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Nine years ago the Bay Area celebrated a Pier Paolo Pasolini (2013) retrospective that provided the welcome opportunity to view most of his films. Enthused, at The Evening Class I assembled a listing of all the PFA Cine-Files available at the time. I also compiled Jonathan Rosenbaum’s writings on the director and assembled a critical overview of one of my favorite Pasolini vehicles The Gospel According to Matthew (1964). I also profiled Alfredo Jaar’s short documentary The Ashes of Pasolini (2009).
I was writing for Fandor at the time and likewise contributed an essay on The Gospel According to Matthew and an interview transcript of my conversation with one of Pasolini’s favored actors, Ninetto Davoli.
How I wish I were still living in San Francisco to take advantage of the return of the Pasolini retrospective (2022), currently continuing at the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley, California through November 27, 2022. Co-presented by BAMPFA and Cinecittà, Rome, the current Pasolini retrospective has been organized by Susan Oxtoby, BAMPFA, and Camilla Cormanni, Paola Ruggiero, Marco Cicala, Germana Rusico, Cinecittà and is presented in association with the Ministry of Culture of Italy, with welcome assistance from Annamaria Di Giorgio and the staff of the Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco and Amelia Antonucci, Cinema Italia.
As Director of Film and Senior Curator Susan Oxtoby has so lucidly written:
“A brilliant artist who was at the center of the intellectual life of postwar Europe, the influential Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) enjoyed a multidisciplinary career as a novelist, poet, playwright, actor, painter, polemicist, and filmmaker. No stranger to controversy, scandal, and censure (he was involved in some thirty-three trials during his lifetime), Pasolini represented and articulated many critical perspectives: as a defiant homosexual, a nonaligned leftist, a Catholic (who was arrested for insulting the Church), and a visionary artist.
“Pasolini’s cinema takes its inspiration from many sources: Renaissance painting, Romanticism, Freudian psychology, Italian neorealism, ethnographic filmmaking, and music. His films share an affinity to musical structures and form. His aesthetic often rebuked traditional film grammar, opting instead for a spirit of experimentation. More often than not, he drew upon nonprofessional actors, casting peasants and urban youths who brought an authenticity and edginess to his narrative films. Behind the camera, Pasolini collaborated with top-notch filmmakers, including cinematographers Tonino Delli Colli and Giuseppe Ruzzolini, costume designer Danilo Donati, and composer Ennio Morricone, often working with the crew on location—be it the rugged terrain of the Holy Land or the impoverished outskirts of Rome. As a poet/filmmaker, he spoke of his 'tendency always to see something sacred and mythic and epic in everything, even the most humdrum, simple and banal objects and events.' "
I encourage all Bay Area cinephiles to take advantage of the remaining screenings in the series, which include imported 35mm prints of Teorema (1968), The Decameron (1971), The Gospel According to Matthew (1964), The Canterbury Tales (1974), and Arabian Nights (1974), plus a new 4K digital restoration of Accattone (1961).
For those unable to attend this spectacular retrospective—and though, admittedly, nothing can replace the specular pleasure of watching 35mm films projected in communal darkness—some recompense can be achieved by accessing most of Pasolini’s films on the Criterion Channel.
Viva il cinema!!