Pier Paolo Pasolini: Alternative Modes of Expression

(Essay written Spring, 2018)

The ‘mainstream’ as a label in the arts is partly a signifier of what is popular, and partly an insult. In other words, it signifies a mostly unified taste and reinforces accepted ideological positions in society. On the other hand, there is also a robust reaction to the norm represented in the establishment of subcultures that propose alternative notions of being. Sociologist Emile Durkheim touches on this idea of a collective consciousness that is both reassuring and restrictive, stating that we are governed by the “sanctity of traditional ways of thinking and acting” (Royce, 2015, p. 58). Our adherence to a common set of beliefs is at first compulsory, as “we are born into a world consisting of already formed and often longstanding social institutions, cultural ideals, and customary practices” (Royce). However, it is the existence of these preordained social structures that can impinge upon the freedom of the individual, and in this conflict between social fact and individual will springs a desire to think, act, and express alternatively. The mainstream then becomes a signifier of what is restrictive, and in the arts unconventional aesthetic movements seek to destroy the perceived chains of popular culture with the intent of advancing both the artist, and the art. In cinema, the mainstream is inextricably tied to commercial interests and the capitalistic view of film as a commodity, not an art form. The most obvious signifier in cinema of the mainstream is the institution of Hollywood, whose aesthetic and narrative style is based on fulfilling the spectator with instant gratification in a comfortable manner. The concept of spectacle has been the driving force behind achieving this, from the carefully constructed images of stars brought to life on the screen, to the consistent use of CGI in modern Hollywood.

Throughout film history, certain aesthetic movements have reflected conscious efforts to search for a fresh, purer type of cinema beyond the realms of the mainstream. During the 1920s, films such as Entr'acte (Clair, 1924) and Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt (Ruttman, 1927) belonged to the 'pure cinema' movement. Rejecting the conventions of prose associated with literature and the norms of popular silent cinema, these filmmakers prioritised expression "through purely visual elements" (Dulac & Sitney, 1987, p. 47) that emphasised movement and rhythm. Here, avant-garde cinema was established, representing the first of multiple artistic reactions to mainstream commercial filmmaking. Whilst acknowledging the influence of classical Hollywood, the French New Wave championed unorthodox approaches to filmmaking influenced by the ‘neorealists’, and by the late 1960s monumental figures such as Jean Luc-Godard lead a ‘counter-cinema’. Correlating with the countercultural revolutions sweeping across Western society, this approach to cinema also reflected the rebellious social and political climate as well as a desire for alternative forms of expression. Devotedly Marxist and uncustomary in its mode of expression, Godard’s counter-cinema sought to disrupt the viewer and break free from mainstream notions of the film experience. Whilst not solely tied to this movement, the Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini had a similar desire to search for an alternative style of cinema, one that aimed to find a purer form of cinematic expression.

Born in 1922, Pasolini spent his early years in Bologna, a traditionally left-wing city that informed his controversial politics from an early age. After moving to Casara, he discovered a love for poetry and began writing his own inspired by the beautiful scenery and Arthur Rimbaud. It was his adoration for literature that guided him to a career in writing, working for magazines as well as having his own successful novels and poetry published. However, according to Pasolini historian Robert S.C Gordon, in “an openly strategic attempt to break out of an impasse in his literary and intellectual career” (Gordon, 1996, p. 190) he decided to primarily work in another art form, cinema. As well as a result of his dwindling literary career, the decision was “also in part utopian, a reaching out for an absolute of expression and representation” (Gordon). Unlike the commercial motivations of mainstream cinema, Pasolini perceived cinema as a gateway to a higher form of artistic expression. This vision of cinema as an alternative, liberating form of expression for the artist is reflected in his film theory.

The Cinema of Poetry (1965) is an intriguing meditation on the language of cinema, its distinct qualities that distinguish it from the other arts, and a passionate declaration that cinematic expression is starved by traditional approaches to film form. Pasolini argues that there is an inherently irrational quality to film language that is characterised by 'im-signs' (image signs). The nature of cinema’s language of im-signs has its roots in the subjective images of dreams or memories and the objective images of reality, and unlike the literary author who already has an entirely pre-existing linguistic dictionary to choose from, the filmmaker’s work “is first linguistic invention, then aesthetic” (Nichols & Pasolini, 1976, p. 543). He praises films with a surrealist content that exalt "the purity of cinematic images" (p. 546) and laments a tradition of narrative cinematic prose that restricts cinema's true nature. Attacking cinema that he labels "escape-spectacle" he declares that "cinema has undergone a violation…everything in it that was irrational, oneiric, elementary, and barbarous has been kept this side of consciousness, has been exploited as an unconscious factor of shock and glamour" (p. 545). These tendencies that Pasolini is positioning himself against are conventions of mainstream cinema that, through techniques such as continuity editing and its promise of spectacle, adhere to the desires of the consumer and reinforces cinema as merely a leisurely activity, not an art form.

In his contemporary cinema Pasolini finds a trend developing among autuers that he defines as a 'cinema of poetry'. Using the literary theory of free indirect discourse where "the author penetrates entirely into the spirit of his character, of whom he thus adopts not only the psychology but also the language" (p. 546), Pasolini identifies cinema's substitute which he calls 'free indirect subjectivity'. However, with the language of images this discourse is formed by a shot, not words. He locates in these films auteurs using point-of-view shots that unlike those used in conventional filmmaking dually align the consciousness of both character and filmmaker. According to Pasolini, the author communicates their own unique perspective of the world as well as their characters. This style "liberates the expressive possibilities stifled by traditional narrative conventions, by a sort of return to their origins…rediscovering in the technical means of cinema their original oneiric, barbaric, irregular, aggressive, visionary qualities"(p. 548).

Ultimately, Pasolini's philosophy of filmmaking is outlined in this theoretical piece. The stylistic conventions of commercial mainstream filmmaking are perceived by him as inferior, thus like the unorthodox aesthetic movements that stem across all film history, Pasolini identifies fresh stylistic possibilities that exist in anti-thesis to the values and style of mainstream cinema. Furthermore, his elevation of authorship reveals an individualistic and idealistic view of film directors that further positions him outside of the collective process of commercial filmmaking.

As well as producing his own theories of cinema he incorporated other theoretical frameworks and ideologies into his films such as Freudian psychoanalysis and Marxism. The latter was a highly significant component of his polycentric, authorial identity. In the turbulent socio-economic climate of post war Italy “the left had succeeded in forming a cultural bloc that included the most capable intellectuals and artists of the time” (Viano, p. 9). Joining the communist party in 1946, Pasolini would be influenced by Marxism and became concerned with its political use for the rest of his life (Viano, 1993). Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci was a significant influence on not just Pasolini’s political consciousness but also his approach to cinema. Maurizio Viano notes that Pasolini’s “ideological convictions [were] largely due to the influence of reading Gramsci” (p.8), and subsequently there exists a concrete link between Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony and Pasolini's philosophy of cinema. Hegemony is “used to refer to a condition in process in which a dominant class(es) doesn’t merely rule but leads a society through the exertion of moral and intellectual leadership” (Storey, 1993, p. 119) with cultural apparatuses reinforcing this dominance. In the cultural apparatus of film, the dominant commercial cinema is driven by capitalist interests that captivate the consumer through its “escape-spectacle” (Nichols and Pasolini, p. 545) which reinforces the dominance of the capitalist system. Pasolini’s work exists in opposition to this, and through his distinct style and approach to filmmaking offers a cultural alternative to mainstream cinema that aims to disrupt cinematic norms. This approach that is informed by the influence of Marxism and his own film theory is given form in Accattone (1961), Edipo Re (1967), and Teorema (1968).

Accattone

(Accattone)

In 1948, Andre Bazin wrote that “recent years have brought a noticeable evolution of the aesthetic of cinema in the direction of realism” (Fowler, 2002, p. 54). Bazin was writing in the wake of two monumental films of the neorealist movement Roma Città Aperta (Rossellini, 1945) and Ladri di Biciclette (de Sica, 1948). Neorealism was primarily a reaction to years of suppression by the fascist Mussolini government, but it also represented a break away from the tenets of mainstream filmmaking. Italian filmmakers “left free to use the camera unfettered by the microphone…profited by the occasion to enlarge the camera’s field of action and its mobility” (Fowler, p. 57). The workplace of the film studio, mostly due to economic necessity, was now abandoned in favour of the real world. Using real locations, natural light, and non-professional actors, the cinema of realism advanced, and signified an alternate approach to the common filmmaking practices in that period. Pasolini absorbed certain aspects of neorealism into his own approach to creation, with the use of non-professional actors becoming a signature of his work. As Pasolini came to make his directorial debut in 1961 with Accattone, it was well known that the “realism in 1945 no longer held up in 1960” (Viano, p. 69). Accattone was an attempt by Pasolini to present an alternative to what had become an orthodox style of cinema in Italy, presenting a path to which neorealism could evolve whilst also replicating some of the key principles and themes of it.

Like in his previous novels, Accattone is story about criminals and social outcasts existing in an environment of dire poverty. Vittorio (Franco Citti) is a small time pimp living in the slums of Rome whose immoral and degrading existence is brought into chaos when his prostitute is arrested. Penniless, he is unwelcomed by his estranged family and, after meeting a girl named Stella (Franca Pasut), he attempts to support her and himself by working an honest day of labour. But, after giving up on his job Vittorio is killed in a freak car accident that he prophesises in a dream.

Accattone shares many aesthetic and thematic similarities with neorealist films such as the use of natural lighting, non-professional actors, location shooting, and a pre-occupation with the lives of ordinary people and criminals living in deprivation. However, in contrast to the classical neorealist films, Pasolini constructs a film that is authentically brutal and lacking in pathos. The post-apocalyptic exterior of Rome’s slums is representative of Rome's socio-economic decay, as well as the internal moral decay of film's pimps and thieves. It is the repulsive, yet realistic representation of these characters that disrupt the norms of identification. Although not the stereotypical hero, the protagonist of Ladri di Biciclette is an identifiable character because of his sense of moral duty to his family, and the pathos of his undeserving situation. But the protagonist of Accattone is an estranged, uncommitted father, whose desperate situation is presented as self-inflicted, disrupting the conventional processes of identification. Disrupting the spectator, Pasolini offers an alternative to mainstream filmmaking’s pre-occupation with admirable and sympathetic heroes.

Pasolini’s formation of these corrupt characters was heavily influenced by the narrative conventions of the ‘picaresque novel’. The picaresque novel usually involves a hero “typically marginal to society” (Fowler, p. 75) that is a considerably poor individual, getting involved in immoral situations and does not desire to work for a living in the conventional sense. Like the picaresque, the events of Accattone are expressed with a plain, and blunt realism. For example, the prostitute’s beating is horrifying because of the cold and detached direction of Pasolini, shooting the scene with long shots far from the action as if presenting an uncontrollable fact. However, the beating of a prostitute in the neorealist film Rocco e i suoi fratelli (Visconti, 1960) is presented far more emotively to heighten the sense of tragedy. In Accattone though, Pasolini defies the emotive approach of neorealism in favour of a realism of immediacy and bluntness.

Concretely identifying the style of Accattone becomes even more difficult when considering the dream sequence towards the end of the film. The temporal play and fantastical element to this sequence blurs the lines between surrealism and realism. Instead of the external, actual reality of Rome, Pasolini presents the Freudian, internal reality of Vittorio’s subconscious. In doing so, Pasolini has far more in common with the style of Fellini than Rossellini, and like the former, is keen to explore past the parameters of neorealism. Furthermore, we begin to see roots of Pasolini’s own theories of cinema with his experimentations of film’s “true oneiric nature” (Nichols & Pasolini, p. 546).

Essentially, we see the beginnings of Pasolini’s pluralistic cinematic expression that utilises influences from neorealism, surrealism, and the picaresque. Moreover, Accattone established Pasolini as a figure devoted to offering an alternative approach to filmmaking than both the culturally dominant Hollywood, and the neorealists of the past that became conventional. It is a signifier of Pasolini’s intentions to create a purer mode of cinematic expression, unbounded by the dominant approaches to filmmaking. Ultimately Pasolini’s unique approach to the aesthetic of realism in Accattone, and its dark, troubling themes sets him outside the parameters of commercial mainstream filmmaking.

Edipo Re

(Edipo Re)

Edipo Re (1967) is Pasolini conveying "his life’s story through the Oedipus legend” (Viano, p. 178), a Greek tragedy written by Sophocles (429. B.C) and immortalised by Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theory of the Oedipal complex. In the play, Oedipus is the King of Thebes who has unknowingly murdered his father before the events of the play and has since taken his father’s crown and married his own mother. The plague that ravages and haunts Thebes is caused by the fact the murderer, Oedipus, is still walking free. Upon discovering that as a child he was cursed with the prophecy of killing his father, and that he unwittingly carried out the deed, he thrusts his mother’s golden pins into his eyes in a moment of maniacal self-disgust. Using Sophocles’ play, Freud developed the theory that the infant son’s first love is his mother and harbours a murderous hatred of the father that is subsequently repressed into the unconscious. In the internal process of overcoming these feelings, the son positions the father as an ego ideal which relinquishes the rivalry, and the boy replaces his mother as a love object fully resolving the conflict. However, Pasolini’s decision to infuse his own life into this myth is intriguing when considering Freud's theory that describes homosexuality as “certain arrest of sexual development” (Mitchell, 2012, p. 2), an abnormality of the oedipal complex.

In 1944, when a boy Pasolini had loved became ill, he wrote - “I was so scared that for the first time I was taken by the scruple of God” (Viano, p. 6). By the age of fifteen he had his last communion and denounced God stating that “since then I could never even conceive the possibility of believing in God” (Naldini, 1989, p.20). Growing up, living, and working in a society steeped in the religious traditions of Catholicism, Pasolini seemed consistently troubled with a sense of Catholic guilt about his homosexuality. When his homosexuality became public in 1949, he spent the rest of his life having to “defend and explain his sexuality before the state, his family, his friends, and his actual readers” (Viano, p. 13). By using the Oedipal complex as a way of explaining his sexuality in Edipo Re, he submits to the notion that he is an abnormal result of a faulty Oedipus process, but he also uses cinema as a way of expressing his own feelings of isolation and self-hatred caused by intense social pressures. This is imaginatively brought into being as he utilises his theory of free indirect subjectivity through point-of-view shots.

After coming of age, Edipo (Franco Citti) meets an omniscient prophet to find out his fate in the world. She reveals his curse and warns him – “Don’t taint these people with your presence”. In this moment Oedipus becomes an outsider, looked upon by society and himself as immoral, vulgar; an incurable disease that should only exist in isolation. The following sequence is divided between chaotic point-of-view shots of crowds glaring at him, close-ups of his distraught countenance, and shots of him walking through a completely empty desert. Using his theory of free indirect subjectivity that is achieved through the point of view shot, one can infer that Pasolini simultaneously communicates the mental state of Oedipus as well as his own paralleling feelings of isolation through this technique. The prophet is a symbol of the omniscience of God, and the crowd represents God’s devout Catholic followers; an emotionally charged reference to Pasolini’s position as a social outcast in an Italian society dominated by Catholic values. The vulgarity expressed of Oedipus’ sexual act equates to the view of homosexuality as a sin in Catholic teachings, and suggests Pasolini's own feelings of self-hatred that are rooted in how society views him. Combining with the spatio-temporal play of the editing, Pasolini consciously ignores the laws of continuity editing and infuses his own unique aesthetic which subverts the conventions of mainstream commercial cinema.

Teorema

(Teorema)

By 1968 Pasolini had established a reputation as a controversial and unique filmmaker through the development of his distinct language and his film’s transgressive themes. Using Marxism as the theoretical backbone of Teorema, Pasolini fully positions his cinema as an anti-thesis to the dominant cultural position of Capitalist filmmaking.

Teorema is a film that “sets out to prove a theorem about bourgeoise society” that was constructed by Pasolini as a “theoretical piece in the language of cinema” (Viano, p. 199). Like Godard’s counter cinema, this represented a disruption of the normal relationship between spectator and screen. Unlike commercial “cinema’s mainstream ‘invisible style’ and unobtrusive narration” (Bordwell, 1999, p. 54), Pasolini sets out to destabilise the viewer by placing them in the position of a cold, detached scientist attempting to work out a theorem, avoiding the normal processes of identification. An unnamed, divine being (Terence Stamp) stays with a conventional bourgeoisie family, romancing each member of the family and disrupting the norms of their existence. The vacuous nature of bourgeois values is revealed to them by the visitor, and they pursue different lives according to the new meanings they acquired.

Teorema also saw Pasolini seek more control over his work as he “even acted as his own cameraman” (Gordon, p. 195), a position he maintained in his later films. However, Pasolini was not a complete auteur unrestricted by the commercial interests aligned with mainstream cinema. Although he cast non-professional actors again, Terence Stamp starred in the lead role after he was “imposed by producers” (Gordon, p. 192) upon Pasolini. Like the casting of David Hemmings in Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966), the star was a clear marketing tool geared towards the counterculture audience, aligning a sophisticated British sensibility with European hedonism. Here, this demonstrates that even a filmmaker as committed as Pasolini in offering an alternative approach to mainstream filmmaking is never completely free from cinema’s commercial identity. Like in Edipo Re, Pasolini’s theory of free indirect subjectivity takes form in Teorema, dually expressing the consciousness of both filmmaker and character. However, whereas Edipo Re referred to Pasolini’s position as a despised outsider of mainstream society, in Teorema his ideological convictions about bourgeoise society are expressed. After another dissatisfying sexual encounter, the mother (Silvana Mangano) leaves the hotel and is confronted with the realisation of her situation. An image of her distressed face cuts to a point of view shot where the camera tracks the walls, fences, and buildings of a modern city landscape. Unable to lift above this environment, the cinematic space is transformed into a prison-like structure that emphasises a sense of claustrophobic restriction. The chaotic camera movements are a representation of her disjointed mental state and the spatial restrictions suggest she has become trapped in a cycle of inadequate fulfilment. From Pasolini’s Marxist inspired perspective, he comments on the inability of the bourgeoisie to sustain a true and lasting sense of personal fulfilment because the need to consume more is an intrinsic value of their social group, and of capitalism. Overall, this aspect of his style is an example of his “troubled language of expression” (Gordon, p. 189) that disrupts the viewer and subverts the unified system of meanings that are characteristic of classical Hollywood. In addition, the film’s aesthetic and thematic construction around Marxist ideas and Pasolini's stylistic values suggests that it is not driven by the commercial motives of mainstream cinema. Teorema is a film aimed towards the academic, rather than a work catered for mass economic consumption.

As well as elevating lurid political views influenced by Marxism, Teorema also confronts social taboos in Pasolini's unflinching and relaxed representation of sexuality. Maurizio Viano comments on the function of the guest poignantly, stating that he “is like an acid test, revealing the identity of the signs in crisis” (p. 202). Through these acts, the character reveals the hypocrisies of the bourgeoise and their futile existence. Disrupting continuity, Pasolini repeatedly cuts to the motif of a desolate landscape where moving clouds cast ever-changing patterns on the ground. This image evokes both emptiness and a sense of inevitability, and when considering the homosexual explorations of the son and father, Pasolini seems to comment on the inevitability of their sexuality. These liberal depictions of sexuality were in direct opposition to the conservative attitudes shared by most of Italy’s population, demonstrating that Pasolini not only sat outside cinema's mainstream, but also the mainstream beliefs of society. The openness in which Pasolini deals with sexuality is also a signifier of the changing attitudes taking place in the Western world. Anti-establishment and communistic, this countercultural attitude is mirrored by the themes of Teorema. Ultimately, the hedonistic sensibility of Teorema solidifies it as an artefact of the 1960s-counterculture movement, and is an example of Pasolini's idiosyncratic cinema.

Accattone, Edipo Re, and Teorema demonstrate that, stylistically, Pasolini’s work sits outside the conventional mainstream aesthetic of commercial cinema. His film theory outlined his intentions to discover a purer mode of cinematic expression that looked beyond the conventions of mainstream filmmaking, and galvanises the filmmaker as a singular force able to unlock new roads of expression through a unique medium. His films followed these ideas, as well as infusing other aesthetic influences into his work to create a distinct, and unrestrained style. This philosophy is in direct anti-thesis to the streamlined and narrow modes of expression demonstrated by classical Hollywood cinema, and other forms of commercial filmmaking that seek only to comfort the viewer, not to disrupt them into a more active role as spectator.

Thematically, the sexual taboos of Western society such as prostitution and homosexuality is a significant concern for Pasolini. The human condition of the outsider is a subject he returns to consistently in his films, and which relates to his own status as a scorned outsider of Italian society. It is not just these themes that disrupt the equilibrium of the mainstream though, as his leftist politics and keen interest in Marxism is unashamedly reflected in his films, presenting alternative ways of thinking and being. Ultimately, Pasolini was an artist that viewed mainstream commercial cinema as a restrictive force that pushed against artists, and limited the scopes of expression. Instead, his cinema was an attempt to transcend the medium.

Bibliography

Books

Bordwell, D. (1999). On the History of Film Style. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press. Dulac, G & Sitney, P. (1987). The Avant-Garde Film: A Reader of Theory and Criticism. Mew York: Anthology Fowler, C & Bazin, A. (2002). The European Cinema Reader. London: Routledge. Gordon, R. S. (1996). Pasolini: Forms of Subjectivity. Oxford: Clarendon. Naldini, N. (1989). Pasolini, una vita. Torino: Enuidi. Nichols, B & Pasolini, P. P. (1976) Movies and Methods Vol.1. Berkley: University Press. Royce, E. C. (2015). Classical Social Theory and Modern Society: Marx, Durkheim, Weber. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Film Archives. Sophocles. (429. B.C). Oedpius Rex. Greece. Storey, J. (1993). An Introductory Guide to Cultural Theory and Popular Culture. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Viano, M. (1993). A Certain Realism: Making Use of Pasolini's Film Theory and Practice. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.

Journals Mitchells, G. (2012) The Development of Psychoanalytic Understandings of Male Homosexuality: Moving Beyond Pathology. Psycho-Analytic Psychotherapy in South Africa; Vlaeberg. Vol. 20, Iss. 1. 1-32.

Filmography

Antonioni, M. (1966). Blow-up. UK: MGM. Clair, R. (1924) Entr’acte. France: Société Nouvelle des Acacias. Pasolini, P. P. (1961). Accattone. Italy: Brandon Films. Pasolini, P. P. (1967) Edipo Re. Italy: Euro International Films. Pasolini, P. P. (1968). Teorema. Italy: Euro International Film. Rossellini, R. (1945). Roma Città Aperta. Italy: Excelsa Films. Ruttman, W. (1927) Berlin: Die Sinfonie der Großstadt. Weimar Republic: Fox Europa. Sica, V. D. (1948). Ladri di Biciclette. Italy: Ente Nazionale Industrie Cinematografiche. Visconti, L. (1960). Rocco e i suoi fratelli. Italy: Astor Pictures Corporation.