Abel Ferrara acts like a man. As he has mentioned
many times that Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of the most inspiring figures for
his works, he decided to dedicate him a film.
And who better than Ferrara, who among other stuff has directed a porn film where the protagonist
actress was his girlfriend (of that
time), can respond to Pasolini’s controversy?
It seems like the director has officially entrusted Willem
Dafoe for the role of Pasolini. For me
personally, he could have chosen someone less American than Dafoe. Not because
I have doubts about his dramatical mastery, but because I would like to see any
European actor (preferably Italian) in the role of Pasolini, so long as Pasolini himself was a strong critic of
consumer culture, with which America embodies herself (even if we do not agree
to this kind of “embody”). And more likely that anti-consumerism killed him.
That disobedience "ate him".
The film focuses on the last days of Pasolini, in
November 1975. As the master returns from Sweden in his hometown, at a dinner
between friends someone tells him that he must immediately stop criticizing Christian
Democrats. Pasolini says offended that he does not care how it is going to end,
someone should be there to criticize that “puppet” government. End is known.
Only in 2005 these facts were made known, throwing
new doubts over the distant murder of 1975. Although after "Salo", even
if the political motives of Pasolini's murder were not spoken loudly , they
were intended. "Salo" is his final mockery to consumer culture, to
all those paunchy or slender bourgeoisie members, fascism and moderated fascists
who label themselves capitalists.
Pasolini was a declared communist, not since the
beginning, but after witnessing from nearly those inhuman massacres against Jews by the Nazi-Fascists.
His communism was different from that of others. Even among the Communists
themselves he was a divergent man, after his statements against allowing abortion, or even more after his
criticism of the student movement in Italy in '69 (in this case Pasolini was on
the police side cause they were the true proletariat).
I bolded the political profile of Pasolini, because this
profile shows that Pasolini, like all the great personalities of all areas, at
all times, never becomes an integral part of any group, at the point where the
group's principles interfere with his own principles.
Pier Paolo Pasolini is an example of the
intellectual man, who does not easily compromise, one of those kind of intellectuals who will be always a
minority in this dark, letterless world.
Abel Ferrara is a high-toned director, perhaps one
of the best of our time. We can not blame him that "no one decided to eat him
because of his disobedience." This may be his subconscious reason to
devote a film to someone who sacrificed too much because of principles similar to his own ones (I continue
to insist, only in appearance). But after all, only form is visible for all (in
art), so I think we are going to watch a good movie.
Filming starts in 2014, immediately after "Welcome
to New York".
But.. .I am still a fanatical worshipper of the “philosopher-artist”, and Mr. Ferrara is not one of these guys. Pasoloni was ;)...by Led Kasapi
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