Whoever Says the Truth Shall Die (1981)

Director
Philo Bregstein

Main cast
Alberto Moravia; Laura Betti; Maria Antonietta Macciocchi; Bernardo Bertolucci; Nino Marazzita

Genres
Documentary, Foreign

Description
Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini's life and art to explain why he died. The film traces Pasolini's life chronologically - family roots, hiding during World War II, teaching, moving to Rome, being arrested and acquitted many times, publishing poems, getting into film, being provocative, and being murdered. Interviews with Alberto Moravia, Laura Betti, Maria Antonietta Macciocch, and Bernard Bertolucci are inter-cut with readings of Pasolini's poems and with clips from four films - primarily the Gospel According to St. Matthew - to illustrate his changing ideas and points of view. Bregstein makes a case for Pasolini's being lynched.


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The life of Jesus Christ according to the Gospel of Matthew. Pasolini shows Christ as a marxist avant-la-lettre and therefore uses half of the text of Matthew.

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