Pier Paolo Pasolini Summary

The writing career of Pier Paolo Pasolini coincided with events of immense literary and social importance in Italy. Like many of his generation--being born at the inception of Fascism, coming of age d... Read more

In the following interview, originally published in 1971, Pasolini discusses the poetic renewal that inspired Trasumanar e organizzar. Pasolini the filmmaker had overshadowed for some time Pasolini... Read more

In the following essay, Friedrich analyzes the imagery of Narcissus in Pasolini's Fruilian poems of La meglio gioventù. La meglio gioventù [The best youth] is the volume, publi... Read more

In the following excerpted review of Selected Poems, Wells notes that the strength of Pasolini's poetry derives from its openness and departure from hermetic lyric tradition. "What st... Read more

In the following excerpt, Greene surveys Pasolini's intellectual response to the thought of Antonio Gramsci, as reflected in his political verse. Pasolini's great debt to [Antonio] Gr... Read more

In the following essay, O'Neill comments on Pasolini's use of Friulian dialect in his poetry, and on his Spanish and Italian poetic influences. Perhaps the best synthesis of the world... Read more

In the following essay, Mandelbaum comments on what he deems the "over-sympathetic relation between Pasolini and his audience" Few poets have declared their own bankruptcy as resolute... Read more

In the following excerpt, Sillanpoa investigates the influence of Antonio Gramsci on Pasolini's work. When discussing those who perhaps most influenced the thought of the late Pier Paolo Pas... Read more

In the following essay, Agosti presents a phenomenological analysis of Pasolini's poetry, seeing his verse as both conservative and innovative. It is probable (it is, at least in part, alrea... Read more

Critical Essay by Robin Bean The world of the Roman pimps and petty thieves has been well explored by Pasolini in his scripts for [Mauro Bolognini's] La Notte Brava and [Franco Rossi's]... Read more

Critical Essay by Peter Whitehead There are only two reasons for taking a myth and re-working it. Either because a variation on it will communicate a new depth of understanding about that particular ... Read more

Critical Essay by Geoffrey Nowell-smith [Accattone] is a film about the rejects of society, in the active and passive senses of the phrase; about those whom society has rejected and those who have re... Read more

Critical Essay by Robert Asahina [While] relatively modest in depicting more or less conventional (oral and anal) sexual acts, Salò is painfully explicit in areas previously unexplored on Amer... Read more

Critical Essay by J. Hoberman More than a curiosity, but less than a fully realized work, Pier Paolo Pasolini's feature-length Notes for an African Orestes is an intriguing item that's ... Read more

Critical Essay by Stephen Snyder While, in life, [Pasolini's] hunger for the "rough trade" of the Roman slums ended in a violent death, in film, his metaphor of life-as-ingestion... Read more

Critical Essay by Stanley Kauffmann Pasolini, the atheistic Communist, [has] beaten his opponents by making the best film about Jesus in cinema history. He has not given us a Marxist or merely humane... Read more

Critical Essay by Marc Gervais [Edipo Re (Oedipus Rex) is a series of events], one following upon the other, unprepared, unexploited for their story values, in many ways even unexplained, but merely ... Read more

In the following essay, de Lauretis asserts that "for Pasolini cinema is precisely writing in images, not to describe (portray) reality or fantasy, but to inscribe them as representations.�... Read more

In the following essay, Sillanpoa analyzes the relationship between Pasolini and the writings of Antonio Gramsci. When discussing those who perhaps most influenced the thought of the late Pier Paol... Read more

In the following review, Stille analyzes Pasolini's relationship with Italian society and politics. Pier Paolo Pasolini, probably the most famous writer of postwar Italy, is best known in Am... Read more

In the following review, Thompson discusses Pasolini's Poems and Enzo Siciliano's biography of the poet and filmmaker. As a poet, Pier Paolo Pasolini was an arch-traditionalist; as a ... Read more

In the following review, Greenberg states that Pasolini's Les dernières parole d'un impie "is part autobiography, part analysis, part remembrance, part explanation, part (s... Read more

In the following interview, Pasolini discusses how he approached his film The Gospel According to St. Matthew and explains his use of non-professional actors. [BLUE:] I have been wondering what I s... Read more

In the following review, Thompson discusses the themes present in Pasolini's Lutheran Letters which he states focuses on the moral state of Italy since Mussolini. Lutheran Letters is a posth... Read more

In the following review, Rice states that Pasolini's Marxism is evident in his novel A Violent Life, but asserts that in addition to the political overtones, "Tommaso's story has ... Read more

In the following review, Armstrong calls Pasolini's Petrolio "maddeningly incoherent and self-contradictory." Pier Paolo Pasolini was murdered in 1975 by a 17-year-old male hoo... Read more

In the following excerpt, Ragusa compares the works of Pasolini and Carlo Emilio Gadda and explores each writer's relationship with experimentalism. The subject of this essay is threefold&#x... Read more

In the following review, O'Neill discusses Pasolini's Biciclettone as an introduction to the themes and style found in his other novels. One of the most interesting and original perso... Read more

In the following essay, Sarris discusses Pasolini's career and gruesome death. Pier Paolo Pasolini, the 53-year-old film director, was murdered last week near Rome. His confessed killer, 17-... Read more