Passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini (Bfi Perspectives) [Paperback]

Sam Rohdie (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0851705189 | ISBN-13: 978-0851705187 | Publication Date: December 7, 1995

Pasolini was a controversial film-maker, poet and essayist, best known for his films narrating myths, such as "Oedipus Rex", "Medea", "Theorem", "The Canterbury Tales", "The Decameron" and "A Thousand and One Arabian Knights". This book is a personal account of Pier Paolo Pasolini's cinema and literature, written by the author of "Antonioni" and "Rocco and his Brothers".

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

SAM ROHDIE teaches film studies at Baptist College, Hong Kong. He is a past editor of Screen and the author of Antonioni and Rocco and His Brothers (BFI Film Classics).

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: In Univ+press (December 7, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0851705189
• ISBN-13: 978-0851705187
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,872,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A serious book for serious people, September 19, 2004

By 

Howard Greyson "Howie" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini (Bfi Perspectives) (Paperback)

The great contemporary philosopher Judith Butler wrote an op ed piece for the "New York Times" a while back in which she beautifully explained why it is writers need complex forms of rhetoric in order to explain complex subject matter.

No filmmaker was more complex, intelligent, and, indeed, difficult than Pier Paolo Pasolini, and Sam Rhodie's book does a nice job of using the theoretical tools necessary to adequately address the late great filmmaker/poet/philosopher. As far as I'm concerned, if you can't understand Rhodie's book, you'll never be able to understand Pasolini's films, so you shouldn't even bother trying. His great films are the cinematic equivalent of Foucault, Barthes, Althusser, and Delezue, and they're not for people only interested in them for the nudity, sex and violence. Pasolini said as much over and over again in his own, published newspaper essays. In fact, he was always sad that so many people came to watch his films with shallow intentions, particularly those "fans" he aquired after the "Trilogy of Life" and "Salo". On the other hand, I'm sure PPP would have been very pleased by THE PASSION OF PIER PAOLO PASOLINI.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasure to read, December 28, 2004

By 

Dave "Cody" (Portland, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini (Perspectives) (Paperback)

PASSION is a fine book about a complex artist. Like a reader below, I am shocked that so many people have found this book "dense" and "unreadable". What do you expect from an academic press? Also, it's clear that "ed" and "Ryan" are the same person--they use the same words and make the same gramatical mistakes. To ed/Ryan I would ask this: you say (twice) that this is the only book about Pasolini in English. Well, guess what? There are at least EIGHT that I can think of off-hand, most of which you ought to be able to order right here from Amazon.com. If you can't even track down any of those books, how do you expect to read something as intricate as this one?

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great Pasolini book for educated readers, October 31, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: The Passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini (Perspectives) (Paperback)

I have a particular passion for Pasolini, and I've read most of the English language books about him and his films. This is, for my money, one of the two or three best. (Naomi Greene's "Cinema as Heresy" is still the best volume with which to start.)

I found this a great follow-up. It's a book dealing with a number of topics related to Pasolini that most other authors have downplayed or ignored (like his work about Africa.) Yes, it's an academic book. It's released by a university press (Indiana UP), which should tip potential readers off to the fact that this isn't some sort of Entertainment Weekly level book. Still, I'm puzzled by other comments claiming this is unusually difficult or boring. (If you want difficult reading, try to read Pasolini's own essays!) I read this volume around the house during a Christmas break while drinking eggnog with my family and didn't have need for the unabridged dictionary. Feel free to click onto the sample pages here on Amazon. The prose's sentence length and complexity seems about average for adult reading to me. I guess that if you're ill-educated in critical theory and find yourself interested in this title only because of the book's sexually shocking cover (and Pasolini's scandalous reputation), you'll be disappointed. But if you want a smart account of Pasolini's work in the era of Queer Theory and Post-Colonial Studies, this is a book for you.