Pier Paolo Pasolini and the meeting with the pro civitate Christiana of Assisi

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Reflections by Luciano Ragusa

The meeting between Pier Paolo Pasolini and the pro civitate Christiana, from which he arises The Gospel according to Matteo, is a "narrative in the narrative", a part of text that, separated from the intertwining, claims its autonomy. The Citadel of Assisi (another name by which the PCC is known), an association of Catholic inspiration volunteers, built in 1939 thanks to Don Giovanni Rossi, becomes, among the many activities, a place of initiatives related to the "seventh art". The cinematographic activity is seriously taken into consideration by the members, as they understand that, the twentieth century, it bears the indelible imprint of cinema. Therefore, support for audiovisual for educational purposes, cultural promotion through international conferences, publications, etc., prove to be constant employment of the citadel. The relations between Lucio Settimio Caruso, the then director of the Cinema della Pro Civitate section, and the director, begin on February 8, 1962, when, the protagonists, they agree on an interview, then published in the Rocca magazine, whose outcome we can summarize:

Thanks for the kind welcome and for what he told me. Only when he has visited our Observatory and given our method of Christological study can you take into account my gratitude and the pleasure that made us receiving me. [...] If she believes in the possibilities of esteem beyond the divergence of some ideas and the possibility of understanding yourself conversing without controversy, sarcastic or axiomatic, please believe it also in my loyal and selfless friendship.

(published in T. Subini, curator, Pasolini and the pro civitate Christiana. An unpublished correspondence, «Black & Black», n. 1-3, winter 2003, p. 253).

Dear Caruso, thanks for the epistolary of his sweetness. I didn't have time to stop in Assisi, this time. My life is the opposite of yours, although yours is basically my ideal. But I hope to find a way to come and find you, between one film and another, between one process and another!

Many cordial greetings, Pier Paolo Pasolini.

(A. Giordano, N. Naldini, curator, Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021, p. 1233).

The idea of ​​the Gospel according to Matteo

Considering that Caruso's letter is dated March 8, it will not spend a long time so that the Friulian poet will be offered to stop in Assisi: at the end of September 1962 the annual conference is scheduled to follow the Ocic Grand Prix (Organization Catholique Internationale du Cinéma, an association founded in L'Aja in 1928, in which films with the self -discussed human, religious, film, film). And, Pasolini, invited to the meeting, agrees his presence as long as he does not have to participate, because he disagree with those colleagues who use religion for their personal interests. The stay for the citadel will be "galleys", as the circumstances will allow the rereading of the Gospel of Matteo, and the decision to transport it to stage sequences. The genesis of the film is told by himself in an interview on ribbon issued to Nazareno Fabbretti, journalist, presbyter, member of the order of the friars Minor, who, on November 19, 1984, in the evening press (newspaper who, on November 8, 1975, publishes the last interview with Pasolini released a few hours before his death, "we are all in danger", with the signature of Furio Colombo), discloses the content:

… Era il 2 ottobre 1962, stava per arrivare da Loreto Giovanni XXIII, il primo Papa che era uscito dal Vaticano e che veniva a pregare sulla tomba del Poverello per il destino del Concilio imminente. Ero sdraiato sul letto, mi piaceva ascoltare la città che ferveva di voci e passi, che bolliva di curiosità e felicità. Sentivo scalpicciare migliaia di piedi per le strade verso la grande basilica, tutte le campane stavano cominciando a suonare. Pensavo a quel dolcissimo Papa contadino che aveva aperti i cuori a una speranza che sembrava allora sempre più difficile, e al quale si erano aperte anche le porte di Regina Coeli, dove era andato a “guardare negli occhi” ladri e assassini, armato solo di un’immensa e arguta pietà. Sentii anch’io per un momento, il desiderio di alzarmi e andargli incontro, di vederlo da vicino e di guardarlo negli occhi. Ma mentre ormai le campane rombavano anche sulla mia testa, di colpo il desiderio di vederlo svanì. Mi resi conto che sarei stato un’irritante distrazione per molta gente; mi avrebbero accusato di cercare una facile pubblicità. Non mi sentivo il figliol prodigo e per molti quel gesto sarebbe stato soltanto una sceneggiata di cattivo gusto. D’istinto, allungai la mano al comodino, presi il libro dei Vangeli che c’era nella camera e cominciai a leggerlo dall’inizio, cioè dal primo dei quattro Vangeli, quello secondo Matteo… L’idea di un film sui Vangeli m’era venuta anche altre volte, ma quel film nacque lì, quel giorno in quelle ore… L’unico dunque al quale potevo dedicare quel film non poteva essere che lui, Papa Giovanni. E a quella cara “ombra” l’ho dedicato. L’ombra che è la regale povertà della fede, non il suo contrario.

(Pp Pasolini, "from the ribbon of a distant interview" published in N. Fabbretti, What me Pasolini remained between meetings, fears, painful poetry, "Sera press", November 19, 1984).

The idyll between the filmmaker and Caruso is clogged, but, spread on a national scale the news of his presence in Assisi, the controversy falls. He turns on the fuse "La nation", which, on October 6, 1962, wonders if the director, by virtue of his anger and his lifestyle, did not seek in the city of the poor comfort and clarity. Pasolini cuts the bridges with the pro civitate Christiana, because it does not agree to pass through a converted, but, the violent escalation, grows first on "The century of Italy", in which, there is talk of "a devil that becomes friar" (October 12, 1962); Then "Il Borghese" (25 October 1962), which goes back by criticizing Don Giovanni Rossi directly:

In the past [...] These gentlemen were much less numerous today, those who were trying to hide this "shame" and, finally, the shepherds of souls did not invite them to the conferences called for the construction of a "Christian culture".

Specifically, the controversy subsides, also because, in the immediate future, the direct target against which to pontificate becomes Ricotta, episode of Rogopag (acronym for Rossellini, Godard, Pasolini, Gregoretti), shot by the four directors between November and December 1962 and distributed in theaters two months later. The uproar is immediate: in a cinema in Rome, the police burst on the current projection and seizes the film, and Pasolini, at the juncture, is accused of "cowardice to the State Religion" (the first time it happens in the history of cinema). The trial, celebrated by direct, takes place on March 1, 1963, and ends with the accused of the accused at four months of imprisonment with the conditional; In addition, the film is seized throughout the national territory. A year after the Court of Appeal of Rome, to which Pasolini appeared, he absorves it because "the fact does not constitute a crime".

Despite everything, the profound friendship between Don Giovanni and the poet of Casarsa della Delizia is strengthened, also because, in the meantime, the idea of ​​turning the Gospel turns into an aesthetic and spiritual need:

[...] Over the days and then of the weeks, this idea became increasingly domineering and exclusive: he chased all the other working ideas in my head in my head, he debilitated them, devitalized. And only she remained alive and luxuriant around me.

(A. Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021, p. 1239).

The project bears with it a series of critical issues that the director is fully conscious: Alfredo Bini, his historic producer, after the experience of Ricotta, asks for precise guarantees on the final result, which can only be given by the friends of the Citadel of Assisi.
The basic idea of ​​the film is to transfer Matteo's Gospel to film with stringent philological adherence, without introducing artistic licenses that are deviad from the text. Don Giovanni and "his candid followers of Christ" become the technical consultants of Pasolini, who, at any advancement of script, confronts them on the interpretative, and therefore stage, correctness of the film. Don Andrea Carraro, a biblist of the PCC, becomes the main reference with which the filmmaker debates the theological insights necessary for the realization:

Dear Don Andrea,
[...] That is, I would need, of a series of small notes, telegraphic, on the figures of the apostles, (age at the time of the preaching of Christ, biographical and psychological characteristics, etc.): a few lines are enough for each.

(A. Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021, p. 1242).

Epic is the journey that the two make in Palestine, at the request of Bini, looking for places and characters to be included in the film, but, the modernization of the cities visited, stripped of their ancient character, divert the cinematographic sensitivity of Pasolini on other uncontaminated geographies, such as some regions of Southern Italy such as Basilicata, whose Sassi di Matera, assume the privileged background burden of history. The shot of the trip turns into the documentary-film Subscriptions in Palestine, projected for the first time in 1965 at the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto.

Of course, the search for scenarios and faces in Italy for the Gospel, which took place before the Palestinian trip, materializes in the processing of Love rallies (See card), which becomes, due to a denigration campaign, an element of friction between Pasolini and the Cittadella, exceeded only by the great esteem and mutual sincerity:

Dear Caruso, I understand the perplexities that may have caused her the apparatus, let's say, "external", of my "Don Giovanni", (this is the perhaps definitive title of the investigation), and therefore its easy pretextuality, for the usual exasperating, inhuman speculations of the people owned by the devil: but, he believes me, also this time they are unfounded illications. My investigation film, not only will it be devoid of all those elements of erotic or scandalous behavior (in the easy sense of the word) of which it is accused: but it will even be a severe film, and absolutely rigorous in not granting anything, nothing, to the audience qualunquista and superficial. [...] In any case [...] I promise you that as soon as I finished I will show him, before any other, to her and her colleagues of the "pro civitate". [...] If you like the film [...] very well: Bini can let out when he wants. [...] It is absolutely my duty, given the collaboration so dear, sincere and truly Christian, that you have given me so far for the Gospel. [...] Receive, Caruso Caruso, the most affectionate greeting, and give it to all his other colleagues in the "pro civitate", even the most controversial ones.

His dev.mo, Pier Paolo Pasolini

(A. Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021, pp. 1245-6).

It's time for the much coveted The Gospel according to Matteo (1964), to which a specific card will be dedicated. After the process that pushes Pasolini's Gospel to win the special jury prize at the XXV Venice Film Festival, and the Ocic Prize, the poet finds himself, with his mother Susanna Colussi, to spend Christmas in Assisi with the brothers. A letter sent to Don Giovanni Rossi, written in Rome on December 26, 1964, of heartbreaking beauty, which is worth reporting, testifies to respect, esteem, friendship between the parties:

Dear Don Giovanni, Thank you so much for your words of the Christmas night: they were the sign of a true and profound friendship, there is nothing more generous than the real interest for an soul of others. I have nothing to give them to reward it: you cannot repay a gift that by its nature does not require being reciprocated. But I will always remember his heart of that night. As for my sins ... the greatest is to think at the bottom only of my works, which makes me a little monstrous; And I can't do anything about it, it is an selfishness that has found its iron alibi in a promise with myself and the others from which I cannot melt. She could never have fulfilled me from this sin, because I could never have promised her that I intended not to commit it anymore.
The other two sins that you have guessed are my "public" sins: but as for blasphemy, I assure him, it is not true. I said some harsh words with a date Church and a given Pope: But how many believers, now, don't agree with me? The other sin I have now confessed to it in my poems, and with so much clarity and with so much terror, that I ended up living in me as a family ghost, to which I am used to, and which I can no longer see the real, objective entity. I am "blocked", dear Don Giovanni, in a way that only grace could melt. My will and others are powerless.
And this I can only say it by objectively, and looking at me from his point of view. Perhaps because I have always fallen from a horse: I have never been swallowed in the saddle (like many powerful of life, or many miserable sinners): I have always fallen, and one of my foot has remained entangled in the bracket, so that my race is not a ride, but a being dragged away, with the head that bangs on the dust and stones. I can neither go up the horse of the Jews and the Gentiles, nor fall forever on the land of God.

Thank you again, with all the affection, his Pier Paolo Pasolini

(A. Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021, pp 1297-98, in which the path of publication of the letter is entirely reconstructed).

Birds and birds

The epic of the Gospel has ended, and after a rest period, Pasolini elaborates the project of Birds and birds: inside the script there is the story of Ciccillo and Ninetto (Totò and Ninetto Davoli), two Franciscan friars to whom St. Francis intimate to evangelize the hawks and sparrows. Given the profitable collaboration with the friends of Assisi, at the filmmaker he walks the hypothesis of submitting the text, especially in the scenic digression concerning the two Franciscan friars. This time, the agreement seems extremely difficult, because although the director claims continuity with The Gospel according to Matteo, does not convince Don Andrea Carraro, nor Lucio Caruso, who in a letter dated October 7, 1965 thus express themselves:

By affectionately adhering to his kind prayer to suggest changes to the script of "Birds and birds" [...] we found ourselves in the absolute inability to make corrections and changes, [...] a film that unfortunately can only be disapproved. Even by cutting the most irreverent parts [...] I fear that this film will not be able to avoid painful consequences. If you are still of the idea express me the day before wanting to talk about the "religion" (that is, what she intends: mystery and death) without attacking or ridicule Catholicism, she will have to adopt radical decisions, removing all the words and images that are relevant to Christianity or even remotely overshadow him.

(partially published in T. Subini, The need to die. Pier Paolo Pasolini's cinema and the sacred, Eds, Frames, Rome, 2008, pag78-79; resumption, in its entirety, in A. Giordano, N. Naldini, cit., Pag. 1315).

In reality, by telephone, Caruso instructs Pasolini on the letter before he reaches his destination, so, shocked by the content, the director anticipates a response letter that sees Don Giovanni Rossi as a sender. The tone of it is of supplication, compassion, a request not to be excluded a priori: the filmmaker claims the trust and esteem conquered in previous years, and asks for the intervention, even robust, on the script, of the friends of the pro civitate Christiana.

Unfortunately, the heartfelt letter, dated 8 October 1965, is too extensive to be able to report a part of it without losing unavoidable content to its understanding. Instead, it is worth reporting flashes of the answers that Lucio Caruso and Don Giovanni Rossi send to the filmmaker (13 October 1965), each in his name, but with a position agreed together:

My dear Dr. Pasolini! We worked for three days and I am happy that it came to the decision of which Don Giovanni writes to her on the same date. His letter was decisive in giving us icastically confirmation of his mood as a poet who is about to do work of high poetry and his sincerity to which we have always believed. […] Waiting to get it again on Sunday, you have many affectionate greetings.

His Lucio

 

My dear Pierpaolo,My letter really moved. I want to immediately make sure that friendship, esteem, our prayer for you will never have an attention, and will be increasingly friendlyYou ask us confidence and patience, and we give you a lot of heart. Forgive me if I didn't answer you immediately, but here for two days we did nothing but read and discuss on your script.

And we concluded that, for now, as you have written to me, it is in literary and non -cinematographic form, so, according to your same indication, it is not possible to judge it, neither in itself nor in the individual parts. The thesis [...] that religiosity is an essential need of man and that neither rationalism nor Marxism manage to fulfill it, but only Christianity will be able to satisfy it in its mission of fraternity among men, it is excellent, but it will be necessary that you more clearly visible. [...] I kiss you.

D. Gio. Rossi

(both letters are contained in A. Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021, pp. 1315-16).

The project therefore goes on, and actually, the Friulian poet, intervenes on the reports considered "critical" by the friends of the Citadel. This is demonstrated by the comparison between the original script and the one used for the actual film; In addition to the letters sent by Don Andrea Carraro where he pinned pages of the script that is difficult to share (see A. Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, pp. 1323-28).

1966 is the year of exit of Birds and birds And, although the pro civitate Christiana does not pronounce on the film, it supports its goodness by inviting the film to open the conference of filmmakers to the Citadel. Furthermore, Catholic criticism is very popular, in particular the Cinema magazine, mensile di informazione cinematografica nato nel 1928, che, nel 1937, viene rilevato dal Centro cattolico cinematografico; negli anni 60’, la rivista, apre a pellicole di rottura come quelle di Pasolini.

Non poteva essere altrimenti, perché dietro il Centro c’è la figura di monsignor Francesco Angelicchio, il quale, senza devozionismi, dedica il suo sacerdozio alla “settima arte”, divenendo, per questo, interlocutore privilegiato sull’argomento di papa Paolo VI. A questo si aggiunge una voce, che circola ormai da tempo, che Pasolini ha in testa un film sulla figura di san Paolo, tema a cui “don Checco” è davvero interessato, ma che un profondo cambiamento, relativo alla totale sfiducia di qualsiasi istituzione terrena da parte del regista, non ne consentirà la realizzazione.

Theorem

C’è un altro momento, in questo complesso intreccio, in cui i destini della Pro Civitate Christiana e l’intellettuale friulano s’incrociano: nel 1968 Pasolini gira Theorem, opera nata idealmente in versi per il teatro, dopodiché sceneggiatura, il cui soggetto è l’irruzione del “sacro” all’interno di una famiglia borghese del Nord Italia. Quando può, il regista, partecipa ai convegni sul cinema e sulla letteratura organizzati ad Assisi, ma purtroppo, Theorem, mette fine, se non all’amicizia, alla possibilità di sviluppare progetti in comune. Cosa c’è dietro il film che spaventa il progressismo cattolico? Cos’è cambiato nell’autore da giustificare un dietrofront?

If until 1966 the anthropologist Pasolini was partially persuaded that a certain Christianity could operate a synthesis between the religious sense, inherent in men, and a rationality that manifests itself in the institutions, from now on it is no longer possible. Italy is in a state of progress, in which a development without construct, dominated by a capitalism capable of directing consciences towards the abuse of consumption, forces the poet to the ruthlessness of the judgments. Between 1967 and 1970, the Friulian intellectual is spent in the construction of works in which the return to the Greek myth, and a renewed reflection on the theme of death, dominate his creative imagination.

The earth seen from the moon and What are the clouds? (See cards), they are films that precede Theorem, and in which death becomes an opportunity for redemption of life. In his mind the theory of "death as assembly" is already clear, also perfectly applied in Oedipus Re (1967), where Trapasso is an opportunity to make life a story, just as the km of film offer the assembly the possibility of the film itself. In Oedipus Re There is also the recovery of the Greek myth, although mixed with autobiographical elements, which will see full development in Medea (1969).

But as we said just above it is Theorem (1968) to upset! Here the reflections around the sacred, who have always characterized the author's thought, find that theoretical formulation that prevents attempts at mediation: in the bourgeois family protagonist the mystery, that is, is something that precedes the grammar with which the myth, religion is told. Assuming that it is perceived, the sacred land, struggles, and his lack so much so that as long as he eliminates everything that disturbs the irrational link that unravels towards his perception. Pasolini, supported by Mircea Eliade and Ernesto De Martino, anthropologists and historians of religions, ventures into a class explanation of the story, so much so that only the servant, therefore the sub -ruling, still partially immune to the consumer horror, can dissolve in divine grace. For all the others the connection is banned, and are left to their respective forms of individual madness.

If this were not enough, the filmmaker identifies in sexuality the vehicle with which to get in touch with the sacred, with a predilection, therefore, for the Dionysian aspect of the experience, which mixes the rose of the winds with which we orient ourselves in the world.

Inside the film, Pasolini, introduces elements that belong to the Christian myth, a reason why, asks for help from the friends of Assisi. The collaboration, due to the subject to be handled, is really scarce, and at the behest of the filmmaker himself (it is no longer inclined to mediate). And can be synthesized in the help of Lucio Caruso in finding the biblical song with which the film opens, God therefore made the people bend through the way of the desert (Ex 13:18), background assumed from which the Pasolinian theorem is structured, that is, if God had to bring the people back to the desert, what would happen?

Therefore, the definitive breakdown between the progressive Catholics and Pasolini is attributable to the basic ambiguity of the work: the film contributes to Venice and also this time, as for the Gospel, the Ocic jury awarded the award a Theorem; On September 15, 1968 "The public observer" public, signed by the Catholic Catholic Center (remember Don Checco?), An invective disarming against the film; And on September 18, on the same newspaper, Pope Paul intervenes in vi by ordering to block the screening of films that declares "inadmissible to the ecumenical line". To the Ocic jury all that remains is to remove recognition a Theorem, to whom Pasolini, on March 31, 1969, replies as follows:

That the International Catholic Office of Cinema is held its prize and what they gave me for the Gospel according to Matteo can also recover. I am preparing a film about the life of San Paolo, so of course, I will continue my "dialogue" but with independent and cultured priests and perhaps one day with separatist priests.

(Italo Moscati, Pasolini and the sex theorem, The Sadher, Milan, 1995, p. 181).

Here ends the relationship between the pro Civitate Christiana and Pasolini. They are not aware of epistolary exchanges between Lucio Caruso, Don Andrea Carraro, Don Giovanni Rossi, rear at 1968. The investigation of the sacred does not end, which Pasolini continues with Porcile and Medea, before venturing into the territory of the "life trilogy", to the subsequent abjuration, up to Salò.

There are many seminars, the days of study, the projections that still follow one another to the citadel, demonstrating that Pasolini is in their heart; And that the poet's heart benefited from that feeling, the deep friendship, in the absence of which, the weight of the exclusion that the director felt constant on himself, would have been less bearable.

One last thing: Don Giovanni Rossi died on October 27, 1975, five days before Pasolini's assassination ... perhaps, at the Ostia hydroscal, Don Giovanni was present ... or perhaps, I fell in love with this story too much!

Bibliography

Indispensable for the reconstruction of the relationship between Pasolini and the pro civitate Christiana:

• Fabbretti, What I have left of Pasolini between meetings, fears, painful poetry, "Sera press", November 19, 1984.
• Giordano, N. Naldini (edited by), Pasolini. The letters, Garzanti, Milan, 2021.
• Moscati, Pasolini and the sex theorem, The Sadher, Milan, 1995.
• Cockpit, I'm looking for it everywhere. Christ in Pasolini's films, Àncora, Milan, 2007.
• Subs, The need to die. Pier Paolo Pasolini's cinema and the sacred, EDS, "Frames", Rome, 2008.
• Subs (edited by), Pasolini and the pro civitate Christiana. An unpublished correspondence, «Black & Black», n. 1-3, winter 2003.