Pier Paolo Pasolini

October 22–November 27, 2022

This retrospective of the influential Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975) features 35mm restorations, many done by Cineteca di Bologna in partnership with Cinecittà.

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Accattone
The Decameron
Teorema
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Arabian Nights
Mamma Roma

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Past Films

Accattone
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1961
New 4K Digital Restoration
Saturday, October 22 7 PM
Pasolini’s famous debut film, a hard-edged and lyrical tragedy set in the Dantean slums of Rome, is “incandescent” (New York Times).
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Mamma Roma
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1962
Imported 35mm Print
Friday, October 28 7 PM
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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The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1964
Imported 35mm Print
Sunday, October 30 4 PM
“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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The Hawks and the Sparrows
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1966
Saturday, November 5 7 PM
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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Teorema
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1968
Imported 35mm Print
Friday, November 11 7 PM
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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The Decameron
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1971
Imported 35mm Print
Recommended for adults only
Friday, November 18 7 PM
“One of the most beautiful, turbulent and uproarious panoramas of early Renaissance life ever put on film” (New York Times).
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The Gospel According to St. Matthew
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1964
Imported 35mm Print
Saturday, November 19 7 PM
“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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The Canterbury Tales
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1972
Imported 35mm Print
Recommended for adults only
Friday, November 25 5 PM
“Chaucer is played for maximum ribaldry . . . [this adaptation is] uniformly gorgeous” (Village Voice).
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Accattone
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1961
New 4K Digital Restoration
Saturday, November 26 7 PM
Pasolini’s famous debut film, a hard-edged and lyrical tragedy set in the Dantean slums of Rome, is “incandescent” (New York Times).
View Details
Arabian Nights
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Italy, 1974
Imported 35mm Print
Recommended for adults only
Sunday, November 27 5 PM
A magic carpet fantasy rooted in realism—filmed in North Africa, Iran, and Nepal—Arabian Nights is “Pasolini’s most beautiful film” (Tony Rayns).
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Pier Paolo Pasolini

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.

“The cinema is an explosion of my love for reality.” —Pier Paolo Pasolini

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

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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.

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Cinecittà
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Istituto Italiano di Cultura San Francisco