by H.S. Bayer
“I lived that page of a novel, the only one of my life as far as the rest —
what can I say I have been living inside a poem, like every obsessive.”
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Braucci’s screenplay derived from an idea, by Abel Ferrara and Nicola Tranquillino. Braucci was part of the writing team for Abel’s Napoli, Napoli, Napoli (2009) and wrote the award winning screenplay for Gomorrah (2008) – one of the best foreign films, of the past decade, to have a U.S. theatrical run and a throwback to the great Italian films of the 50’s to 70’s. The Director of Photography Stefano Falivene shot Pasolini, with a 35mm Arriflex, on Kodak negative. He shotMary (2002) for Ferrara and recently won the Best Cinematography award for Uberto Pasolini’saward winning (Migliore Fotografia) Still Life (2013) – (which will open theatrically in the U.S. in January), at the 2014 Italian Golden Globes. Uberto Pasolini is not related to PPP but he is a descendant of, famous Italian Director, Luchino Visconti. The Editor, Fabio Nunziata, is also a writer and director – he edited Abel’s Mary, Napoli, Napoli, Napoli and Go Go Tales (2002). The Production Designer, Igor Gabriel, was production designer for Jean-Pierre Dardenne’s Two Days, One Night (2014) which competed for the Palm d’Or at Cannes Film Festival this year.
With an extra flourishing touch to his Pasolini homage, Ferrara cast Accattone (1961) actress Adriana Astias Pier Paolo’s mother and Ninetto Davoli (Pasolini’s longtime acting collaborator, former lover and lifetime friend) as Epifanio, the lead character, in a sequence from Pasolini’s unproduced screenplay, Porno – Teo – Kolossal. The real Davoli himself is a character in the film, played by Riccardo Scamarcio. Giada Colagrande, a film auteur like PPP in real life, plays his cousin and secretary, Graziella. Damiano Tamiliaplays Pelosi – the street hustler ultimately convicted of PPP’s murder with Maria de Medeiros as Salò(Pasolini’s last film released in 1975) actress Laura Betti. The rest of the cast: Valerio Mastandrea, Roberto Zibetti, Andrea Bosca, Francesco Siciliano, Luca Lionello, Salvatore Ruocco – (English, Italian, French dialogue). World Sales, for Pasolini, still on the market as of this posting, is handled by,Funny Balloons, Paris, France.
In Caro, Angelico Maestro/My Dreams Intact a conversation with Pier Paolo Pasolini & Abel Ferrara,by Evan Louison for 1985 (www.1985artists.com), Ferrara described his approach to the subject and structure of the film:
AF: [With Pasolini,] We’re coming from a point of a lot of respect. We dig the guy’s work. We dig everything about him. He’s essential viewing. His death, in 1975, was also kind of a very outrageous moment, all the bullshit surrounding the killing. When it comes down to it, we were probably gearing up to make this movie from the moment we heard he was dead. We never thought about doing films on real people until lately, when the documentary thing started bringing us to that. And something between doing those documentaries {Chelsea on the Rocks (2008), Napoli, Napoli, Napoli, and Mulberry St. in 2010} and then doing 4:44 about the last day in the life of the character that Willem played, there was something there. We liked the structure of it… That’s really the crux of it. The events that happened, versus the events you create. I want to use it all. When I rethink it, I mean, first of all, no matter what you read, if it’s in a newspaper or a book, the difference between a fiction and a non-fiction, it’s really just your perception of it, how you read it, and what you believe and what you don’t believe. And even your imagination, how do you separate that from your consciousness, from the events you experience in your subconscious, what you think you see, what you dream. You’re looking at something on this side of the street, when your mind is absorbing something on that side of the street.
I think this approach to biographical and historical documentary narrative that Ferrara is evolving may ultimately blow the word ‘biopic’ to smithereens – which will be good for us all.
“Narrative art is dead and we are in a period of mourning…”
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pasolini is Ferrara’s 23rd Feature
CONTENTS:
- Pasolini Mini-Bio
- AF at NYFF Part 1
- AF Filmography
- Willem Dafoe Filmography
- Dafoe Performance Notes
- AF at NYFF Part 2
- The Screenplay
- YouTube Links
- AF &Welcome to N.Y.vs. IFC
- Me, DSK & Bobby D.
- Epilogue: Pier Paolo Pasolini