A Certain Realism: Making Use of Pasolini’s Film Theory and Practice

Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922-1975) was arguably the most complex director of postwar Italian cinema. His films - Accattone , The Canterbury Tales , Medea and Salo - continue to challenge and entertain new generations of cinema audiences. A leftist, homosexual and distinguished writer of fiction, poetry and criticism, Pasolini once claimed that a certain realism informed his filmmaking. Combining analyses of Pasolini’s literary and theoretical writings with critiques of his films, Maurizio Viano offers a thorough study of Pasolini’s cinematic realism, in theory and in practice. He argues that homosexual themes are present in these films in a manner that critics have thus far failed to acknowledge.