Page 37 - Studio International - March 1969

Francesca frescoes at Arezzo which describe farewell in the style of Leonardo da Vinci's text and would later dub the real words. This
`The Legend of the True Cross'. They, like `Last Supper' and La Ricotta has images that lends an abstract quality to the film where no
the music, serve more than one purpose, under- refer directly to paintings by Pontormo and actor emerges as a personality in his own
lining the mythological aspect of the subject, Rosso Fiorentino. right. The actors are as much raw material for
but also explaining the myth itself and A student of literature at Bologna University, the director to control as the music or painting
through painting and the other arts, the Pasolini went on to study history of art under to which he refers. Pasolini has said :
framework of understanding that the viewer the art critic Roberto Longhi. His thesis on `I had to be author of my own films. I couldn't have
takes to a fundamentally simple story, so that Carlo Carrà, de Pisis and Giorgio Morandi been co-author or a director in the industry's sense of
in some sense it is seen to be relevant to was not completed as he lost his notes during the word: the man who merely transfers a script to
contemporary society. This is made clearer the war. It was at Bologna University that film. I had to be, at every moment, the author of my
by considering the casting of the locations in he met the author Giorgio Bassani who edited own work. Now a professional actor carries a
which the film is set: Marguerite Caetani's review Botteghe Oscure consciousness with him.'1
`Not desiring to reconstruct settings that were not and was later to write the script of La Donna It is this complete control which characterizes
philosophically exact...I was obliged to find every- del Fiume with Pasolini. his films. To them he takes his own personal
thing—the characters and the ambience—in reality. Since 1949 Pasolini has lived in Rome. His obsessions, a fascination with the mystical, a
And so the rule that dominated the making of the entry into films came after his first novel considered social analysis and a theoretical
film was the rule of analogy. That is, I found Ragazzi di Vita in 1955. In this and his later framework. The roots of the personal con-
settings that were not reconstructions but were novel Una Vita Violenta which was published siderations of his work are to be found in his
analogous to ancient Palestine. The characters too—I four years later, he describes people living in relationship to his family. Edipo Re is in a
didn't reconstruct characters but tried to find indivi- complete squalor, using the colloquial slang major sense an examination of his relation-
duals who were analogous. I was obliged to scour of the characters not only for realistic dia- ship to his own family within a mythological
Southern Italy because I realized that the pre- logue but as a reflection of the surroundings. framework. The Father is shown in the open-
industrial agricultural world, the still feudal area of Federico Fellini who was making Le Notti di ing in soldier's uniform, a direct reference to
Southern Italy was the historical setting analogous Cabiria in 1956 (the story of a prostitute his own father.6 The frequent religious
to ancient Palestine ...The Apostles for example, continually exploited—a traditional analogue imagery in his films is related to the view that
belonged to the ruling classes of their time, and so for the victims of the class structure in Italian the Italian peasant accepts miracles as part
obeying my usual rule of analogy, I was obliged to cinema) asked Pasolini to write the script. of existence and as metaphor and describes
take members of the present ruling class.' 4 Undeniably the sole creator of his films, he his environment in terms of his own experi-
The 'epic' refers to the historical role of his relies on editing to shape the film. His shots ence of it.7 The social analysis describes with-
characters in terms of their development with- are almost always short. Describing the mak- in a Marxist framework a view of the Italian
in the work and the 'mythic' is the connota- ing of II Vangelo Secondo Matteo, he said: scene. Behind it all painting emerges as part
tions and associations which are taken to any `In effect, most of the scenes I created in the cutting of a total cultural experience, colouring and
given situation, be they the Piero della room. I shot the whole Gospel with two cameras. I adding shape and 'roundness' through associ-
Francesca frescoes in relation to St Matthew's shot every scene from two or three angles, amassing ation with any scene depicted. Only in
Gospel, the resemblance of Laius in Edipo Re three or four times more material than necessary.'4 Teorema does he appear to have used the
to Michelangelo's Moses, the Breughel-like He resists recording sound when actually paintings of Francis Bacon as internal refer-
opening of La Ricotta or the ironic farewell by shooting. He is reluctant to employ pro- ences to illuminate the world for his characters.
the happily promiscuous young man in fessional actors although he used Anna But even here, the personal element enters in
Teorema who, having slept with every mem- Magnani in Mamma Roma and Teorema stars as part of an overall social view which suggests
ber of the household, acts out a ritual remini- Silvana Mangano and Terence Stamp. In that bourgeois society is stifling and destroying
scent of the Last Supper. Mamma Roma opens Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo Pasolini would have the past but replacing it with nothing of
with a wedding celebration which is also a the actor saying a line not included in the human value.
n
5

1 Published in Bianco e Nero v. xxv No. 6, June i 964,
`Una Vision del mondo epico-religiosa : colloquio con
Pier Paolo Pasolini' translated in Film Quarterly v. 18,
No. 4, Summer 1965 as `Pasolini: an epical-religious
view of the world'.
2 Film Culture No. 24, 1962, 'Cinematic and Literary
Stylistic Figures'.
3 Films and Filming vol. 7, No. 4, January 1961.
4 'Pier Paolo Pasolini and the Art of Directing',
Film Comment, vol. 3, Fall 1965.
5 N. r. Herald Tribune, November 22, 1964.
6 A fascinating and relevant article which throws
light on Pasolini's handling of the Oedipus myth is
`Why Oedipus killed Laius' (a note on the comple-
mentary Oedipus complex in Greek drama) by
George Devereux, International Journal of Psycho-
analysis vol. 34, 1953, pp. 132-141.
7 But actions have no religious significance to the
peasant who lives outside an historical awareness.