October 2022
The school of bodies and places – Talk with Giuseppe Garrera and Benedikt Reichenbach around the book ‘Pier Paolo Pasolini’s bodies and places’ (Theorema, 1981) by Michele Mancini and Giuseppe Perrella
Special projection of pages from the book at Istituto Svizzero Roma on October 27
(more information here)
In presenting Pasolini in a non-linear and global way, and not as a iconic genius or authority of this or that sort, “Corpi e luoghi” pursues his non-consumerist and anti-identitarian endeavour. In regard of Pasolini’s reference to Giotto, Mancini and Perrella write: “In quoting figuratively, PPP demonstrates a model of directing, of artistic practice as school.” In this time of advanced technological and political assault but also potentiality, what can we learn from their editorial work?
Around 1980 in Rome, a small cooperative around film critics Michele Mancini and Giuseppe Perrella produced a mysterious, elaborate and yet effortless looking 600-page book of black-and-white photographs entitled Pier Paolo Pasolini: Corpi e Luoghi (Theorema 1981). According to some reviews of the time this is the most Pasolinian publication to date (Alberto Farrasino), an indispensable tool for future research (Tullio Kezich), not just an illustrated book but a unique model of critique (Adriano Aprà).
With its relentless and yet playful classification of some 2,000 film stills ranged under the categories of “bodies” and “places”, whatever page we turn to, Mancini and Perrella stage an ever-shifting space. With a hidden reference to Walter Benjamin and a correspondingly revolutionary attitude, quotation here is understood as a form of “appropriation”, as a practical use of an archive.
In keeping with the great filmmaker’s credo, Pier Paolo Pasolini: Corpi e Luoghi is a colossal attempt to take this enormous amount of material, in book form, where it wants to go. In the introduction, Mancini and Perrella describe their approach similar to the «analytic field» that they see in the film set: «Through film Pasolini is able to elicit out that sort of unconscious, never talked about code through which in daily life we operate and relate to the world. He makes visible a miscellany of aphasic and hidden practices, a ‹primitive› realm normally concealed from our ‹enlightened› societies.»
Entitled Pasolini’s Bodies and Places and translated by Ann Goldstein and Jobst Grapow, this new quasi-facsimiled edition in English is a first step towards an exploration of the original. Mancini and Perrella introduce their compilation of quoted images with a compilation of texts by Pasolini where he describes his own research of bodies and places for his films. These text were unpublished prior to Corpi e Luoghi. With Stephen Sartarelli’s translations in the present edition they now are fully available in English.
Initiative financed with funds from the Lazio Region
Books selection
Benedikt Reichenbach,
Pasolini’s bodies and places,
2018
MICHELANGELO ANTONIONI — ARCHITETTURE DELLA VISIONE (USED COPY),
1986Gabriele Fadini,
Pasolini con Lacan. Per una politica tra mutazione antropologica e discorso del capitalista,
2015Dino Pedriali,
PIER PAOLO PASOLINI Fotografie di Dino Pedriali,
2011Alessandro Cappabianca - Michele Mancini - Umberto Silva,
La costruzione del labirinto,
1974Alessandro Cappabianca - Michele Mancini,
Ombre urbane,
1982Hours and Infos
Leporello, Via del Pigneto, 162/e – Roma
info@leporello-books.com