Let's continue the cinematic thread that started yesterday with a brief piece on Pier Paolo Pasolini. In previous posts on this site we explored his life and pondered about his death; we analysed the meanings of the costumes in his films and discovered links about his movies and fashion.
This modern intellectual continues indeed to inspire us through his writings and films and at times reading his essays or newspaper articles can lead to interesting comparisons with our times. In 1975 Pasolini interviewed "himself" for an Italian newspaper, explaining the reasons behind his film "Salo or the 120 days of Sodom" (1975) in an article entitled "Sex as a Metaphor for Power".
Released posthumously in 1976, the film was banned as soon as it came out, its violence and sex scenes proving too much for many people. Yet Pasolini often stated that the violence was a metaphor for the relationship of power with those ones who are subjected to it. In other words it is the representation of what Marx calls the commodification of man, the reduction of the human body to a thing (through its exploitation).
In the film the power of the fascists from the Salò Republic turns indeed into a power that transforms people into objects. Nowadays we delude ourselves into thinking we are free, but too often our lives are ruled by different forms of power. Fashion is definitely one of the modern industries playing around with our minds, fascistically imposing a colour or a trend regardless of the collective tastes or needs of consumers. My suggestion? Pasolini employed sex to analyse and criticise power: find new metaphors for old powers in our everyday life and turn them into your personal inspiration for a project. As further inspiration, I'm posting here (Download PierPaoloPasolini_SelfInterview_March1975_byABattista) my translation of Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Self-Interview" published on Il Corriere della Sera on 25th March 1975.
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