Pasolini's choice of actors and scenes with the dialog, all of it i think, taken verbatim from Matthew. The result? Art. Forget about how he's labeled and see what he expressed here.
Then forget about simply labeling Pasolini as marxist. Sure he thought the left represented the hope against the dehumanization and the erasing of popular culture processes of contemporary society. But if you find and read up the collection of his editorials ("Scritti Corsari") you will see a perspective which goes beyond ideological clashes. The policemen and the young '68 revolutionaries fighting against them are part of the same class, he wrote. He seems also sympathetic with Italian "Radicali" party (which protested the soviet union's militarism, not very marxist of them). And young revolutionaries contested him because he didn't fit their simpler categories.
If you want to label Pasolini, label him a rebel, say he discovered that the ultimate rebellion is in preserving culture and tradition against bigotry on one side, propaganda and the engineering of a one dimensional society (the dimension being measured with money) on the other. And this film is a supreme act of preservation.
He probably didn't realize himself how dangerous he was to the people holding power.
Then forget about simply labeling Pasolini as marxist. Sure he thought the left represented the hope against the dehumanization and the erasing of popular culture processes of contemporary society. But if you find and read up the collection of his editorials ("Scritti Corsari") you will see a perspective which goes beyond ideological clashes. The policemen and the young '68 revolutionaries fighting against them are part of the same class, he wrote. He seems also sympathetic with Italian "Radicali" party (which protested the soviet union's militarism, not very marxist of them). And young revolutionaries contested him because he didn't fit their simpler categories.
If you want to label Pasolini, label him a rebel, say he discovered that the ultimate rebellion is in preserving culture and tradition against bigotry on one side, propaganda and the engineering of a one dimensional society (the dimension being measured with money) on the other. And this film is a supreme act of preservation.
He probably didn't realize himself how dangerous he was to the people holding power.