born March 5, 1922, Bologna, Italy
died Nov. 2, 1975, Ostia, near Rome
Italian film director, poet, and novelist.
He wrote novels about Rome's slum life as well as a significant body of poetry. Pasolini became a screenwriter in the mid-1950s, collaborating most notably on Federico Fellini 's Nights of Cabiria (1956). His directorial debut, Accattone (1961), was based on his novel A Violent Life (1959). His best-known film, stylistically unorthodox and implicitly radical, is perhaps The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (1964). Later films include Oedipus Rex (1967), Teorema (1968), Medea (1969), The Canterbury Tales (1972), and The Arabian Nights (1974), which won a special jury prize at Cannes. His use of eroticism, violence, and depravity were criticized by Italian religious authorities.