as an actor, journalist, novelist, playwright, and political figure.
Pasolini remains a controversial personality in Italy due to his blunt style and the focus of some of his works on taboo sexual matters. He was an established major figure in European literature and cinematic arts.
However, his murder prompted an outcry in Italy and its circumstances continue to be a matter of heated debate.
Early on, Pasolini assisted Italian film director and screenwriter Federico Fellini on co-writing the 1957 Italian black and white drama/romance film 'Le notti di Cabiria' ('Nights of Cabiria').
Three years later, Pasolini also co-wrote Fellini's 1960 Italian black and white drama/comedy-drama film 'La Dolce Vita'. However, Pasolini went uncredited.
The following year, Pasolini directed the 1961 Italian black and white drama film 'Accattone'.
Two years later, the film was nominated a BAFTA Award for Best Foreign Actor (Franco Citti). However, it didn't win. This occurred at the 16th British Academy Film Awards in early May 1963.
One year later, Pasolini became most famous for writing and directing the first film of which he is best known.
This was the 1964 Italian/French black and white biographical drama/religious film 'Il vangelo secondo Matteo' ('The Gospel According to St. Matthew').
Pasolini's biblical drama, in the neorealist style, follows the life of Jesus Christ (Enrique Irazoqui) as depicted in the Gospel of Matthew from the New Testament.
Much of the dialogue in the Italian film hews closely to the text, which focuses on the teachings of Jesus, including his parables, and on their revolutionary nature.
As Jesus travels along the coast of the Sea of Galilee, he gradually gathers more followers, leading him into direct conflict with the authorities.
The dialogue for the film is taken directly from the Gospel of Matthew, as Pasolini felt that "images could never reach the poetic heights of the text."
Pasolini reportedly chose Matthew's Gospel over the others because he had decided that "John was too mystical, Mark too vulgar, and Luke too sentimental."
Today, 'The Gospel According to St. Matthew' is considered a classic of world cinema and the neorealist genre.
Eight years later, Pasolini became most infamous for co-writing and directing the second and final film of which he is best known.
This was the 1975 Italian/French pornographic drama/horror film 'Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma' ('Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom').
The film was loosely adapted from the Marquis de Sade's 1785 erotic literature fiction novel Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage (The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage). Upon release, the film was notably banned in many countries.
Set in the 1944 Republic of Salò, the Fascist-occupied portion of Italy, four wealthy men of power round up nine adolescent boys and girls and subject them to 120 days of physical, mental and sexual torture.
The story is told in four segments, inspired by Dante's 1472 poem Divine Comedy: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Excrement, and the Circle of Blood.
The film also contains frequent references to and several discussions of Friedrich Nietzsche's 1887 book On the Genealogy of Morality, Marcel Proust's 1913 novel sequence In Search of Lost Time, and Ezra Pound's 1925 poem The Cantos.
Premiering at the 29th Paris Film Festival on November 23, 1975, 'Salò' had a brief theatrical run in Italy before being banned in January 1976, and was released in the United States the following year on October 3, 1977.
Pasolini’s notorious final film from has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic...It’s also a masterpiece.
The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker’s transposition of de Sade’s eighteenth-century opus of torture and degradation to 1940s Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time.
To this day, 'Salò' still remains to be a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
Because it depicts youths subjected to graphic violence, torture, sexual abuse, and murder, the film was controversial upon its release and has remained notably banned in several countries into the 21st century.
The confluence of thematic content in 'Salò'—ranging from the political and socio-historical, to psychological and sexual—has led to much critical discussion.
For Pasolini, 'Salò' would be his final film. He was murdered for it later that same year on November 2, 1975. The film was released just three weeks after his murder.
The following morning, his body was found on the beaches of Ostia, Rome, Italy, having been previously run over several times with his own car by a youth. Pasolini was 53.
The incident was caused by a seventeen-year-old named Giuseppe (Pino) Pelosi, of whom was caught driving Pasolini's car and confessed to the murder.
It has also been both praised and decried by various film historians and critics and was named the 65th-scariest film ever made by the Chicago Film Critics Association in 2006.
Eight years later, Abel Ferrara ('King of New York') directed the 2014 French/Belgian/Italian drama film 'Pasolini'.
The English-language internationally co-produced feature stars Willem Dafoe as the eponymous Italian film director and writer, chronicling the last days of his life.
Like Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni ('L'Avventura', 'La Notte', 'L'Eclisse', 'Red Desert', 'Blow-Up', 'Zabriskie Point'), Pasolini was one of the great Italian filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s.
His films reflect the contradictions and complexity of a passionate but tragic life; a complex fusion of conflicting passions and irreconcilable allegiances.
Pasolini considered himself first and foremost a poet. But his poetic vision was of people who lived on the edge of society or outside the law, a vision that carried over into his filmmaking.
Pasolini had been active from 1961–1975.
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