Stupendous, miserable city : Pasolini's Rome / John David Rhodes.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rhodes, John David, 1969-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 1922-1975--Criticism and interpretation.

Pasolini, Pier Paolo.

Pasolini, Pier Paolo, 1922-1975.

Criticism and interpretation.

Rome (Italy)--In motion pictures.

Rome (Italy).

Physical Description:

xxiii, 194 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, [2007]

Summary:

John David Rhodes places the city of Rome at the center of this original and in-depth examination of the work of Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini-but it's not the classical Rome you imagine. Stupendous, Miserable City situates Pasolini within the history of twentieth-century Roman urban development. The book focuses first on the Fascist period, when populations were moved into public housing on the periphery of the city, called the borgate, and then turns to the progressive social housing experiments of the 1950s. These environments were the settings of most of Pasolini's films of the early to mid-1960s.

Discussing films such as Accattone, Mamma Roma, and The Hawks and the Sparrows, Rhodes shows how Pasolini used the borgate to critique Roman urban planning and neorealism and to draw attention to the contemptuous treatment of Rome's poor. Carefully tracing Pasolini's surprising engagement with this part of Rome and looking beyond his films to explore the interrelatedness of all of Pasolini's artistic output in the 1950s and 1960s-including his poetry, fiction, and journalism-Rhodes opens up completely new ways of understanding Pasolini's work and proves how connected Pasolini was to the political and social upheavals in Italy at the time.

Contents:

Introduction: This Cinema, This City ix

1 A Short History of the Roman Periphery 1

2 "Rome, Ringed by Its Hell of Suburbs" 17

3 "Scandalous Desecration": Accattone against the Neorealist City 40

4 Pasolini, the Peripheral Sublime, and Public Housing 75

5 Mamma Roma and Pasolini's Oedipal (Housing) Complex 110

Conclusion: The Allegorical Autostrada 136.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 157-188) and index.

ISBN:

9780816649297

0816649294

9780816649303

0816649308

OCLC:

76925221