May 7th, 2010 / 1:33 pm
Craft Notes

Pier Paolo Pasolini on Writing

“One should never hope for anything.”

“If you know that I am an unbeliever, then you know me better than I do myself. I may be an unbeliever, but I am an unbeliever who has a nostalgia for a belief.”

“But I do not believe in a metaphysical god. I am religious because I have a natural identification between reality and God. Reality is divine. That is why my films are never naturalistic. The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

“When I make a film, I shift into a state of fascination with an object, a thing, a fact, a look, a landscape, as though it were an engine where the holy is about to explode.”

“I am a murderer but I am a good person.”

“Don’t talk to me of the sea while we are in the mountains.”

“If I have access to an administrative council or a Stock Market maneuver, that’s what I use. Otherwise I use a crowbar. And when I use a crowbar, I’ll use whatever means to get what I want.”

“I say let’s not waste time placing nametags here and there. Let’s see then how we can unplug this tub before we all drown.”

[What follows here is a transcription of the end of the final interview conducted with Pasolini, conducted by Furio Colomobo…]

FC: Why do you think that some things are so much evident for you?

PPP: I don’t want to talk about myself any more. Maybe I’ve said too much already. Everyone knows that I pay for my experiences in person. But there are also my books and my films. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’ll keep on saying that we are all in danger.

FC: Pasolini, if that’s how you see life–I don’t know if you will accept this question–how do you hope to avoid the risk and danger involved?

[It’s late, Pasolini did not turn on any lights and it’s become hard to take notes. We look over what I’ve written. Then he asks me to leave the questions with him.]

PPP: There are some statements that seem a little too absolute. Let me think about it, let me look them over. And give me the time to come up with a concluding remark. I have something in mind for your question. I find it easier to write than to talk. I’ll give you the notes that I’ll add on tomorrow morning.

[The next day, Sunday, Pasolini’s body was in the morgue of the Rome police station.]

Tags:

39 Comments

  1. voorface

      I WORK ALL DAY…

      I work all day like a monk
      and at night wander about like an alleycat
      looking for love…I’ll propose
      to the Church that I’ll be made a saint.
      In fact I respond to mystification
      with mildness. I watch the lynch-mob
      as through a camera-eye.
      With the calm courage of a scientist,
      I watch myself being massacred.
      I seem to feel hate and yet I write
      verses full of painstating love.
      I study teachery as a fatal phenomenon,
      almost as if I were not its object.
      I pity the young fascists,
      and the old ones, whom I consider forms
      of the most horrible evil, I oppose
      only with the violence of reason.
      Passive as a bird that sees all, in flight,
      and carries in its heart,
      rising in the sky,
      an unforgiving conscience.

  2. Peter Markus

      Love this:

      “The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

      And this:

      “When I make a film, I shift into a state of fascination with an object, a thing, a fact, a look, a landscape, as though it were an engine where the holy is about to explode.”

      One thing’s for sure, boys and girls:

      They don’t teach you this in the academy.

      Save your time and your money and make from Pasolini’s words.

      Thanks for posting this, Blake.

  3. Nathan Tyree

      “I am a murderer but I am a good person.”

  4. voorface

      can’t believe I misspelled “treachery”…

  5. rk

      “The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

      Yes.

      His best pictures are a sacred terror. This is why his Oedipus is so fine.

  6. Donna

      “They don’t teach you this in the academy.”

      Actually, they do. That’s how many young Americans find out about Pasolini. A poetry class. A film class.
      A sociology class. Those evil academies! “Stay just as far from me as me from you.”

  7. ce.

      “The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

      This.
      If I liked epigraphs, I’d consider this as a possibility for my current manuscript.

  8. davidpeak

      you don’t like epigraphs?

  9. ce.

      Not particularly, though I will admit Adam R convinced me to re-evaluate my idea of them at the beginning of poetry/short story collections.

      Before a single poem or story though continues to grate on me. Just seems lazy to me to use an epigraph, I suppose. I much prefer inclusion or allusion.

  10. scott mcclanahan

      Has anyone watched the film “Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die” about Pasolini’s death? There’s some real interesting stuff in it.

  11. Ken Baumann

      The best, or epigraphs that work: Blood Meridian, Closer by Dennis Cooper. They’re there, subsumed, then forgotten, then resurface once you finish the book. Clearly they’re a bedrock, or base fantasy, but you aren’t distracted or guided by them at all until after the main experience.

  12. David

      “Don’t talk to me of the sea while we are in the mountains.” This one is especially good.

  13. magick mike

      (TO BE TOPICALLY RELEVANT, I WILL POINT OUT) i used one of these as an epigraph to a novella/long-short-story

  14. voorface

      I WORK ALL DAY…

      I work all day like a monk
      and at night wander about like an alleycat
      looking for love…I’ll propose
      to the Church that I’ll be made a saint.
      In fact I respond to mystification
      with mildness. I watch the lynch-mob
      as through a camera-eye.
      With the calm courage of a scientist,
      I watch myself being massacred.
      I seem to feel hate and yet I write
      verses full of painstating love.
      I study teachery as a fatal phenomenon,
      almost as if I were not its object.
      I pity the young fascists,
      and the old ones, whom I consider forms
      of the most horrible evil, I oppose
      only with the violence of reason.
      Passive as a bird that sees all, in flight,
      and carries in its heart,
      rising in the sky,
      an unforgiving conscience.

  15. Peter Markus

      Love this:

      “The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

      And this:

      “When I make a film, I shift into a state of fascination with an object, a thing, a fact, a look, a landscape, as though it were an engine where the holy is about to explode.”

      One thing’s for sure, boys and girls:

      They don’t teach you this in the academy.

      Save your time and your money and make from Pasolini’s words.

      Thanks for posting this, Blake.

  16. Nathan Tyree

      “I am a murderer but I am a good person.”

  17. voorface

      can’t believe I misspelled “treachery”…

  18. rk

      “The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

      Yes.

      His best pictures are a sacred terror. This is why his Oedipus is so fine.

  19. Matthew Simmons

      I want a bound edition of all Blake’s “on Writing” posts.

  20. Donna

      “They don’t teach you this in the academy.”

      Actually, they do. That’s how many young Americans find out about Pasolini. A poetry class. A film class.
      A sociology class. Those evil academies! “Stay just as far from me as me from you.”

  21. ce.

      “The motivation that unites all of my films is to give back to reality its original sacred significance.”

      This.
      If I liked epigraphs, I’d consider this as a possibility for my current manuscript.

  22. davidpeak

      you don’t like epigraphs?

  23. ce.

      Not particularly, though I will admit Adam R convinced me to re-evaluate my idea of them at the beginning of poetry/short story collections.

      Before a single poem or story though continues to grate on me. Just seems lazy to me to use an epigraph, I suppose. I much prefer inclusion or allusion.

  24. scott mcclanahan

      Has anyone watched the film “Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die” about Pasolini’s death? There’s some real interesting stuff in it.

  25. Ken Baumann

      The best, or epigraphs that work: Blood Meridian, Closer by Dennis Cooper. They’re there, subsumed, then forgotten, then resurface once you finish the book. Clearly they’re a bedrock, or base fantasy, but you aren’t distracted or guided by them at all until after the main experience.

  26. David

      “Don’t talk to me of the sea while we are in the mountains.” This one is especially good.

  27. Janey Smith

      Salo. See it.

  28. Janey Smith

      I want a bound edition of Blake on my writing post.

  29. magick mike

      (TO BE TOPICALLY RELEVANT, I WILL POINT OUT) i used one of these as an epigraph to a novella/long-short-story

  30. Matthew Simmons

      I want a bound edition of all Blake’s “on Writing” posts.

  31. Janey Smith

      Salo. See it.

  32. Janey Smith

      I want a bound edition of Blake on my writing post.

  33. magick mike

      I prefer Teorema because Terence Stamp seduces everybody and a maid levitates & a capitalist discovers god is dead

  34. magick mike

      I prefer Teorema because Terence Stamp seduces everybody and a maid levitates & a capitalist discovers god is dead

  35. mimi

      This is soooooooooo good.

  36. grontain

      “Horse Rotorvator”

  37. mimi

      This is soooooooooo good.

  38. grontain

      “Horse Rotorvator”

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