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This paper aims to address the above question by insisting that Pasolini's pre-occupation with Marxism and his spiritual beliefs dominate the style and themes of Theorem (1968). Firstly I will refer to Pasolini's early history and speculate on the relationship he shared with his parents. In doing so, I will suggest that the reparative fantasies of Pasolini in regard to his experiences with his parents have influenced Theorem. As a result of his affiliation with Marxism, he regards notions of the traditional family as a construct of bourgeois values. In addition, Pasolini's interest in the mythological is also instrumental as he often elevates the working class into divine icons. With this in mind, I will argue that the combination of the potentially conflicting beliefs of Marxism and spiritualism is most noteworthy in Theorem and that the film aims to enlighten middle-class family values through this.
Firstly, it will be necessary to consider Pasolini’s early history in order to account for his later ambiguous beliefs and pre-occupations with Marxism. Born in Bologna in 1922, Pasolini’s parents were of bourgeoisie values but they belonged, more accurately, to a class coined by Gramsci as the “rural bourgeoisie”. His parental figures undoubtedly influenced him greatly. Pasolini’s father was an army officer in the Carabinieri, a convinced Fascist and was of aristocratic origin. In the light of Pasolini's bleakest film, Salo (1975) - an allegory of the contemporary political scene depicting the horror of fascism, one might conclude that Pasolini found his father's pre-occupations entirely disagreeable. Pasolini's mother was of the peasantry albeit well off in her class and Pasolini displays great affection towards her, most notably in his poem “Prayer to My Mother” (1962). One might draw from this that Pasolini had notions about his parents that he wished to express.
It is under this light that Theorem (1968) can best be understood. As a popular movement in the late Sixties, the film can be seen as challenging, or at least questioning, the family unit. A traditional middle class family consisting of a father (Paolo), mother (Lucia), son (Pietro) and daughter (Odetta) is disrupted when an unnamed visitor played by Terence Stamp appears, enters into sexual relations with each member of the family, including the maid, and then leaves. Consequently, Paolo undresses in a crowded train station and runs up Mt. Etna naked, Lucia’s repressed sexuality is unveiled resulting in sexual encounters with strangers, Pietro leaves home to become an artist - a metaphoric (and not to mention stereotypical) depiction of his coming to terms with his homosexuality and Odetta becomes cataleptic resulting in her institutionalisation.
In many ways, Theorem may well have played out Pasolini's fantasies and wishes particularly about his parents. The fancy that his father may attain enlightenment and abandon his fascist ways, and where his peasant mother, for whom Pasolini had a great affection, could enjoy the fruits of life. Indeed the son, Pietro, bears a resemblance to Pasolini in that he confronts his homosexuality and leaves home in order to pursue his art (or writing/film-making for Pasolini). The development and accomplishment of these imaginations would have, inevitably, amounted to the detachment of the members of the family to pursue their own ends.
Accordingly, Theorem expresses the futility of the family unit and portrays the insalubrious aspects of such familial roles. Indeed historically the family unit may have been a matter of survival in pre-Industrial times, but Theorem implies that the present notions of the family unit remains as a bourgeoisie construct and an unquestioned imperative. In addition, Theorem expresses that realism may quell traditional family roles and affords the realisation of the meaninglessness of traditional family values. The realist catalyst in this case is the Terence Stamp character.
However, Nowell-Smith (1977:16) makes clear that the family unit itself is not universal but the regulation of sexuality and reproduction is. Therefore, the film's site of transgression is sexual and as such takes the problem out of class relations. Nowell-Smith also continues by suggesting that the “hidden order” of Pasolini's works and perhaps the calculus of Theorem is basically the negations and discontent of widely-held beliefs of what is in the present. This means hostility “to technology, to capitalism, to labour discipline, to sexual repression, to compulsive heterosexual monogamy, to patriarchal authority, to the consumerist accoutrements of bourgeois existence”. Such ideologies may have been the sum of Pasolini's reactions from his experiences as a gay man on the margins of socially propagated notions of the traditional family unit and, more significantly, his pre-occupation with Marxism.
Pasolini insisted that he was a supporter of the Communist Party before he studied Marxism. According to Taylor (1975:45) “an emotional attachment to and identification with the peasantry made him a natural Marxist before he knew anything about politics”. He maintains that since childhood he had emotionally identified with the peasants of his birthplace in Friuli. In Theorem, this can be seen most vividly where the maid is elevated to angelic proportions. Although Pasolini was a member of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) for a while, he maintained ambivalence toward the party because he was most sympathetic toward the culture of his people. As such, he was fond of the works of Gramsci, and in particular his Prison Letters. Nowell-Smith (1977:8) also notes that Gramsci, like Pasolini, “had a deep understanding and love for those aspects of Italian culture which are, in Marxist terms, precisely the most backward”. These alleged retrogression of culture may be seen with his intrigue of the mystical and the religious in many of his films.
Pasolini was a constant critic of middle-class values and denounced it many times making him very unpopular amongst this social class. However, he advocates a restoration of a “mythological” approach to life - a sense of awe and reverence of the world - that he accuses the middle class of destroying. Moreover, he admits that whatever his conscious beliefs, he can never escape the legacy of Catholicism and the fact that his ideas have been irrevocably shaped by the Church. As an avowed Marxist it is ironic that Pasolini's inclination to see things mystically or mythologically is overwhelmingly present in many of his films thematically and stylistically. This earned Pasolini the label of “Catholic Marxist” (Nowell-Smith 1977:6). Such a stigma indicates much ambivalence in his beliefs as Pasolini was both severely anti-Catholic yet, at the same time, intrigued by religion.
Religious parallels are felt eventhough Pasolini was inconsistent in portraying his spiritual beliefs. Pasolini, for example, expresses deep reverence in The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) which, obviously enough, retells St Matthew’s gospel. However, negating such veneration is “Masetto and the Nuns” in the Decameron (1970). In the episode, Masetto, a young man who pretends to be dumb and mute finds sympathy in a nunnery and subsequently pleads exhaustion after having to satisfy the persistent lusts of a conventful of nuns. Clearly this indicates a severely anti-Catholic stance that would leave the Stoic Christian papacy abhorred. In addition, anti-Catholic positions may be found in Pasolini’s writings such as the poem “To A Pope” (1958), in which he scathingly denounces Pope Pius XII at his death and created a literary scandal.
Another example of Pasolini's insistence of the religious is La Ricotta (1963). The short film tells of a director making a film on the life of Jesus, and the climax involves an actor actually dying in the crucifixion scene while presenting it to a bourgeoisie audience. This is a prime example of both Pasolini's mystical inclination and pre-occupation with Marxism. The proletariat actor personifies Christ and he dies in the hands of the bourgeoisie or, in biblical parallels, the Romans. This was perhaps in order to alert the middle-class to the suffering inflicted on the proletariats by bourgeoisie demands. Consequently Pasolini was arrested and imprisoned for the supposed blasphemous irreverence of the episode.
Similarities can also be made between the proletariat actor who dies in La Ricotta and the maid in Theorem. Both characters with mundane working-class positions are elevated to divine proportions both implicitly and explicitly. There is much to be said about Pasolini's glorification of the working class. As Taylor observes (1975:46), “Pasolini's attitude toward the working class is in some respects one of old-fashioned romantic idealisation rather than a more correctly Marxist appreciation of the workers' central role in the revolutionary struggle”. Hence, there is a mythological emphasis on the peasantry and the urban proletariat in many of Pasolini's novels and films because the mythological and the sense of awe and reverence of the world survives and thrives among these people.
Theorem abounds with religious iconography. As Taylor (1975:58) again points out, “the atmosphere of Theorem is that of religious parable”. The Terence Stamp character has a “Christ-like aura about him: he is a redeemer... bringing tidings of great joy which change those who hear them forever”. The role of the visitor is a mystical character: there is no indication of his relations with the family, his reason for visiting, his reason for leaving, his class nor even his name. The viewer learns nothing about this character except his sensual and seductive allure for the other characters in the household. Nevertheless, the impact of the visitor on the family is immense: he unveils their every sexual and emotional needs, and in leaving fragments them into individuals who drift in different directions. Returning to the metaphor of the visitor as Christ, the narrative of Theorem can be considered as sharing similarities with the death and resurrection of Jesus and subsequent parting of his disciples to “spread the good news”. In this way, the film can be claimed to be a process of enlightenment of the middle class family.
Scattered in Theorem are the images of the grey sands of Mt. Etna. These are flash-forwards to the scenes at the end where Paolo runs around naked on its slopes. These images are again double-fold and may be construed in two different ways. Firstly, from the Marxist perspective, the dusty and dark sands of Mt. Etna is perhaps a symbol of aridity which implies the barren values and meaninglessness of the bourgeois family and lifestyle. Secondly, from the mystical perspective, the sandy dunes may signify the mythological nature of the desert as a place where “the prophets come”, where “God led his people through”, and where Jesus isolated himself for forty days and nights. Mythologically, the desert denotes a sanctuary for enlightenment and further realisation, of which Theorem is essentially about.
Although “Catholic Marxist” may seem to be an oxymoron, it is lucid that Theorem overwhelmingly consists of Pasolini's reformed Marxism and adapted spiritualism. Indeed, this may lead to accusations that Pasolini has compromised the two opposing thoughts. However, it is through the integration of both that Pasolini is able to express his personal feelings about the value of the traditional family as a redundant and perilous bourgeoisie construct. In other words, the spirituality of enlightenment quells middle-class family values and in so doing glorifies the working-class. Perhaps that is the theorem.
REFERENCES
Nowell-Smith, G. (1977) "Pasolini's Originality", in Willemen, P. (ed.) Pier Paolo Pasolini, London: BFI.
Pasolini, P.P. (1963) "La Ricotta" in Rogopag, Rome: Arco Film-Cineriz, & Paris: Lyre.
Pasolini, P.P. (1964) Il Vangeol Secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew), Rome: Arco Film, & Paris: Lux Cie Cinematographique de France.
Pasolini, P.P. (1968) Teorema (Theorem), Aetos Film.
Pasolini, P.P. (1970) Il Decameron (The Decameron), REA.
Stack, O. (1969) Pasolini on Pasolini: Interviews with Oswald Stack, London: Thames & Hudson.
Taylor, John Russell (1975) Directors and Directions - Cinema for the Seventies, New York: Hill and Wang.