Pier Paolo Pasolini
-
“I Was Born in Cinecittà”: Production Designer Dante Ferretti on Collaborating with Pasolini and Scorsese
Saturday, March 5th marks the centennial of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s birth, and numerous retrospectives are being held worldwide commemorating the late Italian filmmaker. Tragically murdered at the age of 53, weeks before his infamous Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, was set to premiere, Pasolini’s output continues to attract cinephile appreciation, political discourse, cultural reevaluation and a fair share of controversy. “His movies, influenced by his struggle to reconcile his concerns with Marx, Freud and Christ, often drew him into conflict with the Roman Catholic church and with secular authorities,” reflected The New York Times in 1990. Currently running […]
by Erik Luers on Mar 2, 2022 -
Pasolini, Thierry Frémaux’s Requested Cuts and Working with Music: Bertrand Bonello’s Masterclass at FIDMarseille
Bertrand Bonello, cinephile filmmaker, is not one to conceal his references. On War, with Mathieu Amalric in the lead as a director called Bertrand, quotes from Apocalypse Now at length, House of Tolerance transplants Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai to belle époque Paris and Nocturama concocts a beautiful synthesis of Carpenter and Romero. Yet, as the disparity of these citations indicates, Bonello’s shapeshifting, consistently surprising cinema makes it difficult to pinpoint what might have been his formative influences. Had I been pressed to try, I wouldn’t have come up with Pasolini, so it was a surprise to discover that his […]
by Giovanni Marchini Camia on Jul 25, 2019 -
Watch: Pasolini’s Eye Contact
“The eye of the camera always manages to express the interior of a character,” according to the late filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini. The latest video essay (above) by Daniel Mcilwraith at Fandor meditates on Pasolini’s use of the close-up to capture the interior of his characters. “Pasolini’s faces are often confrontational, breaking the barrier between screen and spectator. There is something unnerving, yet often playful, about making eye contact with those on screen,” writes Mcilwraith. What do you see when you look into the eyes of his characters? Check out the video essay above and draw your own conclusions.
by Paula Bernstein on Aug 1, 2016 -
Trailer Watch: Abel Ferrara’s Pasolini (Mildly NSFW)
“I’m going to be frank with you,” says Willem Dafoe’s Pier Paolo Pasolini in this trailer for Abel Ferrara’s keenly anticipated biopic of the Italian director, killed under still mysterious circumstances in 1975. “I’ve been to Hell, and I know things that don’t disturb other people’s dreams.” The musically-literally-operatic trailer for Pasolini is subtitled in French but mostly in English, save for a brief, easy-to-follow French passage (asked whether he considers himself a screenwriter, critic, actor, etc., Pasolini replies that on his passport it simply says writer) and a tiny bit in Italian. This is mildly NSFW, as there are […]
by Vadim Rizov on Sep 2, 2014 -
Abel Ferrara Talks His Venice and Toronto-Bound Pasolini
At 1985, Evan Louison sits down in Rome with Abel Ferrara, learning more about the director’s Pasolini, starring Willem Dafoe as the murdered Italian director. Below Ferrara talks about the film’s relationship to fiction, non-fiction, imagination and the subconscious. Read the complete interview at the link. AF: He was a part of a tradition, a movement — Rosselini, Antonioni, & Bertolucci after that. I’m sure if you’re hard pressed you could call it all the same style. These guys are working with the same DPs, & a lot of the same actors. He wasn’t the only one using guys right […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 30, 2014 -
21st Century Man: Abel Ferrara
In person, Abel Ferrara is a whirlwind of gestures and jokes, of quick smiles and vulgar asides, digressions piled upon digressions, even if he’s much sharper and in control of his staccato New Yorkese vernacular than he lets on. Ferrara, who will turn 60 this year, has had one of American indie cinema’s strangest and most fascinating careers, one which has taken the Bronx native from the old 42nd Street’s row of exploitation and porn cinemas to the Croissette in Cannes. Often we talk of middle-aged artists mellowing, but Ferrara maintains a manic, youthful energy that is both infectious and […]
by Brandon Harris on Jan 11, 2011
