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The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained Russell McNeil, PhD Editor, Malaspina Great Books In 1862 the English literary critic and poet Matthew Arnold described Marcus Aurelius as "the most beautiful figure in history." The Stoicism of Aurelius is grounded in rationality and rests solidly on an ethical approach rooted in nature. Stoicism promises real happiness and joy in this life and a serenity that can never be soured by personal misfortune. This philosophy has universal appeal with practical implications on problems ranging from climate change and terrorism to the personal management of sickness, aging, depression and addiction. I truly believe that the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius has much to offer us now...(Click on book cover for more)

Category:	Cinema
Name:	Pier Paolo Pasolini - GLBT Series, Marxist Series
Birth Year:	1922
Death Year:	1975
Representative Image:
Biography, Lectures, and Research Links:	Biography - GLBT Series, Marxist Series Blog Pier Paolo Pasolini Search: Books DVD Classical Music DVD Popular Music Software Video magazines Toys & Games Baby Computer & Video Games Electronics Wireless Phones Tools & Hardware Outdoor Living Kitchen & Housewares Camera & Photo All Products Keywords: Pier Paolo Pasolini (March 5, 1922 - November 2, 1975) was an Italian poet, film director, and writer, who often made films about the social outcast and rebels. He is known for casting actors with little or no acting experience. Life Pasolini was born in Bologna, traditionally the most leftist of Italian cities. He was the son of a soldier who became famous for saving Mussolini's life. Pasolini began writing poems at the age of seven. His works were first published when he was 19. Pasolini had belonged to the communist clubs of his town. In his youth, he wrote several poems in Friulian, a language that he learnt from his mother, who was from Friuli. He had also created an association to foster the use of Friulian in literature. He was drafted in World War II, and after subsequent imprisonment by the Germans, managed to escape. After the war, he joined the Communist party, but was expelled two years later on the grounds of his homosexuality, which he publicly declared on many occasions. At the time, a public declaration of being gay could cause scandal across the political spectrum. All the same, his world view remained essentially communist throughout his life. Work His first novel, Ragazzi di Vita (1955), dealt with male prostitutes, pimps and thieves, resulting in obscenity charges against him, the first of many instances where his art caused him legal problems. Accattone! (1961), his first movie, also about the Roman underworld, likewise brought him into conflict with conservatives, who demanded stricter censorship. Strangely, supported by the Catholic Church, he directed the black-and-white The Gospel According To St. Matthew (1964), widely hailed the best cinematic adaptation of the life of Jesus, who was portrayed by Enrique Irazoqui. While making the film, Pasolini vowed to direct it from the "believer's point of view," but later, upon viewing the completed work, realized that he had expressed his own beliefs instead. In Theorem (1968), starring Terence Stamp as a mysterious stranger, he depicted the sexual coming-apart of a bourgeois family (later to be repeated by Francois Ozon in Sitcom). Later movies centered on sex-laden folklore, such as Il fiore delle mille una notte (Arabian Nights, 1974), Boccaccio's Decamerone (1970) and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (1972), own to the Trilogy of life. His final work, the only one from the expected Trilogy of death, Salo (1975), went far beyond what most movie-goers could stomach at the time, because of its scenes of intensely sado-masochistic graphic violence. Based on the novel by the Marquis de Sade, it continues to be his most controversial film. In his 1966 film, Uccellacci e Uccellini, a sort of picaresque - and at the same time mystic - fable, he wanted the great Italian comedian Toto, to work with one of his preferred "naif" actors, Ninetto Davoli. It was a unique opportunity for Totò to demonstrate that he was a great dramatic actor. Significance Pasolini, as a director, created a sort of second neorealism, which deeply and constantly touched picaresque tones, showing a sad reality - hidden, but real, concrete - which many social and political lobbies had no interest in seeing brought to light. Mamma Roma, with an extraordinary Anna Magnani, the story of a prostitute and her son, is an astonishing punch in the stomach for the common morality of those times. The doubt that Pasolini often inserted in his works, that such realities are less distant from us than we imagine, is one of his major contributions to a change in the Italian psyche, and an unrepeated example of poetry applied to cruel realities. The director also promoted the concept of "natural sacredness" in his works, the concept that the world is holy in and of itself, and does not need any spiritual essence or supernatural blessing to attain this state. Indeed, Pasolini was an avowed atheist. The contrast between public opinion and what Pasolini was able to show, focused on sexual moralism, was perhaps what made him encounter general disapproval and effectively he was perhaps the man who most suffered cultural discrimination for his homosexuality. Pasolini's poetry, lesser known outside of Italy, often deals with his highly revered mother and his same-sex love interests, but this is not the main and only theme. As a sensible and extremely intelligent man, he depicted certain corners of the contemporary reality as very few other poets were able to do. In politics too, or better, in the social debate, Pasolini was able to create scandal and debate with some assertions that were as much unheard as, at the same time, true: during the disorders of 1969, when university students were acting in a guerrilla-like fashion against the police in the streets of Rome, all the leftist forces declared their complete support for the students, and described the disorders as a civil fight of proletarians against the system. Pasolini, instead, alone among the communists, declared that he was with the police or, to be precise, with the policemen, the real proletarians who were sent to fight against boys of their same age for a poor salary and reasons which they could not understand because they had not had the fortune of being able to study. Death Pasolini was murdered brutally by being run over several times with his own car at the beach of Ostia near Rome in 1975. Pino Pelosi, a hustler, was arrested and confessed to murdering Pasolini. On May 7th, 2005, he retracted his confession, claiming that unidentified men had killed Pasolini. He gave threats of violence against his family as the reason for his erstwhile confession. The investigation into Pasolini's death has been re-opened following Pino's recantation. His murder is still not completely explained: some contradictions in the declarations of Pelosi, a strange intervention by Italian secret services during the investigations and some lack of coherence of related documents during the different parts of the judicial procedures brought some of Pasolini's friends (actress Laura Betti, a close friend, particularly) to suspect that his murder had been commissioned. It is true, indeed, that Pasolini, in the months just before his death, had seen many politicians, telling them that he was aware of certain crucial secrets. Following Pelosi's statement of May 2005, the Rome police has reopened the murder case. Quotes "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." (1966) "The mark which has dominated all my work is this longing for life, this sense of exclusion, which doesn't lessen but augments this love of life." [Interview in documentary, late 1960s] Filmography Accatone! Mamma Roma La ricotta (RoGoPaG) The Gospel According to St. Matthew Love Meetings The Hawks and the Sparrows The Witches Oedipus Rex Theorem Love and Anger Pigpen Medea The Decameron The Canterbury Tales Arabian Nights Salo [This article in part is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Pier Paolo Pasolini.] The Great Books: Pier Paolo Pasolini Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Pier Paolo Pasolini. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Pier Paolo Pasolini. Offer Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books .
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Records from Related Period and Category:	Modern Cinema

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This web page is part of a biographical database on Great Ideas. These are living ideas that have shaped, defined and directed world culture for over 2,500 years. By definition the Great Ideas are radical. As such they are sometimes misread, or distorted by popular simplifications. Understanding a Great Idea demands personal engagement. Our selection of Great Ideas is drawn from literature and philosophy, science, art, music, theatre, and cinema. We also include biographies of pivotal historical and religious figures, as well as contributions from women and other historically under-represented minorities. The result is an integrated multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary database built upon the framework of the always controversial Great Books Core List published in 1940 by the late Great Books Pioneer Mortimer Adler (1902-2001). Most of the works on that list are available in the 60 volume Great Books of the Western World.