Acting

Chapter Five is devoted to films that feature Pasolini in roles that evoke or directly address his authorial function. This is the case for his self-projections onto character-authors such as Chaucer in I racconti di Canterbury (The Canterbury Tales, 1972), or Giotto’s pupil in Il Decameron (The Decameron, 1971). The director’s on-screen performances contribute to the composition of the self-portrait of a multimedia author, and at the same time affirm the intimate bond between work and authorial corporeality. In The Trilogy of Life, Pasolini presents authorship like a corporeal, material element in the film, not a mere abstract function. In doing so, he also develops a discourse of cinematic spectatorship based on the spectator’s recognition of the film’s author. In the case of Il fiore delle mille e una note (Arabian Nights)’s night original screenplay, this recognition would have also included the open representation of Pasolini’s homosexuality, and his sexual encounter with three young Arabs guys. This explicit on-screen queer performance was ultimately not included in the version of Arabian Nights that was actually shot. However, even if the author’s body is not on the screen, through the mise-en-scène of his queer gaze and the explicit depiction of the male body, Pasolini obliges the spectator to participate in the dynamics of homosexual desire, thus challenging the allegedly tolerant society of the 1970s.