October 22–November 27, 2022
“The cinema is an explosion of my love for reality.” —Pier Paolo Pasolini
A brilliant artist who was at the center of the intellectual life of postwar Europe, the influential Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) enjoyed a multidisciplinary career as a novelist, poet, playwright, actor, painter, polemicist, and filmmaker. No stranger to controversy, scandal, and censure (he was involved in some thirty-three trials during his lifetime), Pasolini represented and articulated many critical perspectives: as a defiant homosexual, a nonaligned leftist, a Catholic (who was arrested for insulting the Church), and a visionary artist.
Pasolini’s cinema takes its inspiration from many sources: Renaissance painting, Romanticism, Freudian psychology, Italian neorealism, ethnographic filmmaking, and music. His films share an affinity to musical structures and form. His aesthetic often rebuked traditional film grammar, opting instead for a spirit of experimentation. More often than not, he drew upon nonprofessional actors, casting peasants and urban youths who brought an authenticity and edginess to his narrative films. Behind the camera, Pasolini collaborated with top-notch filmmakers, including cinematographers Tonino Delli Colli and Giuseppe Ruzzolini, costume designer Danilo Donati, and composer Ennio Morricone, often working with the crew on location—be it the rugged terrain of the Holy Land or the impoverished outskirts of Rome. As a poet/filmmaker, he spoke of his “tendency always to see something sacred and mythic and epic in everything, even the most humdrum, simple and banal objects and events.”
This retrospective of Pasolini features many 35mm prints provided by Cinecittà, as well as two digitally restored 4K DCPs provided by Cinecittà in partnership with Cineteca di Bologna. This series is presented in conjunction with Cinema Italia’s celebration of Pasolini’s films at the Castro Theatre on September 10.
—Susan Oxtoby, Director of Film and Senior Film Curator
Copresented by BAMPFA and Cinecittà, Rome. The retrospective has been organized by Susan Oxtoby, BAMPFA, and Camilla Cormanni, Paola Ruggiero, Marco Cicala, Germana Rusico, Cinecittà. Presented in association with the Ministry of Culture of Italy. Special thanks to Annamaria Di Giorgio and the staff of the Italian Cultural Institute San Francisco and to Amelia Antonucci, Cinema Italia.
With the support of the Italian Cultural Insitute of San Francisco.
PROGRAM
Saturday, October 22 7PM | Saturday, November 26 7PM
Accattone
Itlay, 1961, New 4K Digital Restoration
Pasolini’s famous debut film, a hard-edged and lyrical tragedy set in the Dantean slums of Rome, is “incandescent” (The New York Times).
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Friday, October 28 7PM
Mamma Roma
Itlay, 1932, Imported 35mm Print
Pasolini captures the great Anna Magnani “like a found object” (Village Voice) in her role as a spirited prostitute; her downtrodden exuberance stands in for Rome itself.
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Sunday, October 30 4PM | Saturday, November 19 7PM
The Gospel Acoording to St. Matthew
Italy, 1964, Imported 35mm Print
“Pasolini’s most satisfying movie. . . . The director’s Catholicism and Marxism serve him well here [but] the film’s beauty . . . derives from its simplicity” (Time Out).
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Saturday, November 5 7PM
The Hawks and the Sparrows
Italy, 1966, Imported 35mm Print
The great Italian comic Totò plays opposite Pasolini discovery Ninetto Davoli in this Brechtian slapstick set in the time of St. Francis.
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Friday, November 11 7PM
Teorema
Italy, 1968, Imported 35mm Print
Pasolini’s first film shot in a bourgeois milieu is predicated on the theorem that “anything done by the bourgeoisie, however sincere, profound and noble it is, is on the wrong track.”
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Friday, November 18 7PM
The Decameron
Italy, 1971, Imported 35mm Print
Recommended for adults only
“One of the most beautiful, turbulent and uproarious panoramas of early Renaissance life ever put on film” (New York Times).
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Friday, November 25 5PM
The Canterbury Tales
Italy, 1972, Imported 35mm Print
Recommended for adults only
“Chaucer is played for maximum ribaldry . . . [this adaptation is] uniformly gorgeous” (Village Voice).
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Sunday, November 27 5PM
Arabian Nights
Italy, 1974, Imported 35mm Print
Recommended for adults only
A magic carpet fantasy rooted in realism—filmed in North Africa, Iran, and Nepal—Arabian Nights is “Pasolini’s most beautiful film” (Tony Rayns).View Details & Buy Tickets