Originally Published: 2010-07-18

Poet, writer, filmmaker, painter, journalist. Pier Paolo Pasolini was all that. To this day he is an internationally renowned Italian intellectual who Italy was ashamed of for many years. Criticism began soon after the war, when he published some of his writings in Udine’s daily Libertà and was banned by a group of communist politicians.
And to think that in those days Pasolini read Marx and Gramsci. His books were taken off library shelves, removed from school curricula, and he was accused of corrupting minors and of obscene acts in public places. Italy wanted him burned at the stake because he was profane and homosexual. He was persecuted by a Christian-Democrat parliamentarian because his name was too similar to a character in Accattone, by producers for La Ricotta, and by a Roman judge for “contempt of the State religion.”
Until his death in 1975, there had been many confiscations, charges, and legal proceedings for films such as Theorem (Teorema), (Pigpen) Porcile, The Canterbury Tales (I racconti di Canterbury), The Arabian Nights (Il fiore delle Mille e una notte), and The Decameron, which, ironically, all had great success abroad as well.
Despite the endless persecution, Pasolini remains today one of the greatest Italian artists, intellectuals, and directors of the 21st century. This is why TIFF Cinemateque to celebrates its 20th anniversary has decided to organize in Toronto – in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute – a retrospective titled “Pier Paolo Pasolini: the poet of contamination” that will end Aug. 3, once again offering the Toronto public a series of films directed by him.
And so, here is the Pasolini who – inspired by profound disquietude of life, of humankind, of society – makes films that have fragile boundaries with [that are not far off from] life and reality. On the horizon is the Roman periphery: Mamma Roma, with Anna Magnani in the role of a prostitute who decides to quit the oldest profession and raise her 16-year-old who has been raised by a family of farmers. Until her former pimp goes back to ringing up the coffers, and fate resumes its negative and unrelenting course.

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