Jul 2012
Pasolini x 2, again.
Out now, on DVD: two of Pasolini’s knottiest works…
Hawks and Sparrows [Uccellacci e uccellini]: “Your innocence, your simplicity, and your grace are religious and religion is the power that makes you take one step after another on your journey.” Critic Pasquale Iannone describes this serio-comic 1966 film (or ‘ideo-comic’, to use Pasolini’s own descriptor) as “a truly idiosyncratic work — a film which reflects a crucial period in Pasolini’s ideological development and one which has the very great merit of treating ideology seriously, but not too seriously.” This edition includes the original theatrical trailer, and a 28-page booklet which contains a new essay by Iannone about the film; excerpts from an interview with Pasolini about the film; and a new translation of Pasolini’s 1974 interview about his lead actor, the Italian comic luminary Totò.
Pigsty [Porcile]: Again we defer to Pasquale Iannone: “In Porcile, the director has two stories unfold simultaneously – one set in the distant past, the other in the West Germany of 1967. In the first, a young man (Pierre Clémenti) wanders across a vast volcanic desert in search of food and turns to murder and cannibalism. In the second, Julian (Jean-Pierre Léaud), the son of a wealthy German industrialist, harbours a shameful secret which he hides from both his politically- committed girlfriend Ida (Anne Wiazemsky) and his capitalist father Herr Klotz (Alberto Lionello) – his love for pigs. ‘The two stories in Porcile are united by one ‘moral’,’ Pasolini claimed. ‘There is a practical, logical link between the two, but also a poetic link […] that is to say, the alternating of a [near] silent, meta-historical episode with a talking, historical one.’” Our edition of Pasolini’s 1969 film contains the original theatrical trailer, and a 20-page booklet featuring a new essay on the film by Iannone; a note on the film by Pasolini circulated at the Venice première; and an extract from a 1969 interview by Gian Piero Brunetta with Pasolini.
Coming soon — ROssellini, GOdard, PAsolini, Gregoretti. And Francis Ford Coppola.