Pier Paolo Pasolini: Contemporary Perspectives

Alan Thomas is a professor of English at the University of Toronto.

The violent death of Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975 ended a career marked
by brilliant success and by scandal. This collection of 12 essays,
mainly by film-theory specialists, focuses on Pasolini’s filmmaking
talents but does not ignore his other career as a boy-hunting pederast.
An essay by Pasolini’s cousin, Nico Naldini, relates the erotic life
the filmmaker enjoyed with the peasant youths of his native Friuli.
“More than once I saw Pier Paolo risk lynching,” writes Naldini,
“and indeed it was this risk that precipitated his move to Rome.”
Since much of the discussion in the essays centres on Pasolini’s
treatment of sex in film—a treatment that ranged from the lyrical
Arabian Nights to the sadistic Salт—it is appropriate that the volume
concludes with a translation of Pasolini’s essay on censorship,
“Tetis.” Most interesting, from the standpoint of cinema studies,
are Bart Testa’s thorough and illuminating examination of “Il
Vangelo” and Naomi Greene’s brief but revealing discussion of the
cinematography in Salт.