Pasolini l'enragé

"Every time I wanted to say something new, I used a new technique; that's why I used the cinema... Changes of technique are a feature of obsession." Pasolini himself introduces this portrait of himself as "auteur", then (in July 1966) virtually unknown in France.
Together with Jean-André Fieschi, a critic on "Cahiers du cinema", Pasolini goes back over the physical settings of his life and of his cinema, from his apartment in via Eufrate in Rome, to the Roman suburbs, to the beach at Ostia. He goes back to Rebibbia, the suburb where he lived from 1951 to 1954 and which was his inspiration for Accattone, his first film, made without any knowledge of cinematic technique. He meets Franco Citti, who has appeared in many of his films, and interviews him about his experience as an actor "taken off the streets". Pasolini talks at length about Uccellacci e uccellini, and takes Fieschi to the Prenestino area to introduce him to Ninetto Davoli. Pasolini explains his conception of cinema as "reproduction of the natural language of reality"; he talks about his relationship with neorealism and about the New Wave as a revolutionary continuation of neorealism; he speaks of his radical criticism of the Italian petite bourgeoisie "to which he himself belongs"; in a comment on Il Vangelo secondo Matteo he analyzes his relationship with Catholicism and Marxism. Then there is an extract from La ricotta, with Orson Welles taking Pasolini's place on the set, and the anticipation of the subject of what was to be Teorema, finally filmed in 1968. The interview ends with a statement from Pasolini which, in retrospect, has all the connotations of a tragedy foretold: "It's always difficult to work, it's a matter of an existential test: life or death... I haven't decided yet whether I should live or die".

Director: Jean-André Fieschi.
Director of photography: Georges Lendi.
Editor: Pierre-Michel Rey.
Montaggio riedizione: Danielle Anezin.
Mixaggio: Daniel Leonard.
Mixaggio riedizione: Jean-Claude Brisson.
Consulente artistico: Patrick Brion.
Corrispondente dall'Italia: Jean-Claude Biette.
Interventi: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Franco Citti, Ninetto Davoli.
Production company: ORTF.
Riedizione: AMIP, La Sept, INA (Parigi), in associazione con Channel Four (Londra).
Serie diretta da: Janine Bazin, André S. Labarthe.
Riprese: Roma.
Estratti da: Accattone, Uccellacci e uccellini, Il Vangelo secondo Matteo, La ricotta.