Directors in Focus - Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975)
June 20 - 22, 2003
Tickets $6.00 for general admission, $5.00 for I House members, students and seniors. Tickets available one hours before showtime.
One of the most controversial and provocative filmmakers ever to impact the international cinema community, Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in 1922 in Bologna, Italy. The son of a fascist officer father and an anti-Mussolini mother, his life and work were marked with similar complexity and contradiction. Drawing influence for his work from art, literature, folklore and music, Pasolini’s greatest works are film adaptations of ancient sources of literature as diverse as the Gospels and the writings of the Marquis de Sade. An accomplished artist, poet and writer, it is in his films, however, that we see Pasolini’s genius at its zenith, tackling the themes of love, death, redemption, revolution, ideology, myth and miracle.
Friday, June 20 at 8:00 PM
The Gospel According to Matthew
dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1964, 35mm, 137 mins, b/w,
Italian w/ English subtitles
Internationally hailed by critics as his masterpiece, Pier Paolo
Pasolini’s The Gospel According to Matthew
is a visually stunning, emotionally stirring interpretation of
the life of Christ, based upon the writings of the Apostle Matthew.
Pasolini’s vision is both deeply religious and determinedly political,
with the Messiah portrayed as a peasant outcast, driven by anger
at social injustice. Convincing performances by an entirely non-professional cast, impressive cinematography and an inventive use of music
from Bach to Billie Holiday, combine to great effect in this landmark
of world cinema.
 Saturday,
June 21 at 8:00 PM
Hawks and Sparrows
dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1965, 35mm, 91 mins, b/w,
Italian w/ English subtitles
Hawks and Sparrows marks Pasolini’s break from the ideological,
neo-realist cinema of his early years with a fable of a father
and son who roam the highways of life accompanied by a talking
Marxist crow who recounts the Franciscan tale of Brother Cecillo
and Brother Ninetto. Here he creates a comic odyssey, with the
great Italian comic icon, Toto, taking the lead role, supported
by Ninetto Davoli in the first of his many key performances in
Pasolini’s work. Replete with humor and charm, Pasolini’s film
is as unconventional as it is humane.
Sunday, June 22 at 7:00 PM
Oedipus Rex
dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1967, 35mm, 110 mins, color,
Italian w/ English subtitles
Unreleased in America for nearly twenty years, this is one of
the major films of the 1960’s European cinema. Based on the famed
Greek legend, and shot against a stunning backdrop in Morocco,
Pasolini’s film begins with an autobiographical prologue set in
Lombardy in the 1920s. Oedipus Rex is a ferocious, astounding
vision of mankind and its unchanging nature, with Pasolini himself
in the role of the High Priest. |
