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Stupendous, Miserable City Pasolini’s Rome John David Rhodes |
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$60.00 cloth |
An Italian film radical shown in rich context for the first time. John David Rhodes places the city of Rome at the center of this original and in-depth examination of the work of Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini—but it’s not the classical Rome you imagine. Stupendous, Miserable City situates Pasolini within the history of twentieth-century Roman urban development. The book focuses first on the Fascist period, when populations were moved out of the urban center and into public housing on the periphery of the city, called the borgate, and then turns to the progressive social housing experiments of the 1950s. These environments were the settings of most of Pasolini’s films of the early to mid-1960s. Discussing films such as Accattone, Mamma Roma, and The Hawks and the Sparrows, Rhodes shows how Pasolini used the borgate to critique Roman urban planning and neorealism and to draw attention to the contemptuous treatment of Rome’s poor. To Pasolini, the borgate, rich in human incident, linguistic difference, and squalor, “were life”—and now his passion can be appreciated fully for the first time. Carefully tracing Pasolini’s surprising engagement with this part of Rome and looking beyond his films to explore the interrelatedness of all of Pasolini’s artistic output in the 1950s and 1960s—including his poetry, fiction, and journalism—Rhodes opens up completely new ways of understanding Pasolini’s work and proves how connected Pasolini was to the political and social upheavals in Italy at the time. “In this remarkable book, John David Rhodes makes an invaluable contribution to scholarship on cinema and the city. Analyzing Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Rome films and his political and emotional engagement with the city, Rhodes has provided a fascinating and moving background to this period of Pasolini’s life, vision, and politics.” —Laura Mulvey, Professor of Film, Birkbeck College, University of London “John David Rhodes portrays the social and aesthetic complexities of this world with the élan and precision of George Eliot. His outline history of Roman urbanism suggests voracious reading and many a walk through. Rhodes’ writing constantly surprises. This is an insightful, engrossing book about art, urbanism and consciousness that changes the way we think about Pasolini’s early career.” —Sight & Sound “Stupendous, Miserable City provides a valuable and uniquely focused perspective on Pasolini’s life and works though a combination of literary and film analysis informed by urban historical and architectural study.” —XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics “This work is extraordinary for combining shrewd aesthetic analysis with urban history. Its informed interdisciplinarity could transform Pasolini studies and other work as well. Highly recommended.” —Choice “Stupendous, Miserable City compels us to reconsider the urban discourses that stimulated Pasolini as fundamental interpretive frameworks for some of his finest work. It is refreshing to read a thoroughly researched academic study written is so accessible and engaging a style, propelled along by the author’s palpable enthusiasm for his subject and mastery of the architecture and design of Pasolini’s inimitable vision.” —Modernism/Modernity “Succeeds in bringing out Pasolini’s obsession with peripheral Rome and its importance for his films.” —Journal of Modern Italian Studies John David Rhodes is lecturer in literature and visual culture at the University of Sussex. 240 pages | 25 halftones | 5 7⁄8 x 9 | 2007 TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. A Short History of the Roman Periphery Conclusion: The Allegorical Autostrada |
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$20.00 paper