Filmmaker Would Have Been 80 Years Old This Year

Filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini will receive a special remembrance at the 45th San Francisco International Film Festival (April 18–May 2). The Festival will screen Pasolini’s 1968 masterpiece, TEOREMA, on April 21 at 6:30 pm at the Castro Theatre and Laura Betti’s documentary, PIER PAOLO PASOLINI, will screen on April 19 at 7:00 pm at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres and on April 28 at 3:45 pm at the Park Theatre.

This year would have been Pasolini's 80th birthday and Laura Betti’s new, illuminating documentary has given us the perfect opportunity to celebrate Pasolini’s life and work, Roger Garcia, guest programmer for this year’s Festival, said. “Pasolini was an uncompromising, multitalented artist whose work continues to enrich us more than 20 years after his death.

Director, screenwriter, novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, film critic and theorist Pasolini was born in 1922 in Bologna, Italy. A published poet by the time he was 19 years old, Pasolini became a well-known writer of poetry and novels well before he entered the film industry in the mid-’50s. His popular Rome-set novels, RAGAZZA DI VITA (1955) and UNA VITA VIOLENTA (1959), with their lowlife themes and unique use of vernacular dialogue, brought him to the attention of the film industry. He soon began collaborating on scripts, most notably with Federico Fellini on NIGHTS OF CABIRIA. His film debut, ACCATONE!, which he wrote and directed in 1961 from his novel UNA VITA VIOLENTA (A Violent Life), made an immediate impact. His next film, MAMMA ROMA (1962), dealt with a Roman prostitute (Anna Magnani) aspiring to a middle-class life. These films, like his novels of the ’50s, reveal a compassion for the working class motivated by a paradoxical combination of influences: a commitment to Marxism (he joined the Communist Party as a young man) and a deep interest in mystical religiosity.

He became one the key intellectuals of his time, and the work he did in so many disciplines fits together like so many pieces of a puzzle, from his writings on cinema (his paper, “Il cinema di poesia,” read at the 1965 Pesaro Festival, is one of the most worthwhile contributions to cinema theory) to his outspokenness on gay rights and his own homosexuality. Persistently offending Italian authority—Church and State—his unorthodox views even led to his arrest in 1962 on charges of blasphemy for his short film, LA RICOTTA, an episode of the compilation film ROGOPAG, and two of his films, THE CANTERBURY TALES (1972) and SALO OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975) being declared obscene by the courts.

Though not a believer, he remained preoccupied with belief throughout his career as writer and filmmaker, most notably in his 1964 film, The GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. MATTHEW, a stark and sober retelling of the Gospel. Many of his films were set in distant times and places, exploring mythic notions of the transition from primitivism to civilization and what he called “the sacred,” though his several films in contemporary settings like TEOREMA (1968) and ACCATONE! provided the opportunity for him to vent his social and political concerns more directly.

In November of 1975 Pasolini met his death in circumstances not far removed from the squalid world of some of his films. His battered body was found near the seaside resort of Ostia, outside Rome. Controversy continues to surround this brutal murder, for which a young male prostitute was tried and convicted. There are those that think his murder was actually a politically motivated assassination.

Actress turned director Laura Betti has become the keeper of the Pasolini flame. Born Maura Trombetti in 1934, she left home as a restless, seeking teenager because “there was no sacred flame,” nothing to provide her with the inspiration she sought. Her striking looks and attitude inspired an awestruck Fellini to cast her in LA DOLCE VITA. In Pasolini she found the flame she sought, and they joined together to help define an era, and a generation; in nine years they made five films together, including TEOREMA and THE CANTERBURY TALES. As the Director of the Pasolini Foundation since 1980, Betti has maintained the archives of the late filmmaker, poet, novelist, actor and avid soccer player. She once characterized her 20-year friendship with the man who was 12 years her senior as a “sort of elective affinity.” If indeed Pasolini gave Betti a permanent place in cinema history, she has returned the benefaction. Thanks in part to her efforts, his memory remains vibrant, and his legacy, like poetry, alive.

The 45^th San Francisco International Film Festival is presented by the San Francisco Film Society, a nonprofit arts organization whose goal is to lead in expanding the knowledge and appreciation of international film art and its artists by showcasing the most compelling, thought-provoking international films, special tributes and major restorations, and today’s brightest stars.

The 45th San Francisco International Film Festival runs April 18–May 2, 2002 at the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres, the Castro Theatre, the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley and Landmark’s Park Theatre in Menlo Park. Advance ticket packages and Festival passes go on sale beginning March 6. Individual tickets for San Francisco Film Society members will be available beginning March 27, with individual tickets for the general public available starting April 2. To purchase tickets and for ticket information call 925.275.9490 or log on to www.sffs.org. The Main Box Office, located in the atrium of the AMC Kabuki 8 Theatres at 1881 Post Street will open for Film Society members on March 27 and for the general public on April 2. There will also a Festival Satellite Box Office at Crocker Galleria, 50 Post Street, second floor, opening on April 2. For up-to-date Festival information, call 415.931.FILM.