La rabbia (1963): il film-saggio e la funzione-Benjamin nel cinema di Pasolini

ABSTRACT The article takes into consideration Pier Paolo Pasolini’s La rabbia (1963). After briefly contextualising and matching it to the then-new genre of the found footage essay film, the article identifies precise points of contact between the text in which Pasolini first presented his film to the public and the first Italian translation of Walter Benjamin’s Theses on the Philosophy of History. Proceeding from these findings, the article shows how Benjamin’s work influenced Pasolini’s film, in terms of both content and form. This influence is firstly traced in the film’s main component, the contraposition of two voices, that of normalcy and ideology versus that of the author, which reflects Benjamin’s thought on the task of the historical materialist. Secondly, contacts between Pasolini’s film and Benjamin’s Marxist and millenaristic conception of history are identified both in the structure of the film and in its framing and interpretation of the historical events selected.