The Italian filmmaker, writer and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini  (1922-1965) had a true passion for painting. He had learned to love it at the University of Bologna, attending lectures on the history of the great art critic Roberto Longhi, who had passed on his passion for Giotto, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Caravaggio and Mantegna. Not by chance in an episode of the film Decameron (1971), starring the Giotto, Pasolini has interpreted the great fourteenth-century painter.

In his films it is always possible to recognize the influence of painters, so he is considered one of the most "artistic" Italian filmmakers: he frames the shots as the painted scenes, with specific references to the great figurative tradition. It should be emphasized that Pasolini was never interested in just and aesthetic mention of the painting. He wanted to recreate the complex emotional or intellectual image synthesis. The painted image expresses in a clear, simple and effective way a very complex content, and makes it understandable to all. Not only that: the paintings of the past are intended to highlight the meaning of the present and make it more "real".

In the dramatic finale of Mamma Roma (watch video) Pasolini mentions Mantegna’s Dead Christ: it is clear that in this way, he wanted to emphasize a common theme throughout his career, namely his love for the marginalized, the underclass, for the "different" to whom he feels closer. (www.cafepellicola.com)

When Pasolini was asked to indicate the models that had influenced his cinematic language, he always indicated pictorial models. The fact that the shot in his films was conceived as a framework, clarifies Pasolini ‘s preference for the fixed camps. 

Ettore Garofalo's death. Final scene of the movie "Mamma Roma" (1962), by Pier Paolo Pasolini

He himself explains in the director's notes for Mamma Roma "…it is like I am in the painting, but in this painting the figures around me cannot stay still. I can turn my eyes and look around to see new details”. (Giulia Grassi, www.scudit.it)