Poetry and Politics – Pasolini’s Search for Lost Magic
Pasolini’s two great series – the Greek myths revisited, and medieval storybooks brought to life – were shrewd commercial projects, using widely familiar titles as a basis for radical filmmaking. But I want to argue that they also have an underlying political aim, which is to challenge the banality of contemporary consumerist society.
Pasolini was a Marxist, as well as a poet with a distinctively Italian sense of what got lost in the transition to modern industrial society – like his contemporary, the writer Italo Calvino. In ‘Medea’, above all, Pasolini confronted the gulf between a magical world and modernity, which I will be exploring in this illustrated talk. – Ian Christie
Following Ian Christie’s talk we will be screening separately also in the Studio at 16:00 Pasolini’s ‘The Canterbury Tales.’