Page 35 - Studio International - March 1969

Pier Paolo D. W. Griffith used 'Rembrandt lighting' to painting. In a published conversation with
describe his illuminations of detail and high- the students and faculty of the Centro
Sperimentale in 1964, he said:
Pasolini and lights. Sergei Eisenstein made frequent refer- `I try to reduce my own exiguousness to one object
ences to art but he saw it chiefly as one element
in the history of montage. Luis Buñuel con- only, because my inspiration...is above all else
the 'Rule of structed one image in Viridiana to resemble painting and, specifically, the painting of Masaccio,
Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper but it is a an exceedingly visual painter in that the matter he
analogy' blasphemous rather than an aesthetic refer- presents to us has a chiaroscuro violence of shocking
ence. Francois Truffaut used the paintings of
plasticity, while other painters more visual... are
Picasso to place the characters of Jules et jim more ornamental and hence flatter, they remain more
in time. Jean Luc Godard in the midst of attached to the wall or to the canvas or they don't
Kevin Gough-Yates many cultural asides has made reference to come out at all.'1
Rembrandt and Van Gogh. Others, too, have His films do not contain images that can be
been affected by painting but no other specifically related to Masaccio although the
director has attributed so significant a role quality of some of the images may resemble
to painting as an influence on his work as has Masaccio's frescoes. It is more a reflection of
Pier Paolo Pasolini. his approach to the subject which is the same
This controversial Italian poet, novelist and as he has used in novels and poetry. He uses
writer on the cinema has emerged since 1961
with the making of his first feature film Accatone
as an equally controversial film director. His
style is both eclectic and personal. He draws
on the work of others, uses music in an unusual
context and makes continual reference to Still from Teorema by Pier Paolo Pasolini