1965 pier paolo pasolini interview.pdf

8/14/2019 1965 Pier Paolo Pasolini Interview.pdf

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1965 Pier Paolo Pasolini InterviewBy James Blue

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In conjunction with MOMA's upcoming Pasolini retrospective, we reprint JamesBlue's interview with Pier Paolo Pasolini from the Fall 1965 issue

I have been wondering what I should ask you. Often I ask questions ofdirectors that seem a little stupid, you see, but I dont want to avoid those, forfinally the stupid questions are the ones to which I most want reply. I know that itwill be difficultI dont think I would be able to answer very well concerning myown filmsbut I hope that your replies help me to arrive at certain conclusionslater. Have you understood?

Yes, I understand.

You know Im compiling a book on the directing of the non-actor. I am meetingmany directors. The book is primarily a way for me to organize my own thinkingand to take advantage of the experiences of other directors in order to see how Imay be able to create more completely a kind of human existence in front of thecamera, without the use of professional actors, and without falling into cinemaconventions. The ideas Im looking for have been discreetly developing for 20years. So thats why Im writing this book, to clarify my ideas . Have youunderstood?

Yes, very well.

Let me start with a question that may seem stupidhow do you create? Are youawareeven vaguelyof certain recurring processes? What helps you? Whatpushes you to create? When you want to work, what steps do you take to getstarted?What is it that urges me to create. As far as film is concerned, there is no differencebetween film and literature and poetrythere is this same feeling that I have nevergone into deeply. I began to write poetry when I was seven years old, and what it wasthat made me write poetry at the age of seven I have never understood. Perhaps it wasthe urge to express oneself and the urge to bear witness of the world and to partake in

or to create an action in which we are involved, to engage oneself in that act.Putting thequestion in that manner forces me to give you a vaguely spiritualistic answer . . . a bitirrational. It makes me feel a bit on the defensive.

Some artists collect information on a subject, like journalists. Do you do this?Yes, there is this aspect, the documentary element. A naturalistic writer documentshimself through his production. Because my writing, as Roland Barthes would say,contains naturalistic elements, it is evident therefore that it contains a great interest in
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living and documentary events. In my writing there are deliberate elements of anaturalistic type of realism and therefore the love for real things . . . a fusion oftraditional academic elements and of contemporary literary movements.

What brought you to The Gospel Acco rding to St. Matthew, and once you had the

idea, how did you start work on it? Why did you want to do it?I recognized the desire to make The Gospel from a feeling I had. I opened the Bible bychance and began to read the first pages, the first lines of St. Matthews Gospel, andthe idea of making a film of it came to me. Its evident that this is a feeling, an impulsethat is not clearly definable. Mulling over this feeling, this impulse, this irrationalmovement or experience, all my story began to become clear to me as well as my entireliterary career.

Once you had this feeling, what did you look for to give it form, to make thefeeling concrete?I discovered first of all that there is an old latent religious streak in my poetry. I

remember lines of poetry I wrote when I was 18 or 19 years old, and they were of areligious nature. I realized, too, that much of my Marxism has a foundation that isirrational and mystical and religious. But the sum total of my psychological constitutiontends to make me see things not from the lyrical-documentary point of view but ratherfrom an epic point of view. There is something epic in my view of the world. And Isuddenly had the idea of doingThe Gospel, which would be a tale that can be definedmetrically as Epic-lyric.

Although St. Matthew wrote without metrics, he would have the rhythm of epic and lyricproduction. And for this reason, I have renounced in the film any kind of realistic andnaturalistic reconstruction. I completely abandoned any kind of archaeology andphilology, which nevertheless interest me in themselves. I didnt want to make anhistorical reconstruction. I preferred to leave things in their religious state, that is, theirmythical state. Epic-mythic.

Not desiring to reconstruct settings that were not philosophically exactreconstructedon a sound stage by scene designers and techniciansand furthermore not wanting toreconstruct the ancient Jews, I was obliged to find everythingthe characters and theambiancein reality. And so the rule that dominated the making of the film was the ruleof analogy. That is, I found settings that were not reconstructions but that wereanalogous to ancient Palestine. The characters, tooI didnt reconstruct characters buttried to find individuals who were analogous. I was obliged to scour southern Italy,because I realized that the pre-industrial agricultural world, the still feudal area ofsouthern Italy, was the historical setting analogous to ancient Palestine. One by one Ifound the settings that I needed for The Gospel. I took these Italian settings and usedthem to represent the originals. I took the city of Matera, and without changing it in anyway, I used it to represent the ancient city of Jerusalem. Or the little caverns of thevillage between Lucania and Puglia are used exactly as they were, without anymodifications, to represent Bethlehem. And I did the same thing for the characters. The


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chorus of background characters I chose from the faces of the peasants of Lucania andPuglia and Calabria.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

How did you work with these non-actors to integrate them into a story that wasnot their own, although analogous to their own?I didnt do anything. I didnt tell them anything. In fact, I didnt even tell them preciselywhat characters they were playing. Because I never chose an actor as an interpreter. Ialways chose an actor for what he is. That is, I never asked anyone to transform himselfinto anything other than what he is.

Naturally, things were a little more difficult with regard to the main actors. For example,the fellow who played Christ was a student from Barcelona. Except for telling him that

he was playing the part of Christ, thats all I said. I never gave him any kind ofpreliminary speech. I never told him to transform himself into something else, tointerpret, to feel that he was Christ. I always told him to be just what he was. I chosehim because he was what he was, and I never for one moment wanted him to beanyone else other than what he wasthats why I chose him.

But to make your Spanish student move, breathe, speak, perform necessaryactionshow did you obtain what you wished without telling him something?Let me explain. It happened that in making The Gospel, the footage of the characterstold me almost always the truth in a very dramatic fashionthat is, I had to cut a lot ofscenes from The Gospelbecause I couldnt mystify them. They rang false. I dont

know what it is, but the eye of the camera always manages to express the interior of acharacter. This interior essence can be masked through the ability of a professionalactor, or it can be mystified through the ability of the director by means of cutting anddivers tricks. In The GospelI was never able to do this. What I mean to say is that thephotogram or the image on the film filters through what that man isin his true reality,as he is in life.

It is possible at times in movies that a man who is devious and shady can play the partof one who is nave an ingenuous. For example, I could have taken a professional andgiven him the part of one of the three magian unimportant partand by the way it isclear that there is a deep candor in the souls of the three magi. But I didnt use

professionals, and therefore I couldnt have their ability to transform themselves in toothers. I used real human beings, and so I made a mistake and misjudged a manpsychologically. My error was immediately evident in the photographed image. There isanother rather unpleasant example that has sprung to mindfor the two actors whoplayed those possessed by the Devil, I chose actors from the Centro Sperimentale filmschool in Rome. I chose them in a hurry. Later, I had to cut the scene because I wasobvious that they were two actors from the Centro Sperimentale.


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In reality, my method consists simply of being sincere, honest, penetrating, precise inchoosing men who psychological essence is real and genuine. Once Ive chosen them,then my work is immensely simplified. I dont have to do with them what I have to dowith professional actors: tell them what they have to do and what they havent to do andthe sort of people they are supposed to represent and so forth. I simply tell them to say

these words in a certain frame of mind and thats all. And they say them.

To get back to Christ, once I had chosen the person whose essence or interior wasmore or less that needed to play the part of Christ, I never obliged him to do any specificthings. My suggestions were made one by one, instance by instance, moment bymoment, scene by scene, action by action. I said to him, do this and get angry. Ididnt even tell him how. I simply said, youre getting angry, and he got angry in theway he usually got angry and I didnt intervenein any way.

My work is facilitated by the fact that I never shoot entire scenes. Being a non -professional director Ive always had to invent a technique that consists of shooting

only a very brief bit at one time. Always in little bitsI never shoot a scene continuously.And so even if Im using a non-actor lacking the technique of an actor, hes able tosustain the partthe illusionbecause the takes are so brief. And if he doesnt havethe technical ability of an actor, at least he doesnt get lost,he doesnt freeze up.

Although I was able to find characters analogous to the wise men or to an angel or toSaint Joseph, it was extremely difficult to find a character analogous to Jesus Christ.

And so I had to be content with finding someone who at least came close to resemblingChrist externally and interiorly, but actually I had to construct Christ in the cutting room.

Although other directors make tests, I never make them. I had to make one for Christ,thoughnot for myselfbut for the producer who wanted a certain guarantee. When Ichoose actors, instinctively I choose someone who knows how to act. Its a kind ofinstinct that so far hasnt betrayed me except in very minor and very special cases. Sofar Ive chosen Franco Citti forAccattoneand Ettore Garofolo for the boy in MammaRoma. In La Ricotta, a young boy from the slums of Rome. Ive always guessed right,that from the very moment in which I chose the face that seemed to me exact for thecharacter, instinctively he reveals himself a potential actor. When I choose non-actors, Ichoose potential actors.

Naturally, Christ was a more difficult thing for me than Franco Citti because Franco,after all, was to play a part that was more or less himself. First of all, this young Spanishstudent at the beginning was inhibited about playing the part of Christhe wasnt evena believer. And so the first problem was that I had playing Christ a fellow who didnteven believe in Christ. Naturally this cause inhibitions. This young student wasnt anextrovert or a simple, normal type of person. He was psychologically very complex, andfor this reason it was difficult the first few days to get him to win out over his timidity, hisrestraint, his inhibitions, while for the other actors I didnt have this problem. The veryminute I put them in front of the camera, they acted the way I wanted them to.


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What did you do with your Spanish non-believing non-actor to get the results youwanted?Nothing really. I simply appealed to his good will. He was a very intelligent and a very

cultured young man who became bound to me by the friendship that grew up betweenus in those few dayshowever, he had the basis of an ideological background and arather strong desire to be useful to me. It was by this means that he succeeded inovercoming his timidity.

As far as the rest goes, I had him perform in very small segments, one at a time, withouteven preparing them first. I would suggest the expressions while he acted. Inasmuch aswe were shooting without sound, I could talk to an actor while he was performing. It wasa little bit like a sculptor who makes a sculpture with little improvised blows of the chisel.While the actor was acting, I said to him Look hereand I told him each expression,one by one, and he followed them almost mechanically. I shot everything that way. He

had the speech memorized more or less, and he began to say it. He had toforexampletake 10 steps forward, or move, or look at someone. I never told himbeforehand, except in a very vague way, what it was all about, and gradually as heperformed, I said, now look at me . . . now look down there with an angry expression . .. now your expression softens . . . look toward me and soften your expression slowly,very slowly. Now look at me! And so while the camera rolled, I told him these things. Iprepared the action beforehand, in a very vague way, so that he would know more orless what he was supposed to do and where he was supposed to go. Whatever thenuances, the little movements, I suggested to him one by one. Prior to the shot, I gavehim general movements and told him more or less what he was supposed to do. Then Iexplained these things more precisely while we shot. Once in a while I would surprise

himI would say to him, Now look at me with a sweet expression on your face. Andwhile he did this I would say suddenly, Now get angry! And he obeyed me.

Didnt this request make him attempt to imitate the way an actor he had seen gotangry?No. Actors would be tempted to do this, but one who is not an actorfor example, thosewhom I chosewould never do this. Its not possible, because they have neverconfronted themselves with the technical problems of an actorthat is, he doesnt havea technical idea of anger, he has a natural and genuine idea of anger.

Ive done this rather often in other films. For example, I would have the person say a

line that was not what it was supposed to be in the text. If he was supposed to say Ihate you, I would have him say Good Morning, and then when I dubbed I would put inI hate you. Normally, I should have said to him, All right now, say I hate you as if youwere saying good morning. But this is pretty complicated reasoning for a person whois not an actor. So I simply tell him to say Good morning, and then in the dubbing I putin his mouth I hate you.

For dubbing, do you use non-actors or professionals?


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I do both. That is, I take non-actors who generally reveal themselves to be splendiddubbers. For Christ, I was obliged to use a professional actor, so it depends on thecircumstances. More than anything else, I try to balance everything out between theprofessional and non-professional performances. For instance, the boy in MammaRomadid his own dubbing. But Franco Citti could not do his own dubbing, for even

though he was bravissimohis voice was rather unpleasant. So I had him dub anothercharacter.

If you dont give the non-actor much explanation of character, do you at least tellhim the story?Yes, I do, in two words. Just out of curiosity. But I never go into a serious discussionwith him. If he has any doubts . . . if he says to me what do I have to do here, I try toexplain to him. But always point by point, particular by particular, never the whole thing.

Do you add expressive gestures, which are not normally a part of the non-actorspersonal comportment?No, I never have him do gestures that are not his. I always let him use the gestures thatare natural to him. I tell him what he has to dofor example, slap someone or pick up aglassbut I let him do this with the gestures that are natural to him. I never interveneregarding his gestures.

If I want to underline some act, I do so with my own means, with technical means withthe camera, with the shot, with editing. I dont have him emphasize it. Actually, I am verycareful not to indicate to him the intention, because these intentions are the phonypart of the actor.

The Gospel According to St. Matthew

Do you trick at all, in order to produce emotional responses?Up to now it has never happened. If it were necessary, Id do it. Its never happened tome because my actors do not have petit-bourgeois inhibitions. They dont care. They dowhat I tell them, generously. Franco Citti, Ettore Garofolo, the protagonist of La Ricotta,and my Christ as wellthey gave of themselves completely, blindly. They dont havethat conventionality or false modesty of hypocrites, so Ive never had to do this.However, if I had to trick, Id do it.

Do you see a way of directing the bourgeois-class person who is a non-actor?I was faced with this problem filming The Gospel. Whereas in my other films mycharacters were all of the people, forThe GospelI had some characters who were not.The Apostles, for example, belonged to the ruling classes of their time, and so obeyingmy usual rule of analogy, I was obliged to take members of the present-day ruling class.Because the Apostles were people who were definitely out of the ordinary, I choseintellectualsfrom the bourgeoisie, yesbut intellectuals.


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Although these non-actors as Apostles were intellectuals, the fact that they had to playintellectuals removed, no instinctively but consciously, the inhibition of which you spoke.However, in the case of ones having to use bourgeois actors who are not intellectuals, Ithink that you can get what you want from them, too. All you have to do is love them.

How did you work with the intellectuals to rid them of their inhibitions?The process was identical with that for the lower-class performers. With the formernaturally, I used a language that was on a more elevated level. But my methods werethe same.

Do you feel the need of knowing your people a long time before shooting, to makefriends with them, to learn their natural gestures in order to use them later?

I had known Franco Citti for years, because he was the brother of a friend. I knew hischaracter more or less. On the other hand, Ettore Garofolo of Mamma RomaI saw

him once in a bar where he was working as a waiter. I wrote my whole script around himwithout speaking to him further. Because I preferred not to know him. I took him andbegan to shoot after having seen him for just that one minute. I dont like to make anorganized and calculated effort to know someone. If you can intuit a person, you knowhim already.

Generally I have very precisely in mind what Im going to do. Because Ive written thescript myself, Ive already organized the scene in a given way. I see the scene not onlyas a director but also with the different eyes of the scriptwriter. In addition, I choose thesettings. I go to these places and make an adjustment of what Ive written in my script tofit the place where we are going to shoot. And so when I go to shoot, I more or lessknow already how the scene is going to go.

I did this for every film except The Gospel. With The Gospel, the thing was so delicatethat it would have been easy to fall into the ridiculous and the banal and the typicalcostume film genre. The dangers were so many that it wasnt possible to foresee themall. And it being so difficult, we had to shoot three or four times more material thannecessary. In effect, most of the scenes I created in the cutting room. I shot thewholeGospelwith two cameras. I shot every scene from two or three angles, amassingthree or four times more material than necessary. It was as if I had done a documentaryon the life of Christ. By chance. With the moviola, I constructed the scene.

Did you seek a particular style in the framing, and was this possible with twocameras going?Yes, I always have a rather clear idea of the shot I want, a kind of shot that is almostnatural to me. But with The GospelI wanted to break away from this technique becauseof a very complicated problem. In two words its this: I had a very precise style ortechnique with which I had experimented inAccattone, in Mamma Romaand in thepreceding films, a style which is, as I said before, fundamentally religious and epic by itsvery nature. And so I thought that my stylepossessing naturally these qualities of


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sacredness and epicnesswould go well with The Gospelalso. But in practice, thatwas not the case. Because in The Gospelthis sacredness and epic quality became aprison, false and insincere, and so I had to reconstruct my whole technique and forgeteverything I knew, everything that I had learned withAccattoneand Mamma Roma, andbegin from the beginning. I relied on chance, on confusion, and so forth.

All this was due to the fact that I am not a believer. InAccattone, I myself could tell astory in the first-person because I was the author and I believed in that story, but I couldnot tell the story of Christmaking him the son of Godwith myself as the author ofthis story, because Im not a believer. So I didnt work as an author. And so this forcedme to tell the story of Christ indirectly, as seen through the eyes of one who doesbelieve. And as always when one tells something indirectly, the style changes. Whilethe style of a story told directlyhas certain characteristics, the style of a story toldindirectly has other characteristics. That is, if in literature I am describing Rome in myown words, I describe it in one style. But if I describe Romeusing the words of someRoman characterthe result is a completely different style because of the dialect, the

popular language, and so forth. The style of my preceding films was a simple stylealmost straightforward, almost hieraticwhile the style of The Gospelis chaotic,complex, disordered. Despite this difference in style, I shot all my films in little pieces allthe same. Except the frame, the point of view, the movements of the extras werechanged.

La Ricotta

I have read that you have said that you have trouble with actors. Why is that?I wouldnt like people to take this too literally, not in a dogmatic way. InLa RicottaI usedOrson Welles and I got along beautifully with him. In the film Im making now Im goingto use Tot, a popular Italian comic, and Im sure everything will work o ut fine. When Isay I dont work well with actors Im uttering a relativetruthI want to be sure that thisis clear. My difficulty lies in the fact that Im not a professional director, and so I haventlearned the cinematographic techniques. And that which I have learned least of all iswhat they call the technique of the actor. I dont know what kind of language to use toexpress myself to the actor. And in this sense, Im not capable of working with actors.

After your directing experiences with Anna Magnani in Mamma Romaand Orson

Welles in La Ricotta, what have you learned about using professional actors asdistinct from non-actors?The principal difference is that the actor has an art of his own. He has his own way ofexpressing himself, his own technique which seeks to add itself to mineand I cannotsucceed in amalgamating the two. Being an author, I could not conceive of writing abook together with someone else, and so the presence of an actor is like the presenceof another author in the film.


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With Welles, how did you get a result you felt was fruitful?For two reasonsfirst of all in La RicottaWelles did not play another character. Heplayed himself. What he really did was a caricature of himself. And also becauseWelles, in addition to being an actor, is also an intellectualso in reality, I used him asan intellectual director rather than as an actor. Because hes an extremely intelligent

man, he understood right away and there was no problem. He brought it off well.. It wasa very brief and simple part, with no great complications. I told him my intention and I lethim do as he pleased. He understood what I wanted immediately and did it in a mannerthat was completely satisfying to me.

With Magnani, it was much more difficult. Because she is an actress in the true sense ofthe word. She has a whole baggage of technical and expressive notions into which Iwas unable to enter, because it was the first time I had any kind of contact with an actor.

At present, Ive had a little bit of experience and at least can face the problembut atthat time, I couldnt even face it.

Accattone

Now that you have experience, have you thought how you may overcome thisacting baggage of the professional performer? You said you are using Tot inyour next filmhave you reflected upon your way of directing him?Yes, I think the way to get around this problem is to usethe fact that they are actors.Just as with a non-actor I use a whole series of things unexpected and unforeseenleaving them to their own vital confusion (for example, when I tell them to say Good

morning instead of I hate you), leaving them to the ambiguousness of their beingsoI must use the actor specifically for his actors baggage. If I try to use an actor as if hewere not an actor, I would be wrong. Because in the cinemaat least in my cinemathe truth always comes out sooner or later. On the other hand, if I use anactor knowingthat he is an actor, and therefore using him for that which he is and notfor that which he is not, I hope to succeed. Naturally, the character whom he interpretsmust be adapted to this idea.

It just happens that the characters in my new film are all ambiguous characters whohave something real, human, profound about them, and at the same time somethinginvented, absurd, clownish and fable-like. The double nature of the actor, Tot-man and

Tot-Clown, this double nature can be used by me for my character. In Tot himself thisdouble natureman and clown, or man and actorfunctions because it corresponds tothe double nature of the character in the film.

Do you plan to explain to Tot this double nature youve outlined?Yes, of course. As soon as I met him I explained that I needed a character just likehimself. I needed a Neapolitan. Someone profoundly human, who as at the same timethis art that is clownish and abstract. Yes, I told him right away.


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Are you not afraid that now that he knows, Tot will try to play both the clown andthe human being?No, I told him to make him feel freer. Because I saw that he would worry about it. Its thefirst time that he has worked on a film that has this kind of ideological content. Of

course, he has made several good films, but they were always on an artistic level,without political commitment. So probably he was a little worried. In order to leave himcompletely free, I told himso that he could go on doing what he had always done, sohe wont have to do anything different.

Do you rehearse a lot or do you shoot immediately?I never rehearse. I shoot right away.

Does this impose simple camera work?My camera movements are very simple. For The Gospel, I used camera movementsthat were a little more complicated, but I never use a dolly, for example. Ive always shot

in pieces. Shot by shot,. A few pans and very simple tracking shots but nothing more.

What are your observations about the aesthetic and technical characteristics offilm as you have gained experience?My lack of professional experience has not encouraged me to invent. Rather it hasurged me to re-invent. For instance, I never studied at the Centro Sperimentale or anyother school, and so when the time came for me to shoot a panoramic shot, for me itwas like the first time in the history of cinema that a panorama was shot. And so I re-invented the panoramic.

Only a person with a great deal of professional experience is capable of inventingtechnically. As far as technical inventions go, I have never made any. I may haveinvented a given stylein fact, my films are recognizable for a particular stylebut styledoes not always imply technical inventions. Godard is full of technical inventions.InAlphavillethere are four or five things that are completely inventedfor examplethose shots printed in negative. Certain technical rule-breakings of Godard are theresult of a pains-taking personal study.

As for me, I never dared to try experiments of this kind, because I have no technicalbackground. And so my first step was to simplify the technique. This is contradictory,because as a writer I tend to be extremely complicatedthat is, my written page istechnically very complex. While I was writing Una Vila Violentetechnically verycomplexI was shootingAccattone, which was technically very simple. This is theprincipal limitation of my cinematic career, because I believe that an author must havecomplete knowledge of all his technical instruments. A partial knowledge is a limitation.Therefore, at this particular moment, I believe that the first period of my cinematic workis about to close. And the second period is about to start, in which I will be aprofessional director also as far as technique in concerned.

But what have you discovered about film in an aesthetic sense?


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Well, to tell the truth, the only thing I discovered is the pleasure of discovery.

You're talking like Godard now.I answered like Godard because the question is impossible to answer. Look, if Ibelieved in a teleology of the cinema, in a teleology of development, if I believed in an

end-goal of development, in progress as improvement . . . but I don't believe in a"bettering," an improvement. I think that one grows, but one does not improve."Improving" seems to me an hypocritical alibi. Now, believing in the pure growth of eachone of us, I see the development of my style as a continuous modification about which Ican say nothing.

How do you conceive the structure of your films, what makes them move fromone end to another?It's too demanding a question. For the moment it's impossible to answer. But I wouldlike for you to read in Cahiersan article I wrote. This question implies not only anexamination of my films and my conscience, it brings up the question of my Marxism

and my whole cultural struggle during the Fifties. The question is too vast. It'simpossible.

But let me say this now in a very schematic fashion. At this point, the cinema is dividingitself into really two large trunks, and these two different types of films correspond towhat we already have in literature: that is, one type on a high level and another type ona low level. While cinema production until now has given us films of both a high and lowlevel, the distribution apparatus has been the same for both. But now the organizationor structure of the cinema industry is starting to differentiate . . . the cinema d'essaiisbecoming more important and will soon represent a channel for distribution throughwhich certain films will be distributed, whereas the remainder of the distribution will takeplace normally. This will bring about the birth of two completely different cinemas. Thehigh level of cinemathat is, the cinema d'essaiwill cater to a selected public and willhave its own history. And the other level will have its own story.

In this important change, the selection of non-actors will be one of the most importantstructural aspects. Probably the structure of this high level cinema will be modified bythe fact that no longer will there be an industrial organization hanging over it. And so allkinds of experiments will be possible, including that of using non-actors, and this willtransform the cinema even stylistically.

In Cahiers, do you speak of aesthetic structure?The structure of cinema has a special unity. If the structuralist critic were to describe thestructural characteristics of the cinema, he would not distinguish a story cinema from anon-story cinema. I don't believe that this story distinction affects the structure ofcinema; rather it affects the superstructureI mean the style. The lack or the presenceof a story is not a structural factor. I know that some of the French structuralists haveattempted to analyze the cinema, but I don't believe that they have succeeded inmaking these distinctions.


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Literature is unique, it has unity. Literary structures are unique and include both proseand poetry. Nevertheless, there is a language of prose and a language of poetry,although the literary structure is one. In the same way, the cinema will have thesedistinctions. Obviously, the structure of cinema is one. The structural laws regarding anyfilm are more or less the same. A banal western or a film by Godard have structures

that are fundamentally the same. A certain rapport with the spectator, a certain way ofphotographing and framing are the identical elements of all films.

The difference is this: the film of Godard is written according to the typicalcharacteristics of poetic language; whereas the common cinema is written according tothe typical characteristics of prose language. For example, the lack of story is simply theprevalence of poetic language over prose language. It isn't true that there isn't a story;there is a story, but instead of being narrated in its integrality, it is narrated elliptically,with spurts of imagination, fantasy, allusion. It is narrated in a distorted wayhowever,there is a story.

Fundamentally, the distinction to be made is between a cinema of prose and a cinemaof poetry. However, the cinema of poetry is not necessarily poetic. Often one may adoptthe tenets and canons of the cinema of poetry and yet make a bad and pretentious film.

Another director may adopt the tenets and canons of the prose filmthat is, he couldnarrate a storyand yet he creates poetry.

1965 pier paolo pasolini interview.pdf

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