Above: Giotto, Meeting at the Golden Gate, 1305.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò (1975) was released by Criterion in 1998 and in 2004 they released Mamma Roma (1962). This past month they released a much belated box-set of his six-hour Trilogy of Life (1971-1974), in a beautiful restoration and accompanied with an awesome heap of great docs, essays and other goodies. On December 13 MoMA started a month-long retrospective dedicated to his work.
I. Defending Pasolini Against His Devotees
The prevailing view of Pier Paolo Pasolini has become subjugated to the misshapen reputation of his most infamous film, Salò (1975). The film’s unyielding serial descent into ever more severe cycles of mutilation, sodomy, coprophagia, and chronic rape of a group of 12-15 year olds has scandalized and influenced a culture that is frantic for any stimuli that can remind its constituents of their humanity. The film has furnished ample fodder for generations of filmmakers intent on...
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò (1975) was released by Criterion in 1998 and in 2004 they released Mamma Roma (1962). This past month they released a much belated box-set of his six-hour Trilogy of Life (1971-1974), in a beautiful restoration and accompanied with an awesome heap of great docs, essays and other goodies. On December 13 MoMA started a month-long retrospective dedicated to his work.
I. Defending Pasolini Against His Devotees
The prevailing view of Pier Paolo Pasolini has become subjugated to the misshapen reputation of his most infamous film, Salò (1975). The film’s unyielding serial descent into ever more severe cycles of mutilation, sodomy, coprophagia, and chronic rape of a group of 12-15 year olds has scandalized and influenced a culture that is frantic for any stimuli that can remind its constituents of their humanity. The film has furnished ample fodder for generations of filmmakers intent on...
- 12/26/2012
- by Gabriel Abrantes
- MUBI
His life tragically and brutally cut short by a still unknown assassin, Italian auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini’s last completed project, known as the Trilogy of Life, gets the master treatment from Criterion this month, which includes three films based on classic literary anthologies, The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972), and Arabian Nights (1975). Pasolini was one third done with his next project, to be called the Trilogy of Death, of which his last film, Salo (1975), was the first installment. Upon each of their initial releases, the Life films were all equally greeted with controversy, celebration, and a distinct notoriety, but all overshadowed by the infamy of Salo, which stands on many lists as one of the most difficult to watch films of all time (and was the first Pasolini title to be inducted into Criterion’s annals). Pasolini’s overall motif encapsulated in these three features is a celebration of life,...
- 11/27/2012
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Blu-ray & DVD Release Date: Nov. 13, 2012
Price: DVD $79.95, Blu-ray $79.95
Studio: Criterion
Ninetto Davoli enjoys the sweet smell of life in Pasolini's The Decameron.
Italian poet, philosopher and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (Salò) Trilogy of Life, from the early 1970s, consists of his film renditions of a trio of masterpieces of pre-modern world literature: Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and One Thousand and One Nights (which is often referred to as The Arabian Nights).
The late Pasolini’s comedy-drama movies are now considered to be most uninhibited and extravagant works, a brazen and bawdy triptych that sets out to challenge consumer capitalism and celebrate the human body while commenting on contemporary sexual and religious mores and hypocrisies.
Definitely not for all tastes, the films offer heaping doses of Pasolini’s scatological humor and his rough-hewn sensuality, most of which leave all modern standards of decency behind.
Price: DVD $79.95, Blu-ray $79.95
Studio: Criterion
Ninetto Davoli enjoys the sweet smell of life in Pasolini's The Decameron.
Italian poet, philosopher and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini’s (Salò) Trilogy of Life, from the early 1970s, consists of his film renditions of a trio of masterpieces of pre-modern world literature: Giovanni Boccaccio’s The Decameron, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, and One Thousand and One Nights (which is often referred to as The Arabian Nights).
The late Pasolini’s comedy-drama movies are now considered to be most uninhibited and extravagant works, a brazen and bawdy triptych that sets out to challenge consumer capitalism and celebrate the human body while commenting on contemporary sexual and religious mores and hypocrisies.
Definitely not for all tastes, the films offer heaping doses of Pasolini’s scatological humor and his rough-hewn sensuality, most of which leave all modern standards of decency behind.
- 8/23/2012
- by Laurence
- Disc Dish
Distinguished Italian director noted for art documentaries
Though the Italian media prefer to remember him as one of the inventors of the first popular programme of television commercials – called Carosello (Carousel) and broadcast each evening at peak viewing time on the only channel of the Italian public broadcaster Rai in the mid-1950s – Luciano Emmer, who has died aged 91, was a distinguished Italian cinema director. He directed a dozen features during 70 years as a film-maker, the first of which, Domenica d'Agosto (Sunday in August), became an international arthouse hit in 1950. He was, however, best known for scores of documentaries on art.
Born in Milan, Emmer spent most of his childhood in Venice, where his father was the city's municipal engineer. As a boy, he made good use of his father's free pass to the local cinemas, where his preference was for Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, but he also...
Though the Italian media prefer to remember him as one of the inventors of the first popular programme of television commercials – called Carosello (Carousel) and broadcast each evening at peak viewing time on the only channel of the Italian public broadcaster Rai in the mid-1950s – Luciano Emmer, who has died aged 91, was a distinguished Italian cinema director. He directed a dozen features during 70 years as a film-maker, the first of which, Domenica d'Agosto (Sunday in August), became an international arthouse hit in 1950. He was, however, best known for scores of documentaries on art.
Born in Milan, Emmer spent most of his childhood in Venice, where his father was the city's municipal engineer. As a boy, he made good use of his father's free pass to the local cinemas, where his preference was for Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy, but he also...
- 12/3/2009
- by John Francis Lane
- The Guardian - Film News
IMDb.com, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.