"Hey!"
- "LA RICOTTA", 1962 -
"I am a force of the past".
It's a poem!
In the first part the poem describes some ancient ruins,..
..whose style and history no one understands any more;..
..and some horrible modern constructions..
..that instead everyone seem to understand.
Then he continues.
"I am a force of the past,.."
"..only in tradition is my love".
"I come from the ruins, the churches, the altarpieces,.."
"..from the forgotten villages of the Apennines or the Pre-Alps,.."
"..where the brothers lived".
"I roam the Tuscolana like a madman,.."
"..and the Appian Way like an ownerless dog,.."
"..or I watch the twilights, the dawns over Rome, over Ciociaria, the world,.."
".. Like the first acts of the day-after.."
"..to which I assist anagraphically privileged.."
"..from the extreme border of some buried age".
#And from heaven..#
#..those who have left us# #look down on us.#
#They look down on us# #without weeping..#
#..with a light in their hearts.#
#They look down on us# #without weeping..#
#..with a light in their hearts.#
("Fiumicino, the old castle, is the first true idea of death,..")
("..as in a Godard movie.")
(That's how Pier Paolo Pasolini described in his poem "A desperate vitality". )
(..the seaplane station of Ostia,.)
(..where his battered body was found at dawn on 2nd November 1975)
("He was killed where he would have filmed the movie of his death",.)
(..wrote "Corriere della Sera")
("I got into his car at the station", confessed Giuseppe Pelosi)
("We went to eat and then to Ostia")
(There a quarrel took place)
("I became furious", continues Pelosi,.)
(.."and hit him harder and harder")
("When I saw him on the ground, I ran to the car..")
("..and ran over him with it.")
- ALBERTO MORAVIA, WRITER -
We have lost a poet,..
..and there aren't many poets in the world.
Only 3 or 4 are born in each century!
Right!
When this century is over,..
..Pasolini will be among the few valid poets.
A poet should be sacred!
(Giuseppe Pelosi at the time of the trial)
(In 1976 he was declared guilty with the complicity of others)
(A year later the Court of Appeal confirmed the sentence,.)
(.. but declared that there was no proof.)
(.. he acted with the complicity of others)
("Two contradictory sentences..")
("..that did not lead to the clarification of the events",.)
(..comments Laura Betti in the book.)
(.."Pasolini: cronaca giudiiaria, persecuzione, morte")
Regarding the two court sentences,..
..what do you reproach the justice or the Italian judges for?
- LAURA BETTI, ACTRESS -
We reproach them for nothing. We denounced the judicial system,..
..which is different!
But we were never incriminated.
Never!
Because everything we denounced was true,..
..as this book states,..
..our every action...
We went to 60 Italian cities to explain and denounce the crimes of justice..
..and the violation of the constitution by the authorities..
..who refused to make the proper investigations..
.. in order to find out what exactly happened that night.
Evidences were also destroyed.
Since 1960 some underground rumours,..
..which are the ones that really count on the sociological level....
Messages had been launched to the masses,..
..to the press mainly, but in Pasolini’s case..
..his 33 lawsuits meant that he could spend a lifetime in court.
Since a lawsuit can start in August 1961 and end in 1970,..
..one can really spend a lifetime in court with 33 lawsuits.
So, returning to his murder, the underground messages..
..aimed to demonstrate that Pasolini was responsible for his own death.
But the entire society is responsible for those messages.
("I watch with the eyes of an image the people in charge of the lynching",.)
(..wrote Pasolini in 1962)
(Since the beginning an air of scandal surrounds his works and life)
(Denounced for pornography and obscenity,.)
(..for books and films such as "The Ragazzi", "A Violent Life",.)
(.."Mamma Roma", "Theorem",. )
(.. Pasolini in the end was always acquitted)
(From the other side of the barricade,.)
(..Pasolini accuses the middle class of being hypocritical, racist,.)
(.. incapable of accepting anything which is different from it)
(In 1961 a gas station worker from Circeo.)
(..accused Pasolini of attempted robbery.)
(..and of having threatened him with a gun loaded with a gold bullet)
(He was condemned in 1963, acquitted in 1964,.)
(..and in 1967 he was acquitted definitely.)
(.."because the offence was extinct due to amnesty")
(The newspapers published a picture of Pasolini carrying a sub-machine gun)
(In 1963 he underwent trial for his film "La ricotta")
(The incriminated sequences were shown to the Court by a film editing machine,.)
(..introduced for the first time in a court house)
- The crown! - The crown!
The crown!
The crown! The crown!
In 1963 Pasolini made the film "La ricotta",..
..about the Passion of Christ and the sub-proletariat of Rome.
For this film he was accused and condemned to 4 months in prison..
..for contempt of the religion of state.
At the time you were the Prosecutor who asked for and obtained the sentence.
Today what do you remember of the trial and how do you judge that sentence?
- GlUSEPPE DI GENNARO, JUDGE -
I'll start by answering the second question.
I judge that sentence a just one and I believe that sentence..
..under the same circumstances should still be applied today.
Regarding that trial,..
.. I remind you that at that time the Italian culture was stagnant..
..and Pasolini was the only important expression..
..of vivaciousness and meaning.
For this reason he was followed with much interest..
..by those people who were considered to be the intellectuals of the moment.
The entire cultural intellectual establishment was on his side.
On the other side, the traditional culture,..
.. mainly of Catholic extraction, was virtually non-existent..
..or intimidated by Pasolini's presence,..
..who undoubtedly was a giant in comparison.
Could you clarify the concept of contempt of religious sentiment?
In order to be more specific in my answer,..
.. I'll refer to some sequences of the film we are discussing.
Pasolini introduces Stracci, a sub-proletarian character..
..who represents the figure of Christ.
Each time Stracci appears,..
..one can hear in the background sacred music.
But when the classical figures of the Catholic iconography appear,..
..Christ or Mary Magdalene, profane music is played in the background,..
..as to symbolize that the real Christ is Stracci,..
..the real religion is the hunger of the sub-proletarian.
In order! In order! Hurry! We're ready!
The record!
Not that one! You're worse than those who played dice at the foot of the cross!
Greedy! Blasphemers! The record! Scarlatti!
And this is nothing. I'd say that this serves as background for the scenes..
..that are tremendously offensive to the religious sentiment.
I'll describe one. At a certain point, the figure of Christ..
..represented by Stracci on the cross is left aside.
The attention is on Mary Magdalen, who strips nude..
..and shows her breasts while swaying to the rhythm of a cha cha,..
..which was the dance of the moment.
At that point the camera points on Christ on the cross, on Stracci,..
..and Christ at the sight of the nude body, the dance, becomes excited..
..and starts moving in a motion typical of a mental masturbation..
.. until he releases in the evident moment of the ejaculation.
To see Christ, the Christ of the traditional Catholic iconography,..
.. improperly and lasciviously ejaculating on the cross..
.. makes me doubt that it's a way..
..to criticize or conduct a dialogue in a system.
Isn't it instead a brutal attack, deliberate contempt..
..of the religious sentiment?
Pasolini was taken to court and condemned to 4 months..
..for contempt of the state religion in "La ricotta". - Yes, I know.
- Were you present at the trial? - I wasn't present, but I followed it.
- ALBERTO MORAVlA, WRlTER -
It was an absurd trial, because it was a very Christian film,..
..where the holiness of the figure of Jesus Christ is clearly stated,..
..showing that when he wasn't the sacred Jesus Christ yet..
..he was exposed to certain things.
It's a beautiful film because it draws a parallel between the real Christ,..
..crucified on the cross, with all the insults he was object of,..
..and the Christ adored today, whom no one would think of insulting.
The meaning of this film, which is truly Christian,..
..went completely lost on the Prosecutor and many others.
(When Pasolini's mother heard of the sentence,.)
(..she started crying hysterically and fainted)
(Pasolini looked for Moravia, then phoned the Prosecutor.)
(..accusing him of having caused his mother's crisis)
(lt was the only time.)
(..that Pasolini had such an extreme reaction to a sentence)
(In those days he wrote "Prayer to My Mother")
"Prayer to My Mother."
"It's hard to say in a son's voice.."
"..what at heart I so little resemble."
"You're the only one in the world who knows.."
"..what my heart always held, before all other love."
"For this, I must tell you what is terrible to know:'
".. in your grace was born my anguish."
"You're irreplaceable."
"And for this the life you gave me is condemned to solitude."
"And I don't want to be alone."
"I've an infinite hunger for love, the love of bodies without souls."
"Because the soul is inside you, it is you,.."
"..but you are my mother and your love's my bondage."
"I spent my childhood a slave.."
"..to this high, incurable sense of immense commitment."
"lt was the only way to feel life,.."
".. its only color, its only form. Now it's over."
"We survive,.."
".. in the confusion of a life reborn beyond reason."
"I beg you, ah, I beg you: don't desire death!"
"I'm here, alone, with you, in a future April."
When you shall be in the kingdom of heaven, remember me to your father.
- MARIO CIPRIANI, EXTRA -
The crosses were there and there... In the centre was the way...
- And what was here? The way it is now? - Yes, like now.
When did you meet Pasolini?
- In 1960. - How? Where?
- In Pietralata. - How?
While he was making the film "The Hunchback of Rome".
- The one with Lizzani? - Yes, with Lizzani.
- What was your job then? - I was a bricklayer.
- A bricklayer? - Yes.
Then there was the trial. What do you remember about it?
I remember when they condemned him:
.. he bust out crying thinking of his mother.
Though he was convinced he had to go to jail. Instead....
Do you remember anything in particular that took place during the trial?
Yes. When the Prosecutor condemned him, he stood up..
..and said: "You are condemning me because you do not understand religion".
"I invite you to a public debate and I'll ask you questions about religion."
"You try and answer me to see if you are in the position to condemn me."
Why do you think that Pasolini has always been, for 30 years,..
..a "case"?
Why him and not other intellectuals, other film-makers?
- ALFREDO BINI, PRODUCER -
For many reasons. First, there is an objective value about him..
..and when one possesses true value sooner or later it comes out.
Second, because he irritated and disturbed the quiet pond..
..where the Italy of the pre-economic boom rested.
Everything seemed to be going so well, so his reactions seemed intolerable.
The reactions which we mentioned are exactly those....
Also because he was the signal warning..
..that in that precise moment a change was underway.
Immediately after the end of the war..
..the people seemed to go back to the old values,..
..but shortly after something started to move..
..and this mad race which we today call "consumism" began.
In reality, it is the abandonment of ideals,..
..which he identified in things that at times seemed even pathetic,..
..agriculture, old fashion ways,..
..but in truth it was a definite change of roots,..
..rather a pruning of the roots.
The fact he forced the people..
..to face these changes,..
..and in a way to admit their betrayal, their willing to make compromises..
..was to them unacceptable.
They could not accept that one who was a marxist,..
..and a pederast, thus someone to be condemned,..
..would dare to preach ethics to them. It was unacceptable.
Society's reaction was loud and ugly,..
.. but like in most noises it produced a positive echo..
..that revealed unusual sensibility and true value.
Do you think that Pasolini was a happy person?
- As an artist and a person... - Never. Absolutely never.
He was a salamander forced to run so as not to burn.
The story of my life is the history of my books.
Here are my books, therefore here on this sofa lies my whole life.
My first book was published in 1942.
It's a book of poems written in my mother's dialect, the Friulan one.
I wrote them when I was 1 8, they were published when I was 20.
In 1942 I was 20.
My writings were characterized by a deep and instinctive hatred..
..against the state in which I live.
When I say "state", I also mean state of things..
..and state in the political sense of the word,..
..the capitalistic and bourgeois state that I started to hate since I was a child.
Of course, hatred is not productive.
Proof is that I was never able to write a single word..
..that described or denounced..
..the human traits of the Italian upper middle class.
My sense of repulsion is so strong that I cannot write about it.
Therefore, the characters I describe in my books are all from the lower class.
I do not have any dealings with the Italian middle class.
My relationships are with the lower class or with intellectuals.
The bourgeois, though, has managed to have dealings with me..
.. by using the instruments he has, the courts and the police,..
..by setting up a series of legal proceedings against my works..
..which are characterized not only by my hatred against the bourgeois,..
.. but also by a marxist vision of things,..
.. by a marxist analysis of society.
The court trials started with "The Ragazzi"..
..and continued up until recently with the trial against "La ricotta"..
..for contempt of the state religion.
("Dedication")
("Water fountain of my village..")
("..there's no fresher water than in my village.")
("Fountain of country love.")
(Pasolini poet)
(He was born in Friuli, a foreign and magic land,.)
(..not only because of its nearness to the border,.)
(..but also because of its archaic language.)
(..that Pasolini learned in Casarsa, the town of his mother)
("Poems in Casarsa" translate into verses the years of his youth,.)
(.. his internal world)
("Le litanie del bel ragazzo")
("Sunday today: death tomorrow.")
("Silk and love clothe me today.")
("Today is Sunday. With fresh feet in the fields..")
(".. Lightly in their sandals the children hop.")
("Singing to my mirror, singing I comb my hair.")
("The sinful devil laughs in my eye.")
("Ring, my bells: send him away.")
("We ring.")
("But what do you watch singing in your fields?')
("I watch the sun of dead summers.")
("I watch the rain, the leaves, the crickets.")
("I watch my body of when I was a boy,..")
("..the sad Sundays, the living I lost.")
("Silk and love clothe you today,..")
("..Sunday today, death tomorrow.")
(At the train station of Casarsa,.)
(..we met with Nico Naldini, Pasolini's cousin, writer.)
(..and author of a precious booklet "Nei campi del Friuli",.)
(..in which he describes Pasolini's childhood)
- Is this your mother? - Yes, this is my mother.
Good morning. Thank you.
She's rather old.
She's 88, but she belongs to the strong race of the farmers from Friuli.
- NICO NALDINI, WRITER -
- Did she always live in this house? - Yes,..
..except for a few short trips to Rome or when during the war..
..we had to flee to the countryside..
..because of the bombing or to hide from the Germans.
Those were years of extreme danger.
Was your family of peasant origin?
My family from my mother's side, from this house, was of peasant origin.
They are the Colussi, they are a large peasant clan.
They've been living here for over 600 years,..
.. but my grandfather was a small industrialist in agriculture.
Neither your father nor your grandfather were ever peasants.
Yes, I was explaining....
- It was the only distinguished family in Casarsa. - Yes.
And I don't want this to be forgotten.
- Now, mother.... - It's the mother who reminds the son!
Now, go on the terrace. It is cooler there.
- Bye. - Bye.
- Goodbye! - Goodbye.
When did Pasolini and his mother Susanna come to live here?
They always spent summer time here,..
..during the most important periods in the life..
..of a child and later of a boy.
They came every summer..
..from the end of one school year to the beginning of the next.
Then they came to stay for good in 1943. They lived in Bologna,..
.. but larger cities were more exposed to bombings.
They felt safer here, so they came to live here..
..for a few years, until 1949.
The absence of the father away at war,..
..and the choice to write in his mother's native tongue:
..what relationship is there between Pasolini's poems..
..and his mother's world here in Friuli?
Pasolini's relationship with his mother is a very personal one.
It was a very exclusive relationship, of great intimacy and delicacy.
A relationship that never seemed to have a dark side,..
..only a bright side.
It's the relationship of a perfect love,..
..one that is self-sufficient and never lives beyond itself.
- "OEDIPUS REX", 1967 -
Pasolini wrote his poems in Friulan, the language of his mother,..
.. but he did not speak it.
His writings showed the tenderness..
..of the Friulan language.
- And of the peasant world. - The peasant world.
Although many situations in life..
.. Led my aunt Susanna to live away from Casarsa,..
.. in different cities, and to be the wife on an officer in army,..
..and so a middle class lady,..
..in the important moments of her life she was really a peasant from Casarsa.
She had that health, that good sense, that severity...
But this perfect love, this lovely summer morning..
..which could be an image..
..of the relationship between Pasolini and his mother,..
..was in contrast with something else:
..the narcissistic sensibility that was expressed in this relationship..
..could be dangerous,..
..and was dangerous for Pasolini's life.
The presence happened at my birth.
Then, at the age of 7 and a half,..
.. I wrote my first verses in the noblest of the Italian languages.
I was in second grade..
..and in my verses when I spoke of "nightingale" and "grass"..
.. I'd use the Friulan terms for these words.
I continued writing poems until I was 27 or 28,..
..shortly before moving to Rome.
I'd say that Friuli was for me a sort of pleasant and tragic exile,..
..a sort of prison where I could perform the acts of my narcissism..
..among the vineyards, the mulberry trees and the green meadows of Friuli.
At the same time I could grieve in pain there over the death of my brother..
..which occurred the year before, at the end of the war. He had been a partisan.
(Carlo Alberto Pasolini and Susanna Colussi.)
(..got married on the eve of the fascist era)
(The father: nationalist and authoritarian)
(Pasolini with his mother)
(In a poem he compared her to a chestnut tree)
(Pier Paolo with his younger brother Guido)
(The day of his Confirmation)
(When he grew up, he would have liked to be a sailor)
(Father and son in Florence:)
(..till the end a difficult and contradictory relationship)
My father...
It is difficult to speak of him because we were so different from each other.
My relationship with him was a difficult one,..
..which is typical of dramatic relationships between father and son.
It was unconsciously dramatic for reasons that Freud could explain better than l.
Also because of the objective differences of characters.
My father was an officer of old-fashioned ways.
His ideas were exactly the opposite of the ideas I had then, and now.
There was a difference of ideology, character...
Maybe at the moment I am being unfair by saying so.
The difference did exist.
Unconsciously I considered him my enemy and he considered me his.
But in reality it was he who encouraged me to choose the profession I chose.
("In spite of the war, 1943 was one of the most beautiful years of my life",. )
(..wrote Pasolini. He was full of initiative:)
(.. he worked on a thesis on Giovanni Pascoli,.)
(.. he taught the young peasants, wrote, made drawings)
(The summers were full of the sounds of the cicadas and of passion)
(The river, the young bodies in the Tagliamento river, a secret diary,.)
(.. Rita Hayworth at the cinema)
(In the echoes of those summers the 4 chapters of "Amado mio" were born)
(They were published only after his death)
(Even the religious spirit of Friuli and of the peasant world.)
(..were a discovery for him)
This is the church of San Rocco.
This wall was faded.
(One day, in the tiny church in Versutta,.)
(..he took an onion and started rubbing.)
(..a faded wall since the time of the plague)
(He revived some antique frescoes from the school of Giotto)
This is Versutta, a small town where..
.. Pasolini lived with his mother. That's the house where they lived..
..during the last months of the war.
- Did Guido live here, too? - Guido was here only for a few days,..
.. before leaving for the mountains to become a partisan.
He came here to hide because the fascists were after him.
He hided here for a few days.
- He left with a haversack and a book of poetry. - What book was it?
It was the "Songs of Orpheus" by Campana,..
..and inside the book he kept a handgun.
- And he never came back? - No. He went up into the mountains,..
..where he joined the partisans..
..and there a tremendous massacre took place,..
..you probably heard of it, the massacre of Porzus. - Yes.
Only a few partisans of the Osoppo brigade were left,..
..some were Catholics, others were not.
Guido was ideally a member of the Party of Action..
..and he was massacred along with his companions.
- By other partisans? - By Slovenian partisans,..
.. but also by Italian communists.
My brother represented and continues to represent..
..that which I would have liked to be.
You probably know or imagine..
..that any writer or poet fundamentally has the idea..
..of being different from the others.
I think that it is the only thought that obsesses any writer..
..from the beginning, from his childhood.
In my brother I saw the others,..
..not in the form of the enemy, or in a hostile way,..
..but in the form of that which I would have liked to be.
- SUSANNA COLUSSI PASOLINI -
The difference was in their character. There was a lot of difference.
Pier Paolo had always been a bit closed,..
..serious, too serious.
The other was more open, happier,..
..very courageous.
Does this mother's pain come back?
Yes, Pier Paolo tried to represent it in "The Gospel According to St. Matthew",..
..where his mother played the part of the Virgin.
Pier Paolo said a few words to her that maybe,..
..said or repeated now, could seem almost cynic.
In reality it was not so,..
.. because he was tracing a very painful feeling,..
..the feeling of a woman who loses her son.
And he said to her: "Mother, remember Guido".
- "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW", 1964 -
You shall hear with your ears, but you will not understand.
And you shall see with your eyes, but you will not comprehend.
Because these people's heart has become insensible.
(1 st May in Friuli in the 1950's)
(In that period Pasolini started to write "The Dream of a Thing")
(The preface is a quotation of Karl Marx:)
(.."Our motto must be:")
(".. reform of consciousness not through dogmas,..")
(".. but by analyzing the consciousness that is unintelligible to itself,..")
("..whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form)
("It will then become evident that the world has been for a long time..")
("..the dream of a thing")
(Giovanna Bemporad)
(She's a friend of Pasolini from the time of the University of Bologna)
(She introduces us to that Friuli which will later become.)
(..the dream of a thing)
- GIOVANNA BEMPORAD, POET -
Pier Paolo came to my studio in Bologna....
I was 1 5 and had already published an anthology of epic poems..
..translating Homer and Virgil.
He came looking for me since I was pretty well-known in Bologna..
..and because he wanted to start publishing a literary magazine.
So he came to me because he wanted to have some of my translations..
..or some of my poetry.
My father was Jewish and anti-fascist.
His studio in Ferrara had been burnt, he was a judge.
This happened before I was born in Ferrara.
So I was anti-fascist from birth. I had sucked it in with the milk as an infant!
Whereas Pier Paolo was the son of a fascist father.
The first day we met we started talking about politics,..
..since we were in war,..
..and he told me: "Of course I am a fascist!".
"There's no reason not to be!"
I was very surprised and said: "How come?'.
"Don't you realize what fascism is? It has ruined Italy!"
And I planted in his mind the first seed of doubt,..
..which later flourished, as we know.
And this friendship with him continued in Casarsa.
Yes. Pier Paolo wrote to me and invited me to go to Casarsa.
It was the end of 1944.
I went there to teach Greek and Latin.
I taught in one place, he in another.
Then we'd meet for lunch and spend the rest of the day together.
We'd go walking in the fields or in the graveyards,..
.. because I was very funereal, gloomy..
..and I always led Pier Paolo towards death,..
..to talk of death.
So we'd hold our literary conversations..
..while walking among tombs. But at night it was different.
We were young and full of life. We had fun going to dance..
..or going drinking in the country inns near Casarsa,..
..in Latisana or Valvasone...
There we'd get drunk and dance.
Pier Paolo would dance first with me, since we were there together,..
..but later he tried to have me dance with all the other young boys..
.. because he wanted to introduce me to life.
His pedagogical nature was already evident..
..and since I was much younger than he..
.. he acted as a teacher.
He wanted to tear me away from my books and throw me into life.
So he enjoyed it while watching me dance whirling with these country boys.
They obviously treated me as though I were one of them,..
.. not thinking that I was an infant prodigy, a literary phenomenon.
And he enjoyed himself.
Oh Lord, may your word sanctify all things..
..and bring your blessing on these animals....
(In Versutta it's an ancient ritual:)
(..the blessing of the fields and of the animals)
(The officiating priest is Don Dante)
- Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. - Amen.
(Son of farmers,.)
(..in this drawing by Pasolini Don Dante is the boy on the right,.)
(..he attended the small school in Versutta)
- DON DANTE, MISSIONARY -
We were 4 or 5 boys and he'd teach us.
It was like a communion of the spirits. He delighted in being with us,..
..very plain boys,..
..because he was always searching for archaic things,..
..those archaic things which he did not find in Bologna,..
..but found in us.
The essential elements of life, poverty...
Even the Friulan language to him was music.
He'd inebriate himself with the word "rosada", in Italian "rugiada", dew,..
..that was not used in the Friuli beyond the Tagliamento.
So intense was he... And he would teach us literary criticism.
I remember very well how he'd teach us the poem "The Saturday in the Village".
He'd say: "Each of you choose a verse and explain why it is so beautiful,.."
"..why he chose that verse".
And so he'd teach us to discuss together in Italian,..
..which was much more difficult for us.
(San Vito al Tagliamento)
(The square that appears in the novel "The Dream of a Thing")
(lt narrates the epic days of 1948,.)
(..when thousands of field workers.)
(.. marched to denounce unemployment.)
(..and the low working and living conditions)
You are Dino Peresson and you are the main character..
..of Pasolini's novel "The Dream of a Thing". - Yes.
Can you explain the situation..
.. in which the field workers and the sharecroppers lived?
- DINO PERESSON, WORKER -
The situation was very bad,..
..because in those days they ploughed the fields with animals, with cows.
So as many as 1 5 or 20 families had to live together;..
..sometimes even 30, among which were some families of sharecroppers.
- Your family, too? - No, we were factory workers.
We had nothing to do.... We didn't own any land at all,..
..only that tiny house, old and without a bathroom.
- In those days to have a toilet.... - What were the owners like?
They were..
..the owners: free to do as they wish,..
..free to give you a kick in the rear.
If one worker went to the mass, those who liked to,..
.. he had to be careful not to be caught by the steward..
..who would say: "Go to the field, it's time to feed the leaves to the silkworms".
If it was not the silkworms, it was something else.
And they had to go.
But when the owner said: "Go to church!",..
..then they had to go,..
..mainly in winter time, when there was not too much work.
- Until the workers exploded.... - Yes, they exploded in an organized protest..
..and we came here.
Many came from different parts of Friuli, and not only here,..
..but in San Vito there was the core of the insurrection.
When Pasolini wrote "The Dream of a Thing"....
- He was aware of these things. - Was he present?
Not really. I never saw him,..
.. because he had his job, he was a teacher.
But he was kept informed of what was going on..
.. by us. He'd come to me or to someone else who was present.
He was often in San Vito,..
..also in San Giovanni di Casarsa and Casarsa,..
.. but more in San Vito than in Casarsa,..
..because he loved these fights for the field workers' rights.
He loved the peasants, in a very special way.
So he was present.
Even though physically he wasn't, immediately after the protest he'd....
What made Pasolini love the peasants so much?
Well, I don't know.
I really can't say what the reason was. I think that after all..
..through the studies he made regarding the peasant way of living,..
..he got to know the peasants well;..
..he understood that they needed someone helping them,..
..someone stimulating these people to help them.
And what remains in you of the idea of the revolution of those days?
A dream that did not come true,..
..the dream of a thing.
This brief encounter took place during the struggles between the farm hands..
..and the land owners, those who were called "masters" by the farm hands.
It was a sort of later-day feudalism in Friuli.
I was on the side of the farm hands, and through this instinctive decision..
.. I made my choice in life, which is still valid today.
It is the choice of marxism, of total opposition to the society.
- PINA KALZ, MUSICIAN -
This is the music of a country song that Pier Paolo and I composed together.
He wrote the lyrics, and I wrote the music.
It later became the hymn of the chorus of my "Fantas de Ciasarsa",..
..which means "the best boys of Casarsa".
In what years did you play together?
In 1944 our activity was most intense,..
..we even put on some shows for the public.
And how come were you in Casarsa?
I came to stay with my sister and my brother-in-law when the war broke out.
Actually, it was when Maribor was occupied by the Germans.
Maribor, in Slovenia.
Pier Paolo wrote a novel during those years,..
.."Amado mio" and "Atti impuri",..
.. in which you are the main character with the name of Dina.
But at that time I didn't know it,..
..because this work was recently published.
Do you have any pictures of that period?
I should have some. Here.
Thanks.
If I'm not mistaken, you had sensed Pier Paolo's secret.
In a way yes, but not at the beginning. It was just before we left each other.
In part I sensed it, and in part it was because of the rumours that went around.
It couldn't be otherwise.
How did you sense that which he called "the naked terror"?
It's difficult to explain... By the way he acted on a whole.
There was something about him....
But we never spoke about it. It was only just before we were parting..
..that I very discreetly asked him something..
..and he answered with these words: "And what if it were true?'.
He didn't have to say anything more. It was a confirmation,..
..that hurt me a lot.
And still in "Amado mio" it seemed almost as if you, the protagonist of the book,..
.. had helped Pasolini to live his secret among the people,..
..as though you provided him with a mask.
It's possible.
Had it been necessary,..
.. I would have done it gladly, with all my heart,..
..if it could have helped.
("Then the lights went out..")
("..and what should have been the most beautiful film..")
("..seen by Desiderio started")
("In Gilda's presence,..")
("..something marvelously common invaded all the spectators")
("The music of 'Amado mio' was devastating")
("Even when lasis, held by Desiderio,..")
(".. put his head on his shoulder..")
("..and in that atmosphere of orgy consummated beyond time,..")
(".. before death,..")
(".. Desiderio's chest seemed finally to let go,..")
("..the emotion was such that the tears seemed to freeze")
("Submissive and abandoned,..")
(".. his chest melted by the music and the words of the song,..")
("..Desiderio caressed the boy's head that rested on his shoulder,..")
("..the way one would caress a brother")
("And between the tears,..")
(".. instead of the speech in which he should have announced to him..")
("..his decision to renounce forever..")
(".. he whispered in his ear: 'Forgive me, lasis', but lasis,..")
(".. hearing the words whispered by Desiderio,..")
("..smiled distractedly and answered: 'Tonight'")
- NICO NALDINI, WRITER -
The young boys, Pasolini's homosexuality,..
..the attraction he felt for young boys..
..is like a link between the maternal world and reality.
The young boys, their world, I am not referring to single love episodes,..
.. but the young boys' world in part belongs to the maternal world.
By loving the young boys the maternal love remains intact,..
.. pure, without betrayals. At the same time, these boys..
.. Iived in a world that was very different,..
..and not only physically, from Pasolini's.
So they were a bridge towards this new reality.
He came to know the world of the peasants..
..and the world of the Roman slums through these young boys..
..who possessed a certain duplicity..
..or ambiguity. On the surface their world seemed crystal clear and simple, but..
..at the same time they projected Pasolini's sensibility into the awareness..
..of a new world, and this was always a brutal and traumatic experience.
Indeed, getting to know the peasant world wasn't a traumatic experience for him,..
..and actually it couldn't be so.
Whereas his discovery of the sub-proletarian Roman world..
..was a real trauma for him.
But it was this very peasant world that brought on the scandal..
..and later denounced Pasolini.
It wasn't the peasant world that brought on the scandal and denounced him.
It was the upper middle class who resorted to the law codes, who claimed scandal.
The peasant world judges with severity,..
.. but does not resort to a moral code different from itself,..
.. like the official code of the Italian state.
The peasant world would never have raised a scandal.
It would have judged him severely, yes,..
..with its silence, as it did.
We're talking about Pasolini's scandal of those years.
The peasant world of that time judged him severely.
We're not talking about the peasant world of today.
The one of the past possessed mercy,..
..the natural knowledge of things, of animals, of plants.
This all leads to a code of behaviour..
..totally different from the codes of the upper middle class.
They are the ones who denounced Pasolini.
It was a revenge of the upper middle class.
It was not even a stand based on a moral or legal judgment.
It was a revenge,..
.. because for the upper middle Friulan class, Pasolini..
..had betrayed them by becoming a communist.
- "ACCATTONE: THE SCROUNGER", 1961 -
Hey! Are you going to jump wearing your gold?
Aren't you going to take off your chain and bracelet?
No! I want to die wearing all my gold, like the pharaohs!
- Hey! Give it to us! - If you want it, come and fish for it!
I got a cramp on my neck! Are you going to jump?
Come on, let's give the people some satisfaction.
(From "The Ashes of Gramsci")
("Now, far away, different,..")
(".. in the almost unearthly wind which moves the impure air,..")
("..draws life from the mortal stagnation of things,..")
(".. I see Ruda's farmhouses, its fields, its square;..")
("..above, the white Alps, and below, along the canals,..")
("..amidst fields of corn and vineyards, the sea's damp light...")
("Only loving, only knowing counts,..")
("..not having loved, not having known...")
("Stupendous and poor city,..")
("..you taught me that which happy, fierce men learn as children,..")
(".. in peace, we discover the little things that make life grand,..")
("..how to enter the crowded streets hard and ready,..")
("..how to turn to your fellow man without trembling...")
("Stupendous and poor city,..")
("..you allowed me to experience that which was unknown to me:")
("..till you led me to discover that which is the world in each of us")
("Attracted by the proletarian life that came before you,..")
("..for me, its happiness was religion..")
(".. not its centuries long struggle:")
(".. its nature, not its conscience...")
("Poor, among the poor,..")
(".. Like them, I cling to humiliating hopes,..")
(".. Like them, I, too, fight every day, to live")
("But in my desolate condition, destitute,..")
(".. I possess:")
("..and it is the most thrilling of bourgeois possessions,..")
("..the most absolute state")
("But, as I possess history, history possesses me;..")
(".. it illuminates me:")
("..but what good is the light?')
(Pasolini was accused of corruption of minor,.)
(..expelled from the Communist Party,.)
(..and fired from his job as a teacher in Valvassone)
(He fled to Rome with his mother in 1950)
(Two years later he was acquitted. He wrote then:)
(.."I could have drowned in the dung-pit of the upper middle class")
("I am and will be a communist.")
(In Rome he lives near Portico d'Ottavia, then near Ponte Mammolo)
(He teaches for 27.000 lire a month. He survives)
- SILVANA MAURI OTTIENI, LECTURER -
I came across this tiny photo.
I had it enlarged lovingly.
It's exactly from the period when we met in Bologna.
Here we are in a mountain hut..
..which we rented to go skiing and we got lost...
But that's another story.
- How old was Pier Paolo here? - 19, it was 1940. He was born in 1922, right?
- Yes. - 19, and you can see how beautiful he was!
He was strong, had nice features, with lovely penetrating eyes.
He was very strong...
You had a long epistolary correspondence.
Yes, long like a lifetime.
So you knew the Pasolini of before and after the scandal,..
..that is in Friuli and in Rome. - Yes.
What image do you have of Pasolini in Friuli first and of him in Rome later?
I must say that Pasolini was always the same.
Having followed him so closely,..
..there isn't a Pasolini of before and after the scandal.
There were different circumstances.
I saw him in Casarsa happy with his life in the country,..
.. in his mother's large kitchen,..
.. happily riding his bike,..
..happy about teaching poetry to the young farmers,..
..studious, serene before his brother died.
Then I saw him in Rome, when he called me,..
..and he had lost everything:
..his country, his honor, if one can put it that way.
He had been driven away from all the schools,..
..the Communist Party had abandoned him.
Where did you go to visit him?
He called me, as I wrote,..
..and he told me he lived in a house illegally built at Rebibbia.
Strangely enough, the land of Rebibbia, where now is the penitentiary,..
..used to belong to my father.
I vaguely remembered the area, but the place was a mess.
There were no roads yet, no electric light.
I took a taxi which cost me a fortune:
.. 1 5.000 lire. It was a lot at the time! And I looked for the house.
He was alone in this house with no roof,..
.. no road, no electricity, in the middle of the room,..
..apparently desperate, a poor desperate soul.
- "Apparently"... why? - Because in reality, knowing him well,..
.. behind this despair,..
.. I saw a flash of ferocious joy in him..
..because a new reality was opening in front of him,..
..an unknown reality: that of the hell of the city slums,..
..the young boys who played ball...
A kind of anonymity that in that moment pleased him.
Having been chased away made him despair, but it also liberated him.
(Rome in the 1950's)
(Pasolini spent his time between the world of slum dwellers.)
(..and that of intellectuals and writers)
("One must be very strong", he wrote,.)
(.."to love solitude and have good legs")
This is one of the sites..
..where I was about to film some scenes of "On Any Street".
- MAURO BOLOGNINI, DIRECTOR -
But then I didn't. Here there were some shacks.
You can still see the mark of the prostitutes' houses.
"On Any Street" was written and adapted by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Yes, it was the first film I made from Pier Paolo's screenplay.
We had worked together before, but there had been other collaborators too.
Then for five years we worked together: "On Any Street", "ll bell'Antonio"...
Pasolini would have preferred you used as actors..
..the young boys from the street. - Yes, he preferred Citti.
Anyway, Citti was one of the co-writers of the dialogues of "On Any Street".
You worked with Pasolini..
..during the period when he passed from literature to cinema. - Yes.
- Was it a difficult change for him? - To tell the truth,..
.. Pier Paolo went through a period in which he had a sort of aversion..
..towards literature because he felt he needed a means to reach the masses.
He loved cinema. He liked the film-editing machine a lot.
So he started to love it as a means.
Indeed, he also painted, he had a liking for faces.
If I'm not mistaken, "Accattone"..
..was supposed to be produced by Federiz, i.e. by Federico Fellini.
That's right. He started the film with Federiz..
.. because Federico was in business with Rizzoli.
They'd call various directors, that's where Pier Paolo came in.
- They started the film, which lasted one week. - Why was it stopped?
- Because he didn't like it. - Fellini? - Yes.
One night I met Fellini and he said to me:
.."You don't know what Pier Paolo has filmed!".
I guessed that it must have been beautiful..
..because I felt it would be so different from....
Actually, I also knew what Pier Paolo wanted to do.
I knew the characters, the settings, everything...
We used to be together all day long.
So I said to myself: "It can't be".
The following day the film was stopped.
I found Pier Paolo at home, very sad.
I took the screenplay which laid on a table.
I had read the screenplay, but not his personal copy.
I was surprised at what I saw.
He had kept his copy hidden.
On each page he had made drawings of the characters,..
..the site, the shot he wanted.
He had made a storyboard of the entire film.
It was beautiful. It was a work of art. It was already the film.
- ALFREDO BINI, PRODUCER -
So he tried to make "Accattone" with Fellini.
They filmed for about a week. Then they viewed the material.
It was frankly awful. So he was fired.
It was such a trauma for him that he tried to commit suicide.
A friend of mine from Bologna said to me:
.."You'd better go because Pasolini wants to kill himself".
I reached him and said: "Why do you have to kill yourself tonight?'.
"You can do it tomorrow!" So I took him away.
He showed me the material, which frankly could not be used.
It seemed the work of a little nephew filming the marriage of his aunt.
But it was evident that it was what he wanted to say.
I was just that he had never done it.
I looked up Delli Colli, who at the time was not working.
- The director of photography? - Exactly.
And helping Pier Paolo with everything, we started re-doing the film.
That's how "Accattone" was made.
- "ACCATTONE", 1961 -
Get out of my sight! Go away!
- Giovanni! Dad! - Do you see how sour your mother is?
She has no conscience! She wants you to grow up fatherless!
Dad!
- What is he looking for? What does he want here? - He wants to be fed!
Now he's left without anyone..
..and comes here hoping to be fed at our expense!
Listen to this jerk! You'd better stop coming here!
One of these days someone is going to break your neck!
This is not Saint Peter's Circle! If you want to eat, get a job!
Does he think he can scare me? Who does he think he is?
Bust his face, Giovanni! So this jerk will stop coming to our house..
.. making demands! You dirty scoundrel! Get out of here!
You are all so sweet!
The rebellion of the stupid!
You feel like joking...
You have some nerve showing up here! Get out!
And don't you dare come back!
I don't want your son to see your face,..
..to be ashamed of having a father like you!
It's not that I changed the literary technique.
I actually changed the language. This probably..
..indicates my protest..
..against the Italian literature,..
..against the Italian language tout court..
..or even against the society that expresses itself in this language.
In a certain sense, by making films I have changed nationality,..
.. by adopting another language.
But even this is only a partial explanation, because..
.. I've discovered that cinema is something even more interesting..
.. if seen from a philosophical point of view instead of a linguistic one.
The truth is that cinema is nothing other than reality.
We can say that cinema is the language of reality.
- FRANCO CITTI, ACTOR -
I want to die wearing all my gold, like the pharaohs.
This is where Accattone decides to kill himself the first time..
.. he implores death against the Papal Rome.
Why does he challenge himself in this way?
If a boy from the sub-proletarian class dies in the slum, it makes no news.
So he decides to do it here,..
..so that by dying in the Papal Rome his death will make news.
So it's a challenge, and he implores....
What was the reason for Accattone to come all the way into the centre?
It was a trip. To leave the slum and go all the way to the centre..
..was like going today from Rome to Munich.
The distance was the same. We'd take the trolley, where we were kicked away...
We'd come to the centre because it was the only chance to find a piece of bread..
..that the rich threw away and we'd pick up.
In the slum there was none.
The difference between the rich and the poor was very obvious.
Today they have a certain dignity that then....
But we had our dignity too, but....
The rich knew it, but they rejected us.
They wanted us to remain in the slum.
They didn't want us to come here.
This is the meaning of his going to the centre.
I feel that Accattone is a god..
..of poetry, who comes and implores... A messiah!
Do you think that also Pasolini felt this idea of challenge, as a person?
Yes, I think his image..
..was that of someone who loved to face challenges.
He looked for them. He wanted them.
He was a man looking for a life full of challenges.
This slum is where the character Accattone lived,..
..and where I lived. I had just come out of a sad situation,..
..a reformatory, where my mother had sent me for 8 years,..
.. unjustly. I arrived here after Pasolini did.
He was already here with some other friends of mine.
He wanted these things to be known by the upper middle class,..
.. because until then no one had ever had the courage to enter the houses..
..and show them.
But he loved this world.
Of course. He was courageous enough to make this challenge,..
..because facing these people before....
When we filmed "Accattone", all the actors were people like me,..
..taken from the street. While filming, sometimes some did not show up..
..because they had gone off to steal in order to eat.
We did not earn any money making the film.
So after filming some would go to steal,..
..some to exploit prostitutes, etc. At times some would be arrested,..
..so we suspended filming for a day or two.
We'd pay the bail to liberate them and so on.
What do you think Pasolini loved of these places, of these people?
I believe that he..
..was a bit like us.
He liked these things because, this is something I've always said to myself,..
..the most honest people are the thieves.
We used to steal fruits, not to rob banks.
At the time there were no banks.
And maybe he liked these deeds, these kids that would go stealing...
In Rome one would say: we went stealing, but we were innocent.
- "ACCATTONE", 1961 -
Laio, is it possible that you never recognize me?
And still I'm your father!
Give your Dad a kiss.
Come on! Give me a kiss!
Long, long! Come here!
Look what I have to do.
Bye, Laio. Be good, okay?
This area was called Gordiani. It was a slum area filled with shacks.
- All around here? - That's right.
This one belonged to better-off people,..
.. but in the film it was my wife's house,..
..where we filmed the scenes of me taking off the chain from my son..
..and the fight with my brother-in-law,..
..after which Accattone goes towards death,..
.. because he feels humiliated, offended...
- And the same night he dies on the street. - That's right.
And he seems almost happy to die.
Exactly. He says: "Now I feel good".
How would Accattone die today, in 1985?
- How would he die? - Well,..
..all you have to do is look here,..
..what Pasolini used to call "the genocide".
But it's not a dishonorable death...
(Genocide:)
(..a metaphor to describe the destruction of the world of Accattone.)
(..and the culture and traditions of the peasant)
(The homologation of the classes and of the cultures.)
(..that fascism did not achieve,.)
(..was achieved by the system in the 1960's)
Now the opposite is happening:
..the regime is a democratic one and so on,..
..but the homologation of the cultures..
..that fascism could not achieve in the past,..
..has now been achieved by the power of the consumer society of today.
By doing so, many traditional human realities..
..that have always existed in Italy are being destroyed.
And this homologation of the various cultures is now destroying Italy.
So I can affirm that the real fascism is the power of today's consumer society,..
..which is destroying Italy.
All this has happened so fast that we did not realize it.
It happened during the past 5, 6, 7 or 1 0 years.
It's been a sort of nightmare..
.. in which we watched while everything around us was being destroyed.
Now that we've awaken from this nightmare, we look around..
..and realize that there is nothing we can do about it.
- AND THE CROW RESTARTED TO SPEAK AND SPEAK AND SPEAK... -
- "THE HAWKS AND THE SPARROWS", 1965 -
God, Country, Family... So much I have said against them.
Today, maybe, it's not worth it.
Or maybe... I am lazy. My hour has passed.
My words fall into empty space. But don't you believe, Mr. Totò,..
..that I cry over the end of that in which I believe!
I'm sure someone else will come to carry on my banner.
Oh, I cry only for myself!
It's human, isn't it? For someone who feels he no longer counts.
Nino! Nino!
What? What?
- NINETTO DAVOLI, ACTOR -
In the end, why do we eat the crow?
He had been bothering us during the entire day,..
..this film takes place in one entire day,..
..so he bothers us so much with all his intellectual talk..
..that in the end we eat him. We eat the ideology,..
..the culture, everything, because Totò and Ninetto in the movie..
..were two ordinary, simple persons,..
..a working class man and his son. - Whereas the crow represented....
....the voice of the intellectuals, it represented..
..a world that Ninetto and Totò were not interested in.
Be blessed, my Lord,..
..for the contentment that's in our hearts..
..and because everything you give us is roses and flowers.
Why? Why?
See, Brother Francis, we have converted the hawks,..
..and the hawks as such adore the Lord.
And, Brother Francis, we've also converted the sparrows,..
..and they too adore the Lord.
But the truth is that among themselves they fight each other..
..and kill each other!
And what can I do about it..
.. if there is a class of hawks and one of sparrows..
..that can't get along with each other?
What can be done? Everything can be done with the help of God.
- What do you mean? - What do you mean?
I mean that you must go and teach the hawks and the sparrows..
..everything they haven't understood yet and which you had to explain to them.
- How? - How?
This world must be changed! This is what you have not yet understood.
I used to work as a carpenter, along with my brother.
I used to do carpenter work and to shine furniture.
It happened that I went to visit my brother who was working in "La ricotta"..
..with Pier Paolo. Pier Paolo was there,..
..so my brother introduced us.
I remember that Pier Paolo caressed me on my head in a nice way.
I was a little shy because I didn't know Pasolini.
I didn't know that he was an intellectual, a writer, a director.
I was deeply moved by this person.
It all started with that caress. From that day on..
..we saw each other daily or we'd talk everyday until the day he died.
You always played the part of the messenger of love.
It's true. In all the roles Pier Paolo had me play..
.. he showed me as a messenger, an angel,..
..an angel who carries messages as in "Theorem", "Oedipus Rex".
This is the way he saw me,..
..and it was something wonderful, beautiful.
Maybe this was the quality in me that fascinated Pier Paolo.
Do you remember how he taught you to whistle in "The Hawks and the Sparrows"?
Can you do it?
Dad, when I start working in the factory,..
..the first time there's a strike..
.. I'm going to the owner's villa and kill all his dogs!
- That way he'll learn! Will you come too, Dad? - Of course!
I'll come and ta ta ta ta ta ta ta!
(1964)
(During their trip throughout the ideologies,.)
(..Ninetto and Totò come across the funeral of Palmiro Togliatti)
(Pasolini includes these scenes.)
(..in "The Hawks and the Sparrows" as a moment of reflection)
(He wrote: "A historic age,..")
("..the age of resistance, of the great hopes of communism,..")
("..of the class struggle is over")
(That same year Pasolini made "The Gospel According to St. Matthew",. )
(..which he dedicated to Pope John XXIII)
I read the correspondence between you and Pier Paolo Pasolini.
It seems that after "The Gospel" you accused Pasolini..
..of wanting to win on both sides and of making low calculations.
Why? What happened?
- FRANCO FORTINI, WRITER -
In truth, we made false illusions,..
..and we were wrong in doing so, no doubt,..
..regarding Pasolini's political involvement.
The two sides were the mystical-religious aspect..
..and the rationality of the layman.
I felt that Pasolini, in reality, did not want..
..to reconcile these two fronts in his poetic writings.
This he achieved, and very well.
But he did not put into practice what he wrote,..
..as is clear in the way he organized his life..
..and his films, his social relationships and his public figure.
All this became very evident in "The Gospel According to St. Matthew".
It was so evident that he wanted to please everyone and win on both sides.
Maybe the adjective "low" was very personal.
"Low" in the sense of a person..
..who doesn't want to be completely sincere with himself.
How is it that a marxist like yourself is often inspired..
.. by themes that are based on the Gospel..
..or on the testimony of the followers of Christ?
We go back to my way of living everything in a very interior way.
My way of looking at the things of the world, the objects..
.. is not a natural one. It is not the way a layman sees things.
I always see things in a miraculous way.
Every object, to me, is a miracle,..
..a shapeless vision similar to a religious vision of the world.
This is the reason why my way of seeing things is always present in my works.
- "THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW", 1964 -
In spite of polemics and disagreements,..
.. Pasolini and you had been friends for many years.
But in 1968 there was a final rupture. Why?
I think that in 1968 many tensions and contradictions..
..that had already manifested themselves in 1964 culminated.
The occasion was not that important.
He had written a poem about a conflict between the police and some students.
He defended the policemen as sons of the poor, the peasant,..
..against the students, whom he saw as the new upper middle class.
There was some truth in this, no doubt.
Only that it coincided with the anti-student position..
..that the Italian Communist Party had assumed..
..and it also contributed to the struggle against the student movement,..
..which later became the movement of the Italian reactionaries of the 1970's.
You wrote:
.."On an existential level, I am a global critic".
"My desperate distrust of all the historic societies.."
".. Leads me to a sort of apocalyptic anarchy."
What sort of world do you dream of?
In my youth I believed in the revolution for a while,..
..as the young people do today.
Now I don't believe in it as much.
Today I see things in an apocalyptic way.
I see an increasingly painful and ugly world.
The word "hope" has been cancelled from my vocabulary.
Therefore, I continue to fight for partial truths,..
.. moment by moment, hour by hour, month by month.
(Venice, 1968)
("Theorem" is a poem in the form of a desperate cry)
("It's a film on the universe of the upper middle class,..")
("..on the solitude of those who have lost the sense of holiness",.)
(..Pasolini said)
(He was denounced for obscenity and for having occupied with Zavattini.)
(..and others the building housing the cinema exhibition)
(For the first time Pasolini seemed to feel that art was not enough.)
(..as an arm used to denounce unjust situations)
(lt was in those years that he said:)
(.."I'd like to express myself with examples,..")
("..throwing my body into the struggle")
(While in Pasolini grew the figure of the self-appointed castigator.)
(..of traditional and religious codes,.)
(.. in the streets the students demanded a radical change in society)
(Pasolini does not believe in their utopias)
(He accuses them of having the same faces of their middle class parents)
(At the same time, he considers himself as father and son of Rudi Dutschke,.)
(.. Ieader of the student movement of Berlin. He dedicates a poem to him)
("The upper middle class from whose womb mysteriously you were born..")
(".. I've seen with my eyes: it has faces white like tombstones")
("Don't be fooled by their good intentions,..")
(".. by their tormented sensibility,..")
(".. by their comic shyness")
("They're all terrorized, my father,..")
(".. Leader. And your young peers..")
("..walk along the main road, not the side roads")
(We asked Peter Schneider, a writer and friend of Rudi Dutschke,.)
(..to make some comments on those years)
- PETER SCHNEIDER, WRITER -
After the students' revolt was defeated,..
.. my generation has refused to think.
They've all become silent.
I don't think we've done more in respect to our past..
..than what our nazi fathers did in respect to theirs.
We let the chance decide..
..what to keep and what to throw away of the old ideas.
There's been no meditation, no comparison.
Instead, Pasolini made these comparisons in "Scritti corsari".
He gave back to us that part of our thoughts that we have removed.
I also feel that Pasolini possessed a kind of ascetic, puritan quality.
In all his desperate digressions regarding sexuality,..
.. he reminds us of a preacher..
..and this aspect, so un-Italian,..
.. makes him more accessible to the Germans.
The contrary of Pasolini is Fellini.
We feel Pasolini closer to us, although this may be more inconvenient.
But what fascinates me most about Pasolini is his savage way of thinking,..
.. beyond any rule. Though he was not the first,..
.. he certainly was the most energetic in freeing the mind from any scheme.
For him there were no more schools of thoughts to refer to:
.. neither Marx, nor Freud, nor the Church.
Any reference he made to these schools were purely practical.
His way of thinking is absolutely personal,..
..and his first point of reference is his body,..
..any experience that passes through it,..
..which is also a sexual experience for him.
His way of thinking passes first through his body, it's all one thing,..
..and this makes him so defenseless, so unforeseeable, so actual.
When I learned of Pasolini's death,..
.. I would have liked to speak with his assassin,..
..who in a certain way belongs to Pasolini's life,..
..not so much to reveal the mystery of his death,..
..as to eliminate the false declarations,..
..to restore to Pasolini's figure the mystery,..
..the uncertainty that belongs to him.
Would you still speak with him today?
Maybe.
- "OEDIPUS REX", 1967 -
Mr. Pelosi, in Germany it's known that you killed Pasolini,..
..but no one knows anything about you. Who are you?
I'm a normal guy, like many others. I come from a slum area.
- PINO PELOSI -
- Which one? - The INA house section, Casal Bruciato,..
..near the Tiburtina road.
I come from a modest family.
- What does your father do? - He's a salesman in a store.
He also makes mattresses in his free time.
- What's your schooling? - 7th grade, then 2 years of electrician for ships..
..while I was in jail in Civitavecchia.
As many boys like yourself who knew Pasolini..
.. have become movie stars while you have become a murderer,..
..would you have liked to become a star?
Well, the usual thoughts of a young boy...
Then, as one grows up, these things don't matter that much.
Later, when you were in jail, during the time of the trial,..
..did you feel you were being treated unjustly by the Italian justice?
- After the trial? - Yes. - After the trial yes. Not before.
I thought I'd be condemned to a few years...
But they gave me 11 years, voluntary man-slaughter..
..with the complicity of others, which I didn't really expect.
Do you consider yourself as a victim of the Italian justice?
I don't consider myself a victim.
I committed a murder, which I am aware of,..
.. more so today than when I was a 1 7 year-old kid.
But I think it is unfair to be in jail for 8 years for an accident..
..and for having defended myself.
During these 7 years in jail have you repented?
For example, have you ever dreamt of Pasolini?
Do you keep remembering this crime?
- I haven't repented. - Why not?
Since I didn't go and kill someone because I felt like doing so.
It was a misfortune, so I can't repent for that.
I can say I'm sorry that I killed someone. I'm sorry.
I think of it at times, but I never dream of it.
- Never dreamt of it? - No, never. Thought of it, yes.
Did it happen here or further down?
In this spot here, between that fence and here.
- Here is the fence and Pasolini.... - I don't know where the body was...
But did Pasolini start running away? Did you run after him?
No, we both run. He was running after me.
- Which one of you started running first? - I started running.
And before had there been an agreement between you on what to do sexually?
There was no bargaining.
These are things that just happen, you know. No bargaining.
Why did you go with Pasolini? What did you expect?
My car was broken.
So I thought: "I'll earn a few bucks and repair my car".
- This was in Piazza dei Cinquecento. - Yes.
And how long did you remain inside the car?
1 0 minutes. Then I got out to make a bodily function.
That's when it all started, and you know how it ended.
- While you were out of the car? - I felt a stick poke me from behind.
- In the car? - No, outside.
Then I reacted and he hit me with the stick.
We started to fight, then he fell..
..and I took the car and went away.
While I was driving away....
Why do you think Pasolini suddenly took a stick..
..and tried to attack you with it?
I don't know. He wanted to use violence on me, but I didn't agree.
Use violence to do what?
So I answered him with the same violence and unfortunately..
.. it ended the way it did. I could have gotten the worst of it too.
("Death", wrote Pasolini,.)
(.."consists not in being unable to communicate,..")
(".. but in being unable to be understood")
(In the last years he increasingly found refuge.)
(..in the castle of Chia he bought in 1970)
(After "Medea", with Maria Callas,.)
(..he made the Trilogy of life,.)
(..a film in which cinema becomes body language)
(Finally, "Salò, or the 1 20 Days of Sodom")
(In 1973 he starts writing for "Corriere della Sera",.)
(..from whose pages he launches violent attacks.)
(..against the Italy of those years:)
(.. no cultural progress had followed the economic development;.)
(..while waiting for a different development of society,.)
(.. high school and television should be abolished;.)
(..he invokes a public trial against the Christian Democratic Party.)
(..responsible for the destruction of the peasant culture;.)
(..he is against the legalization of abortion;.)
(..consumism and conformism have abolished any significant difference.)
(..between right and left;.)
(..the Church should return to its origin.)
(..in order to combat the consumistic and un-religious power)
(Along with Peter Schneider,.)
(..we have interviewed the most direct witnesses of the latter Pasolini)
(His articles were gathered and published after his death.)
(.. in the books "Scritti corsari" and "Lutheran Letters")
- PIERO OTTONE, CORRIERE DELLA SERA -
Pasolini wrote like someone whose position..
..coincided with the one of the left,..
..but he was very independent intellectually..
..and he felt a certain weariness in the ideas of the left,..
..in which he himself had believed.
He was strong enough to voice this weariness,..
..even if this meant going against the interest of the party..
..in which he identified himself.
That's why he wrote these things.
The reaction wasn't one of indignation or protest,..
..and no one tried to shut him up. Why?
We could give three different explanations.
The first one is a pessimistic one:
.. people were not interested in these general themes.
But I don't think so because Pasolini's articles had a vast echo.
The second one is that our upper middle class..
.. is generous enough to accept a debate,..
..even though it's against its interests.
Let's hope this is true. I don't know.
I frankly believe in the third explanation:
..an idea well expressed,..
..with great conviction and strong personality,..
..can be discussed, but no one can silence it.
- FRANCO FORTINI, WRITER -
All the negative things that he saw happening,..
..that which he called "homologation" of life,..
..the aspiration of the different social classes to become middle class,..
..conformism, consumism...
All these things the Italian avant-garde intellectuals and politicians..
..had foreseen and had been fighting for many years.
For Pasolini it was not so much a matter of inability to see,..
.. because his geniality certainly enabled him to see and understand,..
..but the deliberate will not to see, to ignore.
He felt the need to dwell on these themes, to live these conflicts,..
..that took place in a city like Rome..
..or in those underdeveloped areas..
..that he frequently visited during the last period of his life.
He needed to live within the boundaries..
..of these conflicts between nature and history,..
..spontaneity and non-spontaneity, dark visceral actions and reason,..
.. because these were all the masks of his personal theatre.
- LAURA BETTI , ACTRESS -
Towards the end Pier Paolo discovered the general themes..
..of the Italian political scene,..
.. most of which is still valid today.
Not only were these themes not understood, but they were rejected..
..furiously and hysterically, just like in front of dangers..
..that one should be aware of but simply prefers to ignore.
And I'm referring to homologation.
He had declared that,..
..and he had given proof of it some months earlier,..
.. he would not have been able to re-make "Accattone",..
.. because he would not have been able to find thieves with honest faces,..
..or with faces truly possessing their own features.
He would have not been able to find faces who had not sold themselves.
This kind of declarations, which was an extremely political one..
..and concerned what homologation was about, made people say..
.. he was a madman. He began being treated as a madman.
Mr. Andreotti, why did you answer to a polemic article of an intellectual,..
.. Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was not a politician?
I'm asking you this because in Germany we are not used to such a dialogue.
- GIULIO ANDREOTTI, MINISTER -
It was not an answer to a political article,..
..but to an article that, although with much fantasy,..
..was an act of accuse against the political class.
I felt it my duty not to ignore this,..
..yet to answer it, as an elder politician..
..and as an act of respect towards the cultural figure of Pasolini.
But it was also a reaction against a criticism..
..that was directed against us,..
..although Pasolini was critical of everything.
Pasolini wrote that the Christian Democratic politicians..
.. had become funeral masks..
..and "I'm sure", he wrote, "that if one were to lift those masks.."
"..one would not find the minimum trace of bones or ashes".
"There would be only emptiness."
Did you feel this as a personal attack?
I'd say not. Knowing Pasolini, except for "The Gospel According to St. Matthew",..
.. he always assumed a critical position against everything and everyone..
.. in all his articles and writings.
He loved going against the stream. Don't forget his polemic on abortion..
..that so infuriated not only the left,..
..but also some literary intellectuals, Moravia, Maraini...
Pasolini underwent many trials.
Today would you say that he was a persecuted person?
See, he was a man always looking for troubles.
I am not referring to his works, but to his way of living.
On my view, it's obvious that it was a bit forced..
..the fact of legally proceeding against him...
In the end, some people of culture should be judged by history and time..
.. more so than by the usual instruments used for common people.
But I also feel that it was exaggerated to elevate him..
..to the figure of a political symbol..
.. because those who wanted to make a symbol of him..
..were contradicted by his activities...
Pasolini was to be taken for what he was.
One of his best things was a poem he wrote to the Pope,..
..saying that the Pope should become the Pope of the underdeveloped,..
..that he should abandon everything to become the leader of the emarginated.
Those to me were the most genuine pages he wrote,..
..of an extraordinary sensibility.
As for the rest, he did cause some trouble, but he was not the devil...
You were one of the few women close to Pasolini.
What role and space did he give you as a woman?
- DACIA MARAINI, WRITER -
We used to argue a lot, we'd have furious discussions.
He liked me, he accepted me as a person,..
..but he could not accept me in my feminist ideology frame.
He would not accept that I spoke for other women, that I defended them.
I remember once, speaking of women, he said to me:
.."But in the end you are not a woman". And I went: "What am l?'.
"No, you have a mind like a man's". I answered: "It's not true".
"You don't accept that a woman can think just like a man".
He believed that mind was masculine..
..and the body was only the maternal body.
We had an exchange of opinion..
..on the newspapers too over the abortion theme.
Yes, I wanted to ask you about this.
I didn't read all your comments about his article,..
..but how did he react to your stand?
I am against abortion, too. I don't think that abortion is the solution.
But I believe that, to eliminate it, it must be made legal.
It seems evident to me.
To prohibit it does not solve anything,..
..all it does is proliferate illegal abortion.
His argumentation was basically correct.
It's just that at that time it was a polemic for the wrong side.
But this is the way he was, he loved paradoxes,..
.. Like the time when he defended the police.
He liked to be controversial.
This was part of the way....
How did this argument appear to you,..
..who knew him personally,..
..and knowing that he used to buy young boys?
This was part of the complexity of his personality,..
..of his contradictions. He was aware of his contradictions,..
..that they were so deep and he didn't ignore them.
He lived his contradictions thoroughly.
And this was one of his contradictions.
Being marxist and loving richness at the same time,..
.. invoking a new morality, sexual also,..
..and then buying bodies.
But he lived his contradictions thoroughly.
Even when it came to abortion, he had sensed..
..that it was only one aspect of the negative way..
.. in which sensuality was being lived.
But he was not capable of saying how it should have been lived..
.. because that was part of his contradictions.
"I'm unequal to that which I am,.."
".. if I were meant to remain at the foot of the world..."
"Not here among the rich, on a jet plane.."
"..that unites Corfù to the land of Mazzoni.."
".. below spotted by clouds,.."
".. Rome to the Tiber, like one of the many Jordan rivers".
“I must become poor again, unknown, a child..."
"I can't really be a father, a master..."
"My influence, my fame are ridiculous..."
"Father, what is happening to me?'
- ALBERTO MORAVIA, WRITER -
Fundamentally Pasolini was a poet.
One would never understand anything about him,..
..if this fundamental fact were not considered.
It's even more important than his homosexuality.
Poetry is the capacity of transforming everything..
.. into figures, images, metaphors.
Pasolini was a man of great vitality.
When he died, he was writing a book that meant a lot to him.
He had already written 600 pages.
He had a project to do an important film in the United States.
He wanted to participate in a convention of the Radical Party.
He had a great deal of projects.
Absolutely he was not.... He had just made the film "Sodom".
This film showed a great vitality.
He could have been tired for having done it,..
.. but the director of such a film can not be a devitalized person.
He simply.... Nothing... It was one of those casual fatalities...