A kindred spirit of Luis Buñuel, but one whose existential compulsions are more palpable, Pier Paolo Pasolini perpetually rebelled against moral hegemony, commiserating with outcasts and creating and dying as one. Today, his canon has been co-opted by forces on the right and left, the faithful and the secular. Which is to say, he belongs to us all.
The Criterion Collection’s new box set, Pasolini 101, represents the most comprehensive collection of Pasolini’s films to date, collecting nine of his features, as well as two shorts (1963’s La Ricotta and 1969’s The Sequence of the Paper Flower) that he made for anthology films and two documentaries that he shot during his travels. In addition to his own work, the set’s extensive and richly informative extras, among them two commentary tracks and a 100-page book featuring an essay and notes on the films by critic James Quandt, remind us...
The Criterion Collection’s new box set, Pasolini 101, represents the most comprehensive collection of Pasolini’s films to date, collecting nine of his features, as well as two shorts (1963’s La Ricotta and 1969’s The Sequence of the Paper Flower) that he made for anthology films and two documentaries that he shot during his travels. In addition to his own work, the set’s extensive and richly informative extras, among them two commentary tracks and a 100-page book featuring an essay and notes on the films by critic James Quandt, remind us...
- 6/20/2023
- by Ed Gonzalez
- Slant Magazine
Following Ingmar Bergman, Agnès Varda, Bruce Lee, Federico Fellini, Godzilla, and Wong Kar Wai, the next major box set collection coming from the Criterion Collection has been announced. Arriving this June is Pasolini 101, a 9-Blu-ray set dedicated to the legendary, late Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini.
“Released in celebration of the 101st anniversary of Pasolini’s birth, this collector’s set provides an essential window onto a transformative period for an artist whose legacy remains a wellspring of freedom and revolutionary force,” Criterion notes. “Including nine provocative, lyrical, often scandal-inducing films from the 1960s––Accattone, Mamma Roma, Love Meetings, The Gospel According to Matthew, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Oedipus Rex, Teorema, Porcile, and Medea––the decade in which this celebrated poet, novelist, and intellectual embarked on a feature filmmaking career, Pasolini 101 is a monument to the artist’s daring vision of cinema.”
The release features new 4K digital restorations...
“Released in celebration of the 101st anniversary of Pasolini’s birth, this collector’s set provides an essential window onto a transformative period for an artist whose legacy remains a wellspring of freedom and revolutionary force,” Criterion notes. “Including nine provocative, lyrical, often scandal-inducing films from the 1960s––Accattone, Mamma Roma, Love Meetings, The Gospel According to Matthew, The Hawks and the Sparrows, Oedipus Rex, Teorema, Porcile, and Medea––the decade in which this celebrated poet, novelist, and intellectual embarked on a feature filmmaking career, Pasolini 101 is a monument to the artist’s daring vision of cinema.”
The release features new 4K digital restorations...
- 3/9/2023
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
In the little-remembered 1950 noir “The Damned Don’t Cry,” Joan Crawford plays a Texan housewife whose grief for her late son spurs her to make a new life for herself in the urban underworld. Fyzal Boulifa’s exquisite new film of the same title is named expressly for that Crawford vehicle, but is neither a remake nor a direct homage. Rather, it remixes the narrative components of that film and others of its ilk into the kind of new-school-old-school heart-tugger — one might say tearjerker if its characters weren’t, true to its title, stoically dry-eyed throughout — that might have been designed for the shoulder-padded diva were she alive in 2022 and, perhaps more crucially, of Moroccan heritage.
Charting the turbulent relationship between a single mother and her teenage son on the destitute fringes of Tangier society, the second feature from BAFTA-nominated British-Moroccan filmmaker Boulifa sees him shifting focus to his North African...
Charting the turbulent relationship between a single mother and her teenage son on the destitute fringes of Tangier society, the second feature from BAFTA-nominated British-Moroccan filmmaker Boulifa sees him shifting focus to his North African...
- 9/17/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
In Morocco, homosexuality is banned and just one in five citizens find gayness “acceptable,” at least according to a 2019 poll. An Elton John concert twelve years ago broke the law, but was personally approved by Morocco’s king. Still, Grindr thrives, and third-largest city, Tangier, has a decades-long tradition as a haven for LGBT+ culture in North Africa.
Morocco thus makes a fitting setting for British sophomore director Fyzal Boulifa’s challenging melodrama “The Damned Don’t Cry,” a loose remake of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Mamma Roma,” which was nominated for the Golden Lion sixty Venice Film Festivals ago. But selectors in this year’s Giornate Degli Autori sidebar program did not place Boulifa’s film out of sentimentality alone. “The Damned Don’t Cry” is excellent, asking tough questions about society and morality without easy answers or neat conclusions. Non-actors populate the cast, performing terrifically, in one of many nods...
Morocco thus makes a fitting setting for British sophomore director Fyzal Boulifa’s challenging melodrama “The Damned Don’t Cry,” a loose remake of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Mamma Roma,” which was nominated for the Golden Lion sixty Venice Film Festivals ago. But selectors in this year’s Giornate Degli Autori sidebar program did not place Boulifa’s film out of sentimentality alone. “The Damned Don’t Cry” is excellent, asking tough questions about society and morality without easy answers or neat conclusions. Non-actors populate the cast, performing terrifically, in one of many nods...
- 9/8/2022
- by Adam Solomons
- Indiewire
As Italy marks the centennial of Pier Paolo Pasolini‘s birth with a series of special events, the Academy Museum is honoring the influential film director, poet, writer and intellectual, whose 1975 murder remains a mystery, with a complete retrospective.
Titled “Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini,” the Los Angeles tribute in the Academy’s Renzo Piano designed temple of cinema opened Feb. 17 with Oscar-winning production designer Dante Ferretti on hand.
Ferretti, in a moving tribute, said he owed his career to Pasolini, having worked on nine of his films, starting with Pasolini’s first work “The Gospel According to Matthew” and ending with his incendiary condemnation of the Italian upper classes “Salò – or the 120 Days of Sodom,” released in Italy just a few weeks after Pasolini’s murder on Nov. 2, 1975, at age 53, in the seaside town of Ostia outside Rome.
The Academy’s complete retro of Pasolini’s...
Titled “Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini,” the Los Angeles tribute in the Academy’s Renzo Piano designed temple of cinema opened Feb. 17 with Oscar-winning production designer Dante Ferretti on hand.
Ferretti, in a moving tribute, said he owed his career to Pasolini, having worked on nine of his films, starting with Pasolini’s first work “The Gospel According to Matthew” and ending with his incendiary condemnation of the Italian upper classes “Salò – or the 120 Days of Sodom,” released in Italy just a few weeks after Pasolini’s murder on Nov. 2, 1975, at age 53, in the seaside town of Ostia outside Rome.
The Academy’s complete retro of Pasolini’s...
- 2/24/2022
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Forum adds 10 more titles; Classics includes Godard, Pasolini, Russell.
New films from Jonathan Perel and Max Linz are among 17 new titles added to the Forum section at the 2022 Berlinale; while the Classics section has programmed seven digitally restored titles ahead of next month’s festival.
Argentinian filmmaker Jonathan Perel will participate with the world premiere of documentary Camouflage, about a writer who embodies a man with an obsession with Argentina’s biggest military unit.
Perel’s previous films include Berlinale 2020 title Corporate Responsibility.
German director Linz is in the festival with the world premiere of his new film L’Etat Et Moi,...
New films from Jonathan Perel and Max Linz are among 17 new titles added to the Forum section at the 2022 Berlinale; while the Classics section has programmed seven digitally restored titles ahead of next month’s festival.
Argentinian filmmaker Jonathan Perel will participate with the world premiere of documentary Camouflage, about a writer who embodies a man with an obsession with Argentina’s biggest military unit.
Perel’s previous films include Berlinale 2020 title Corporate Responsibility.
German director Linz is in the festival with the world premiere of his new film L’Etat Et Moi,...
- 1/17/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Paris-based Carlotta Films, a leading player in the distribution of heritage cinema, is preparing a number of major releases next year, including a retrospective of Pier Paolo Pasolini and a showcase of works by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr. Commemorating the 100th anniversary of Pasolini’s birth, the retrospective will featuring restored versions of “Accattone” (1961), “Mamma Roma” (1962) and others.
Carlotta is currently at the Lumière Festival and International Classic Film Market in Lyon, where it’s launching several titles, including 4K restorations of François Truffaut’s five-picture series “The Adventures of Antoine Doinel,” released between 1959 and 1979. They include “The 400 Blows,” “Antoine and Colette,” “Stolen Kisses,” “Bed and Board” and “Love on the Run.” Carlotta is releasing the films, newly restored in 4K by MK2, in French theaters and on DVD/Blu-ray in December. They are part of Carlotta’s ongoing collaboration with Paris-based MK2 that also included the 2020 release of a Claude Chabrol collection.
Carlotta is currently at the Lumière Festival and International Classic Film Market in Lyon, where it’s launching several titles, including 4K restorations of François Truffaut’s five-picture series “The Adventures of Antoine Doinel,” released between 1959 and 1979. They include “The 400 Blows,” “Antoine and Colette,” “Stolen Kisses,” “Bed and Board” and “Love on the Run.” Carlotta is releasing the films, newly restored in 4K by MK2, in French theaters and on DVD/Blu-ray in December. They are part of Carlotta’s ongoing collaboration with Paris-based MK2 that also included the 2020 release of a Claude Chabrol collection.
- 10/15/2021
- by Ed Meza
- Variety Film + TV
Above: 1976 Hungarian poster for The Wizard of Oz. Art by Olga Tövisváry.In the world of East European poster design, Hungary has always been somewhat of a poor relation to Poland and Czechoslovakia, whose artists have been justly celebrated for years. In that indispensable bible of international postwar movie poster design, Art of the Modern Movie Poster, 66 pages are devoted to Polish posters and 40 to the Czechs, but not only is Hungary lumped into a section with Russia, Romania, and Yugoslavia but there are only two Hungarian posters featured. But that dearth of attention is all due to access rather than to the quality of Hungarian design. I recently came across a treasure-trove of Hungarian movie posters on a number of websites that could go a long way to redressing the balance. The posters that I am featuring here were all found on the auction site Bedo and they come...
- 8/23/2020
- MUBI
Since any New York City cinephile has a nearly suffocating wealth of theatrical options, we figured it’d be best to compile some of the more worthwhile repertory showings into one handy list. Displayed below are a few of the city’s most reliable theaters and links to screenings of their weekend offerings — films you’re not likely to see in a theater again anytime soon, and many of which are, also, on 35mm. If you have a chance to attend any of these, we’re of the mind that it’s time extremely well-spent.
Museum of Modern Art
The master Abel Ferrara–with whom we spoke this week in a wide-ranging interview–is given his largest-ever retrospective.
Film Forum
Films by Pasolini, Hou Hsiao-hsien, John Ford, Rossellini and more screen in “Trilogies.”
King Kong vs. Godzilla plays on Saturday and Sunday.
Quad Cinema
A restoration of James Ivory’s Quartet,...
Museum of Modern Art
The master Abel Ferrara–with whom we spoke this week in a wide-ranging interview–is given his largest-ever retrospective.
Film Forum
Films by Pasolini, Hou Hsiao-hsien, John Ford, Rossellini and more screen in “Trilogies.”
King Kong vs. Godzilla plays on Saturday and Sunday.
Quad Cinema
A restoration of James Ivory’s Quartet,...
- 5/3/2019
- by Nick Newman
- The Film Stage
Translating into English as “lucky”, the title of Sergio Castellitto’s overheated Italian melodrama is clearly ironic. But there is otherwise very little that is subtle or ambivalent about Fortunata, whose star Jasmine Trinca picked up the Best Actress prize in the Un Certain Regard section in Cannes yesterday. Shot in the same working-class Roman suburb as Pasolini’s neo-realist classic Mamma Roma, this compassionate character study strains to hit the same kind of female-centric heights as vintage Pedro Almodovar, but it falls short and ends up something of a soapy hot mess instead.
Castellitto has now directed six features in collaboration...
Castellitto has now directed six features in collaboration...
- 5/28/2017
- by Stephen Dalton
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Federico Fellini’s best non-narrative feature is an intoxicating meta-travelogue, not just of the Eternal City but the director’s idea of Rome past and present. The masterful images alternate between nostalgic vulgarity and dreamy timelessness. Criterion’s disc is a new restoration.
Fellini’s Roma
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 848
1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2016 / 39.95
Starring Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli, Dennis Christopher, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Elliott Murphy, Anna Magnani, Gore Vidal, Federico Fellini.
Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno
Film Editor Ruggero Mastroianni
Original Music Nino Rota
Written by Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi
Produced by Turi Vasile
Directed by Federico Fellini
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Federico Fellini stopped making standard narrative pictures after 1960’s La dolce vita; from then on his films skewed toward various forms of experimentation and expressions of his own state of mind. Most did have a story to some degree,...
Fellini’s Roma
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 848
1972 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 120 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 13, 2016 / 39.95
Starring Peter Gonzales, Fiona Florence, Pia De Doses, Renato Giovannoli, Dennis Christopher, Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Elliott Murphy, Anna Magnani, Gore Vidal, Federico Fellini.
Cinematography Giuseppe Rotunno
Film Editor Ruggero Mastroianni
Original Music Nino Rota
Written by Federico Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi
Produced by Turi Vasile
Directed by Federico Fellini
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
Federico Fellini stopped making standard narrative pictures after 1960’s La dolce vita; from then on his films skewed toward various forms of experimentation and expressions of his own state of mind. Most did have a story to some degree,...
- 12/13/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Above: French grande for Volcano (William Dierterle, Italy, 1950). A few weeks ago, I featured the posters of Anna Karina; now it’s the turn of that other legendary Anna... La Magnani or “La Lupa”, the she-wolf, as she was known. Magnani is currently being fêted at Lincoln Center in an all-celluloid retrospective showing 24 of her films that runs through June 1 before traveling to Chicago, San Francisco, Houston and Columbus.Magnani became a star with her powerhouse performance in Rossellini’s Rome, Open City in 1945, and the indelible image of her chasing down the Nazi soldiers who have taken her resistance-hero husband, is one that seems to have informed her persona throughout her career. No sex-kitten, Magnani was the personification of the great actress, and in her posters she is almost always emoting. She is rarely shown smiling (look at her scowling at Ingrid Bergman—in real life she had good...
- 5/21/2016
- MUBI
Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, videos, and other highlights from across the Internet. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Jessica Chastain, Juliette Binoche, Freida Pinto, Catherine Hardwicke, Amma Asante, Marielle Heller, Ziyi Zhang, Haifaa Al Mansour, and more women have launched the company We Do It Together to produce films and TV that boost the empowerment of women, Variety reports.
Dustin Hoffman discusses his screen test for The Graduate, plus read Frank Rich‘s Criterion essay:
Though The Graduate upholds some of the classic tropes of Hollywood romantic comedy dating back to the 1930s—especially in its climactic deployment of a runaway bride—Benjamin’s paralyzing emotional disconnect from the world around him is what makes his story both fresh and particular to its own time.
The...
Jessica Chastain, Juliette Binoche, Freida Pinto, Catherine Hardwicke, Amma Asante, Marielle Heller, Ziyi Zhang, Haifaa Al Mansour, and more women have launched the company We Do It Together to produce films and TV that boost the empowerment of women, Variety reports.
Dustin Hoffman discusses his screen test for The Graduate, plus read Frank Rich‘s Criterion essay:
Though The Graduate upholds some of the classic tropes of Hollywood romantic comedy dating back to the 1930s—especially in its climactic deployment of a runaway bride—Benjamin’s paralyzing emotional disconnect from the world around him is what makes his story both fresh and particular to its own time.
The...
- 2/25/2016
- by TFS Staff
- The Film Stage
The Italian film legend, known for his expressive face, made many films with Pier Paolo Pasolini and starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather films
The Italian cinema legend Franco Citti has died in Rome aged 80 following a long illness. Friend and fellow actor Ninetto Davoli confirmed that Citti had died on Thursday.
Citti, known internationally for his role as Calò in Francis Ford Coppola’s the Godfather I and III and as the face of films by director Pier Paolo Pasolini, came to fame at the age of 26 playing the title role in Pasolini’s 1961 Accattone. He continued to work with the legendary director throughout the 60s and 70s, appearing in films such as Mamma Roma, Edipo Re, Pigsty and The Decameron.
Continue reading...
The Italian cinema legend Franco Citti has died in Rome aged 80 following a long illness. Friend and fellow actor Ninetto Davoli confirmed that Citti had died on Thursday.
Citti, known internationally for his role as Calò in Francis Ford Coppola’s the Godfather I and III and as the face of films by director Pier Paolo Pasolini, came to fame at the age of 26 playing the title role in Pasolini’s 1961 Accattone. He continued to work with the legendary director throughout the 60s and 70s, appearing in films such as Mamma Roma, Edipo Re, Pigsty and The Decameron.
Continue reading...
- 1/14/2016
- by Mahita Gajanan
- The Guardian - Film News
Teorema
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written by Pier Paolo Pasolini
1968, Italy
A work that is chronologically and aesthetically his mid-period film, Teorema is Pier Paolo Pasolini at his finest hour. It is not Neo Realist cousin like Accatone (1961) Mamma Roma (1962), nor is it the debaucherous snarl of Salò (1975); it has a larger portion of the religious parable than The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966), and is as interested in sex as The Decameron (1971).
Teorema is a work of quiet suddenness. It moves quickly from documentary-style social film to its enigmatic plot, and Pasolini seems intent on doing away with any contrivances of a traditional narrative set-up. Within minutes of the opening credits the upper-class family at the center of the story receives a brief telegram: “Arriving tomorrow.” Immediately thereafter, the Visitor (or the Angel, as he’s sometimes called) is in their midst, disrupting and confusing husband, wife, son, daughter,...
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written by Pier Paolo Pasolini
1968, Italy
A work that is chronologically and aesthetically his mid-period film, Teorema is Pier Paolo Pasolini at his finest hour. It is not Neo Realist cousin like Accatone (1961) Mamma Roma (1962), nor is it the debaucherous snarl of Salò (1975); it has a larger portion of the religious parable than The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966), and is as interested in sex as The Decameron (1971).
Teorema is a work of quiet suddenness. It moves quickly from documentary-style social film to its enigmatic plot, and Pasolini seems intent on doing away with any contrivances of a traditional narrative set-up. Within minutes of the opening credits the upper-class family at the center of the story receives a brief telegram: “Arriving tomorrow.” Immediately thereafter, the Visitor (or the Angel, as he’s sometimes called) is in their midst, disrupting and confusing husband, wife, son, daughter,...
- 3/16/2014
- by Neal Dhand
- SoundOnSight
Mamma Roma
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1962
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma opens with a wedding – a dinner scene reminiscent of Jesus’ last supper and drawing on the iconic images of Renaissance art with a twist of the grotesque. Replacing the somber, thoughtful, and debating disciples presented by Da Vinci, we have a collection of vulgar country people, mischievous children, and the brazen Mamma Roma. The dialogue and interactions are crass but have a certain air of spiritual wellbeing that is lost once Mamma Roma abandons poverty for the middle-class life. This almost perverse religious interpretation is not meant to be disparaging or disrespectful, but to suggest the inherent contradiction Catholicism has in its own understanding of itself. While religion often hinges beauty and purity, Pasolini suggests that the spiritual beauty of humanity often emerges from vulgarity and contradiction. This is a film about sex, economics,...
Written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1962
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Mamma Roma opens with a wedding – a dinner scene reminiscent of Jesus’ last supper and drawing on the iconic images of Renaissance art with a twist of the grotesque. Replacing the somber, thoughtful, and debating disciples presented by Da Vinci, we have a collection of vulgar country people, mischievous children, and the brazen Mamma Roma. The dialogue and interactions are crass but have a certain air of spiritual wellbeing that is lost once Mamma Roma abandons poverty for the middle-class life. This almost perverse religious interpretation is not meant to be disparaging or disrespectful, but to suggest the inherent contradiction Catholicism has in its own understanding of itself. While religion often hinges beauty and purity, Pasolini suggests that the spiritual beauty of humanity often emerges from vulgarity and contradiction. This is a film about sex, economics,...
- 3/9/2014
- by Justine Smith
- SoundOnSight
The Gospel According to Matthew
Written and Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1964
As an avowed Marxist, homosexual, and atheist, Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini may seem to some a dubious choice to have made one of the most austere, faithful, and simply one of the best films about the life and death of Jesus Christ. But, with The Gospel According to Matthew, from 1964, that’s exactly what the controversial filmmaker, poet, novelist, and theorist did. This gritty and unpolished depiction of the life of Christ contains many of the narrative hallmarks featured in other film versions of the same story: the virgin birth, the early miracles, the apostles, Christ’s persecution and, ultimately, the crucifixion. However, no other cinematic depiction of this well-known chronicle looks, sounds, or feels quite like this one.
Before making this film, Pasolini had directed his first feature, Accattone!, in 1961, followed by Mamma Roma, starring...
Written and Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1964
As an avowed Marxist, homosexual, and atheist, Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini may seem to some a dubious choice to have made one of the most austere, faithful, and simply one of the best films about the life and death of Jesus Christ. But, with The Gospel According to Matthew, from 1964, that’s exactly what the controversial filmmaker, poet, novelist, and theorist did. This gritty and unpolished depiction of the life of Christ contains many of the narrative hallmarks featured in other film versions of the same story: the virgin birth, the early miracles, the apostles, Christ’s persecution and, ultimately, the crucifixion. However, no other cinematic depiction of this well-known chronicle looks, sounds, or feels quite like this one.
Before making this film, Pasolini had directed his first feature, Accattone!, in 1961, followed by Mamma Roma, starring...
- 3/8/2014
- by Jeremy Carr
- SoundOnSight
“Movie Houses of Worship” is a regular feature spotlighting our favorite movie theaters around the world, those that are like temples of cinema catering to the most religious-like film geeks. This week, Fsr’s Allison Loring chose one of her favorite theaters in Los Angeles. If you’d like to suggest or submit a place you regularly worship at the altar of cinema, please email our weekend editor. Aero Theater Location: 1328 Montana Avenue, Santa Monica, CA Opened: Originally opened in 1939 as a 24-hour theater for aircraft workers, but closed in 2003 after Robert Redford’s Sundance Cinemas project (which was going to take over ownership of the theater) fell through because General Cinemas (which was being sold to AMC) went bankrupt. The Aero is now officially known as the “Max Palevsky Aero Theater” thanks to Palevsky’s funding for the American Cinematheque’s refurbishment of the theater which re-opened in January 2005. No. of...
- 9/22/2013
- by Allison Loring
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Champion of the disinherited of postwar Italy, Pier Paolo Pasolini's masterworks reveal an obsession with martyrdom that foreshadowed his own wretched death
At the end of Mamma Roma (1962), Pier Paolo Pasolini's great film, the hero lies dying on a prison bed like the dead Christ of Mantegna or a barefoot saint by Caravaggio. Much has been made of the Renaissance and baroque iconography in Pasolini's cinema. The implied blasphemy of Caravaggio's grubby, low-life Christs excited the iconoclast in the Italian film-maker, whose wretched death was somehow foreshadowed in his own work. On the morning of 2 November 1975, in a shanty town outside Rome, Pasolini was found beaten beyond recognition and run over by his Alfa Romeo. A woman had noticed something in front of her house. "See how those bastards come and dump their rubbish here," she complained.
The scene of the murder, Idroscalo, recalls a setting for a...
At the end of Mamma Roma (1962), Pier Paolo Pasolini's great film, the hero lies dying on a prison bed like the dead Christ of Mantegna or a barefoot saint by Caravaggio. Much has been made of the Renaissance and baroque iconography in Pasolini's cinema. The implied blasphemy of Caravaggio's grubby, low-life Christs excited the iconoclast in the Italian film-maker, whose wretched death was somehow foreshadowed in his own work. On the morning of 2 November 1975, in a shanty town outside Rome, Pasolini was found beaten beyond recognition and run over by his Alfa Romeo. A woman had noticed something in front of her house. "See how those bastards come and dump their rubbish here," she complained.
The scene of the murder, Idroscalo, recalls a setting for a...
- 2/23/2013
- by Ian Thomson
- The Guardian - Film News
Above: Giotto, Meeting at the Golden Gate, 1305.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò (1975) was released by Criterion in 1998 and in 2004 they released Mamma Roma (1962). This past month they released a much belated box-set of his six-hour Trilogy of Life (1971-1974), in a beautiful restoration and accompanied with an awesome heap of great docs, essays and other goodies. On December 13 MoMA started a month-long retrospective dedicated to his work.
I. Defending Pasolini Against His Devotees
The prevailing view of Pier Paolo Pasolini has become subjugated to the misshapen reputation of his most infamous film, Salò (1975). The film’s unyielding serial descent into ever more severe cycles of mutilation, sodomy, coprophagia, and chronic rape of a group of 12-15 year olds has scandalized and influenced a culture that is frantic for any stimuli that can remind its constituents of their humanity. The film has furnished ample fodder for generations of filmmakers intent on...
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò (1975) was released by Criterion in 1998 and in 2004 they released Mamma Roma (1962). This past month they released a much belated box-set of his six-hour Trilogy of Life (1971-1974), in a beautiful restoration and accompanied with an awesome heap of great docs, essays and other goodies. On December 13 MoMA started a month-long retrospective dedicated to his work.
I. Defending Pasolini Against His Devotees
The prevailing view of Pier Paolo Pasolini has become subjugated to the misshapen reputation of his most infamous film, Salò (1975). The film’s unyielding serial descent into ever more severe cycles of mutilation, sodomy, coprophagia, and chronic rape of a group of 12-15 year olds has scandalized and influenced a culture that is frantic for any stimuli that can remind its constituents of their humanity. The film has furnished ample fodder for generations of filmmakers intent on...
- 12/26/2012
- by Gabriel Abrantes
- MUBI
“With Woody Allen, you have someone who is responsible for more memorable moments than anyone who’s ever been involved in films,” says Alec Baldwin, one of the stars of “To Rome With Love,” who joined various cast members and the director in New York City to talk with press about the film. The 42nd film of the career of the writer, director and legend, Allen doesn’t have to go far to find an exciting collaborator like Baldwin, who bluntly says, “When he calls you and asks you to come and do this, if you’re available, you go.”
“To Rome With Love” is an anthology, centered around multiple love stories set in the beautiful city of Rome. It’s a first for Allen, who has found a second home overseas since 2005’s “Match Point.” “Rome is a provocative city to shoot in,” Allen says. “It’s visually arresting,...
“To Rome With Love” is an anthology, centered around multiple love stories set in the beautiful city of Rome. It’s a first for Allen, who has found a second home overseas since 2005’s “Match Point.” “Rome is a provocative city to shoot in,” Allen says. “It’s visually arresting,...
- 6/21/2012
- by Gabe Toro
- The Playlist
On October 30, 1975, three days before he was murdered, Pier Paolo Pasolini was in Stockholm to present what was to be his last film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, to Swedish critics. A roundtable discussion was recorded with the intent of turning it into a radio broadcast but news of the filmmaker's death oddly resulted in the withholding of the recording rather than, as would surely happen today, an immediate publication. Eventually, the recording was lost, but as Eric Loret and Robert Maggiori tell the story in Libération, Pasolini's Swedish translator, Carl Henrik Svenstedt, a passionate archivist, recently discovered his own private copy. In December, the Italian newsweekly L'espresso posted the audio recording and published an Italian transcript. Here, for the first time, is an English translation. After a couple of informal questions, the roundtable officially opens with "Ladies and gentlemen…"
What do you know about Swedish cinema?
I know Bergman,...
What do you know about Swedish cinema?
I know Bergman,...
- 1/17/2012
- MUBI
Realism: looking up the meaning of the word, there are probably a minimum of seven different definitions to choose from (at least, that is the kind of profuse selection that greeted me in each of the four name-brand dictionaries that I checked). Most of them quickly sum up the term's associations to the major arts (theatre, literature, fine art, and - of the most interest to us for right now - cinema), while others do an even more diminutive job of describing its role in philosophy and logic. In its most universal context, it describes that which is physically 'true', things as they are, without abstraction or idealism. Long an ideal in several modes of representation, Realism has consistently 'saved' a medium from any number of Romantic, expressionistic, or abstract splurges. First manifest in a sizeable scale in France with Poetic Realism, the trend eventually spread over to Italy after WWII.
- 7/29/2011
- IONCINEMA.com
I'll leave the commentary on poster design to the far more knowledgeable Adrian Curry, but in rounding up notes on events happening around the Us (outside of New York, which'll have its own roundup in a bit), a handful of posters caught my eye, starting with this one for Other Cinema's Fujiyama in Red, a live program aimed at raising funds for Japanese Tsunami Relief and named "after the 1990 Kurosawa movie that foresaw the catastrophe." Tomorrow night in San Francisco; scroll down for details.
Brian Darr: "It's hard to imagine a better time for a San Francisco movie lover to partake in the by-now almost subversive act of watching a great classic film in a cinema, than when our city's architectural pride and joy, the Castro Theatre, devotes its screen to a 70mm film series, as it will for eight days starting this Saturday night, when it plays West Side Story,...
Brian Darr: "It's hard to imagine a better time for a San Francisco movie lover to partake in the by-now almost subversive act of watching a great classic film in a cinema, than when our city's architectural pride and joy, the Castro Theatre, devotes its screen to a 70mm film series, as it will for eight days starting this Saturday night, when it plays West Side Story,...
- 6/3/2011
- MUBI
One more reason to be super jealous of our friends in Austin, the announcement of the Paramount’s Summer Classic Film Series 2011 would make any classic film lover think they had died and gone to heaven. Celebrating 36 years and going strong, the place to be during the summer is Austin (as usual). And of course, when there’s classic films being announced at a repertory theater, there’s always a few Criterion connections.
Peter Bogdanovich, who recently entered the Criterion collection himself with his magnificent film The Last Picture Show (which will be screening July 27th – 28th, hosted by Sam Beam of Iron & Wine), will be there at the kick off, on May 20th, where he will be discussing Hollywood history which then is followed by a screening of Casablanca and a film of his choosing. That alone is worth your anticipation, because if anyone has great stories about film,...
Peter Bogdanovich, who recently entered the Criterion collection himself with his magnificent film The Last Picture Show (which will be screening July 27th – 28th, hosted by Sam Beam of Iron & Wine), will be there at the kick off, on May 20th, where he will be discussing Hollywood history which then is followed by a screening of Casablanca and a film of his choosing. That alone is worth your anticipation, because if anyone has great stories about film,...
- 5/13/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
It’s the time again, my friends. When I go through Hulu’s Criterion page and give you what’s new, what’s exciting and what might be a hint at a future release within the collection. There’s even a ton of new supplemental material from various films that are worth getting into. If you like this series of article, please sign up for your own Hulu Plus account. Every little bit counts and is much appreciated.
Let’s just get right to it then. Remember, all the links will be included with each listing. We make it as easy as possible for all of you. First up is a film that isn’t in the collection but I can easily see it being welcomed with open arms.
La Cérémonie (1995), a Claude Chabrol film, is about Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) who hires a new maid by the name of Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire), an illiterate woman.
Let’s just get right to it then. Remember, all the links will be included with each listing. We make it as easy as possible for all of you. First up is a film that isn’t in the collection but I can easily see it being welcomed with open arms.
La Cérémonie (1995), a Claude Chabrol film, is about Catherine (Jacqueline Bisset) who hires a new maid by the name of Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire), an illiterate woman.
- 5/13/2011
- by James McCormick
- CriterionCast
I. An impulse to action sings of a semblance…
Mamma Roma, Pasolini’s story of an aging whore in for one last trick while guarding her son for his first, can allegorize without symbolizing: never letting one thing stand in for another without the second standing in for the first, Pasolini lets the two hold equal dialectical weight… but this is already confused. It’s possible to neatly tally all the ways a Pasolini movies holds stereoscopic visions—visual symmetries, reverse-shots-reverse-shots, or the explicit equation, in Mamma Roma, of the two lead characters to Christ and Rome, but, just as forcefully, the equation of Christ and Rome to his two main characters—while proposing at least two completely contradictory, but equally material approaches into his work. Pasolini does so himself; is his operative principle equation or division?...
Mamma Roma, Pasolini’s story of an aging whore in for one last trick while guarding her son for his first, can allegorize without symbolizing: never letting one thing stand in for another without the second standing in for the first, Pasolini lets the two hold equal dialectical weight… but this is already confused. It’s possible to neatly tally all the ways a Pasolini movies holds stereoscopic visions—visual symmetries, reverse-shots-reverse-shots, or the explicit equation, in Mamma Roma, of the two lead characters to Christ and Rome, but, just as forcefully, the equation of Christ and Rome to his two main characters—while proposing at least two completely contradictory, but equally material approaches into his work. Pasolini does so himself; is his operative principle equation or division?...
- 2/13/2011
- MUBI
Producer of Pier Paolo Pasolini's early films
Though an enterprising film producer, often ahead of his times, Alfredo Bini, who has died aged 83, is best remembered for having given the poet Pier Paolo Pasolini the chance to make his debut as a film-maker with Accattone (1960), when no other film company was prepared to back it. Bini produced more than 40 films, including all the features made by Pasolini up until 1967, including Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St Matthew, 1964). Among his other films were many starring his wife, Rosanna Schiaffino.
Bini was born in Livorno, Tuscany, and, during the second world war, ran away from home to join the army. He was wounded and got a medal, but went back to finish his studies in biology. He soon gave up the idea of a scientific career and in 1945 moved to Rome, where, after taking on various jobs, he managed a theatre group.
Though an enterprising film producer, often ahead of his times, Alfredo Bini, who has died aged 83, is best remembered for having given the poet Pier Paolo Pasolini the chance to make his debut as a film-maker with Accattone (1960), when no other film company was prepared to back it. Bini produced more than 40 films, including all the features made by Pasolini up until 1967, including Il Vangelo Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to St Matthew, 1964). Among his other films were many starring his wife, Rosanna Schiaffino.
Bini was born in Livorno, Tuscany, and, during the second world war, ran away from home to join the army. He was wounded and got a medal, but went back to finish his studies in biology. He soon gave up the idea of a scientific career and in 1945 moved to Rome, where, after taking on various jobs, he managed a theatre group.
- 11/2/2010
- by John Francis Lane
- The Guardian - Film News
This is the podcast dedicated to The Criterion Collection. Rudie Obias, Ryan Gallagher & James McCormick discuss Criterion News & Rumors and Criterion New Releases, they also analyze, discuss & highlight Cc #512, Jean-Luc Godard film, Vivre Sa Vie.
What do you think of their show? Please send them your feed back: CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 347.878.3430 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or Comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.
Thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to their podcast and please leave your reviews in their itunes feed.
They broadcast every episode Live on UStream every Friday @ 7pm Est/4pm Pst. Join in on the conversation @ CriterionCast.com/Live
Our next episode they will highlight and discuss Criterion #496 Steven Soderbergh’s film, Che.
Add It To Your Netflix Queue & Available Via Watch Instantly..
Show Notes:
(00:00 – 00:15; “A United Theory” by God Help The Girl)
(00:16 – 01:...
What do you think of their show? Please send them your feed back: CriterionCast@gmail.com or call their voicemail line @ 347.878.3430 or follow them on twitter @CriterionCast or Comment on their blog, http://CriterionCast.com.
Thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe to their podcast and please leave your reviews in their itunes feed.
They broadcast every episode Live on UStream every Friday @ 7pm Est/4pm Pst. Join in on the conversation @ CriterionCast.com/Live
Our next episode they will highlight and discuss Criterion #496 Steven Soderbergh’s film, Che.
Add It To Your Netflix Queue & Available Via Watch Instantly..
Show Notes:
(00:00 – 00:15; “A United Theory” by God Help The Girl)
(00:16 – 01:...
- 8/3/2010
- by Rudie Obias
- CriterionCast
She’s no stranger to sexy ad campaigns, and Madonna is the current poster girl for the Italian designer label Dolce & Gabbana.
The Material Girl appears in a series of adverts, posing as a character from the Italian film “Mamma Roma,” as well as in shots at a family Sunday lunch, a bedroom scene, and various other scenarios.
Stefano Gabbana told press, “We wanted to continue pushing our current message that shows fashion’s more human nature and our heritage. This is yet another tassel of that mosaic.”
“We believe the campaign is comforting and that people will somehow identify themselves in the images, which again display a more human and approachable side of Madonna.”...
The Material Girl appears in a series of adverts, posing as a character from the Italian film “Mamma Roma,” as well as in shots at a family Sunday lunch, a bedroom scene, and various other scenarios.
Stefano Gabbana told press, “We wanted to continue pushing our current message that shows fashion’s more human nature and our heritage. This is yet another tassel of that mosaic.”
“We believe the campaign is comforting and that people will somehow identify themselves in the images, which again display a more human and approachable side of Madonna.”...
- 7/6/2010
- GossipCenter
To celebrate its 20th Anniversary, it appears as though the Tiff Cinematheque is set to pull out all the stops.
According to Criterion, the Tiff, formerly known as the Cinematheque Ontario, will be bringing out a rather superb and cartoonishly awesome summer schedule, that will include films ranging from Kurosawa pieces, to films from Pier Paolo Pasolini. Other films include a month long series dedicated to James Mason, Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales, a tribute to Robin Wood, and most interesting, a retrospective on the works of one Catherine Breillat.
Personally, while the Kurosawa, Pasolini, and Rohmer collections sound amazing, the Breillat series is ultimately the collective that I am most interested in. Ranging from films like the brilliant Fat Girl, to the superb and underrated Anatomy of Hell, these are some of the most interesting and under seen pieces of cinema of recent memory, and are more than...
According to Criterion, the Tiff, formerly known as the Cinematheque Ontario, will be bringing out a rather superb and cartoonishly awesome summer schedule, that will include films ranging from Kurosawa pieces, to films from Pier Paolo Pasolini. Other films include a month long series dedicated to James Mason, Eric Rohmer’s Six Moral Tales, a tribute to Robin Wood, and most interesting, a retrospective on the works of one Catherine Breillat.
Personally, while the Kurosawa, Pasolini, and Rohmer collections sound amazing, the Breillat series is ultimately the collective that I am most interested in. Ranging from films like the brilliant Fat Girl, to the superb and underrated Anatomy of Hell, these are some of the most interesting and under seen pieces of cinema of recent memory, and are more than...
- 5/26/2010
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
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