There once was a time when some of the brightest thinkers wondered if movies were the answer. Could this new visual language topple tyrants? Fix social problems? Rewrite the political landscape? There were many questions, and the answer kept coming … Continue reading PASOLINI 101
Few filmmakers are as divisive as the great Italian Pier Paolo Pasolini. He was a novelist, a poet, and a provocateur even before he picked up a camera. His debut film, Accattone, is a revelation. His follow-up, Mamma Roma, is even better. … Continue reading MAMMA ROMA
It’s funny how some movies make their way to the screen. Or don’t, as the case may be. Take Pasolini, the 84-minute biopic about notorious Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini; directed by an equally notorious filmmaker, Abel Ferrara and starring Willem … Continue reading MAMMA ROMA
Mamma Roma has paid her dues and done her time. For nearly 30 years, she walked the sweaty streets of Rome, turning tricks and handing out favors. And with her pimp (Franco Citti) married and moved to the country, Mamma … Continue reading MAMMA ROMA
The passion that had taken the form of a great love for literature and for life gradually stripped itself of the love for literature and turned to what it really was—a passion for life, for reality, for physical, sexual, objectual, … Continue reading Born On This Day — March 5, 1922
Cinema is identical to life, because each one of us has a virtual and invisible camera which follows us from when we’re born to when we die. In reality cinema is an infinite film sequence-shot. Each individual film interrupts and … Continue reading In Their Words — Saturday, April 20, 2013
The mark which has dominated all my work is the longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn’t lessen, but augments this love of life. —Pier Paolo Pasolini Continue reading In Their Words — Tuesday, March 5, 2013
An artist, if he’s unselfish and passionate, is always a living protest. Just to open his mouth is to protest: against conformism, against what is official, public, or national, what everyone else feels comfortable with, so the moment he opens … Continue reading In Their Words — Sunday, March 3, 2013
When I make a film I’m always in reality among the trees, and among the people like yourselves. There’s no symbolic or conventional filter between me and reality as there is in literature. The cinema is an explosion of my … Continue reading In Their Words — Friday, November 9, 2012
Michael J. Cinema 