Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in Bologna in 1922. He spent his childhood in various Italian cities (Bologna, Parma, Belluno, Cremona, Reggio Emilia) and studied Art History and Philology at the University of Bologna. In 1943, he took refuge in Casarsa, his mother's village in the province of Friuli, where he began working as a teacher. In Casarsa, he started writing his first poems (published in 1954 in the volume "The Best of Youth") and joined the Communist Party. In 1949, he was accused of corrupting a minor. Although the charge was deemed unfounded, the incident led to his expulsion from both the school and the Communist Party. That same year, he moved to Rome with his mother. The working-class neighborhoods on the outskirts of Rome inspired his first two novels, "Ragazzi di vita" (1955) and "A Violent Life" (1959). At the same time, he published poetry collections such as "The Ashes of Gramsci" (1957), "The Nightingale of the Catholic Church" (1958), and "The Religion of Our Time" (1961). He co-edited the journal Nuovi Argomenti with Alberto Moravia, who considered him, by the late 1950s, the most important Italian poet of his generation. During this period, he began working in cinema as a screenwriter, collaborating with Bolognini, Bertolucci, and Rossi. In 1961, he directed his first film, "Accattone." This was followed by films such as "Mamma Roma" (1962), "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (1964), "Oedipus Rex" (1967), "Teorema" (1969), "Pigsty" (1969), "Medea" (1970), and the so-called "Trilogy of Life" with "The Decameron" (1971), "The Canterbury Tales" (1972), and "Arabian Nights" (1974). His last film was "Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom" (1975). As one of the most significant intellectuals of his time, Pasolini often caused scandal with his unconventional, revolutionary views, whether through his films, books, or articles. He was murdered in 1975 by a young male prostitute in Ostia, outside Rome.