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Friday, Nov 11, 2022
7 PM (97 mins)
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BAMPFA
SUBJECTS
Teorema
(Theorem)
Imported 35mm Print
Terence Stamp, Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Anne Wiazemsky,
Into the home of a classic bourgeois family—father, mother, son, daughter, and maid—walks a stranger (Terence Stamp). This handsome, unassuming young man was described by Pasolini as “a generically ultra-terrestrial and metaphysical apparition: he could be the Devil, or a mixture of God and the Devil. The important thing is that he is something authentic and unstoppable.” One by one, each family member seeks—and finds—in the visitor a catalyst for the fulfillment of desires denied within the confines of the family structure. Liberated by a moment of authenticity, each is left, on the visitor’s departure, with a personal kind of madness, stripped naked in a symbolic desert. 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.” But, Pasolini continued, “This condemnation . . . has to be suspended before a final assessment is made, since . . . the bourgeoisie is undergoing a revolutionary change. . . . That is why the film remains ‘suspended’; it ends with a cry.”
FILM DETAILS
Screenwriter
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
Cinematographer
- Giuseppe Ruzzolini
Language
- Italian
- with English subtitles
Print Info
- Color
- 35mm
- 97 mins
Source
- Cinecittà
Permission
- Janus Films
CINEFILES
CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.
View Teorema documents
Teorema (program note), San Francisco International Film Festival, Judy Bloch, 2002
Pier Paolo Pasolini: the eyes of a poet (booklet), UCLA Film & Television Archive, 1991
Pier Paolo Pasolini (program note), Art Gallery of Ontario, James Quandt, 1990
Teorema (distributor materials), Kit Parker Films, Dane Wilsonne, 1979
Pier Paolo Pasolini -- excerpt (book excerpt), British Film Institute, Paul Willemen, 1977
Pier Paolo Pasolini (booklet), Filmoteca Nacional de España, Marc Gervais, 1976
Pasolini on Pasolini: interviews with Oswald Stack -- excerpt (book excerpt), Thames & Hudson, Oswald Stack, 1969
Teorema (review), Variety, Hank Werba, 1968
Teorema (synopsis), Unitalia, 1968
Retrospective: Pier Paolo Pasolini (booklet), Hong Kong Film Festival, Donald Ranvaud
Displaying 10 of 17 publicly available documents.