As the film theorist Janet L. Borgerson claims, there is something awry in our historical memory of Medea. This is precisely the point of departure for Pasolini’s film: he does not create an opposition between the world of patriarchal reason, embodied by Jason, and the matriarchal, irrational, archaic, and magical world personified by Medea. On the contrary, he shows that this opposition is itself the product of a historical conception.
Keywords: Pasolini, Pier Paolo – Medea; motion pictures; Callas, Maria; Greek myths; Kant, Immanuel – The Critique of Practical Reason; Dionysus; The Dionysian; Nietzsche, Friedrich; cinematography
Title
Cinematographic Aesthetics as Subversion of Moral Reason in Pasolini’s Medea
Author(s)
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky
Identifier
Description
As the film theorist Janet L. Borgerson claims, there is something awry in our historical memory of Medea. This is precisely the point of departure for Pasolini’s film: he does not create an opposition between the world of patriarchal reason, embodied by Jason, and the matriarchal, irrational, archaic, and magical world personified by Medea. On the contrary, he shows that this opposition is itself the product of a historical conception.
Is Part Of
Place
Vienna
Publisher
Turia + Kant
Date
2012
Subject
Pasolini, Pier Paolo – Medea
motion pictures
Callas, Maria
Greek myths
Kant, Immanuel – The Critique of Practical Reason
Dionysus
The Dionysian
Nietzsche, Friedrich
cinematography
Rights
© by the author(s)
This version is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Bibliographic Citation
Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, ‘Cinematographic Aesthetics as Subversion of Moral Reason in Pasolini’s Medea’, in The Scandal of Self-Contradiction: Pasolini’s Multistable Subjectivities, Geographies, Traditions, ed. by Luca Di Blasi, Manuele Gragnolati, and Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 6 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2012), pp. 255–66 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-06_14>
Language
en-GB
page start
255
page end
266
Source
The Scandal of Self-Contradiction: Pasolini’s Multistable Subjectivities, Geographies, Traditions, ed. by Luca Di Blasi, Manuele Gragnolati, and Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 6 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2012), pp. 255–66
Format
application/pdf

References

  • Benjamin, Walter, Selected Writings, ed. by Marcus Bullock and Michael W. Jennings, 4 vols (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1996–2003)
  • Borgerson, Janet L., ‘Managing Desire: Heretical Transformation in Pasolini’s Medea’, Consumption, Markets and Culture, 5 (2002), pp. 55–62 <https://doi.org/10.1080/1025386029003109>
  • Deleuze, Gilles, Cinema 2: The Time-Image (London: Continuum, 2005)
  • Foucault, Michel, The History of Sexuality, trans. by Robert Hurley, 3 vols (London: Penguin, 1990–98)
  • Freud, Sigmund, The Standard Edition of the Completed Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, ed. and trans. by James Strachey, 24 vols (London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1953-74)
  • Nichols, Bill, ed., Movies and Methods, 2 vols (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976)
  • Pasolini, Pier Paolo, Per il cinema, ed. by Walter Siti and Franco Zabagli, 2 vols (Milan: Mondadori, 2001)
  • Pasolini, Pier Paolo, Il caos, ed. by Gian Carlo Ferretti (Rome: Editori Riuniti, 1979)
  • Pasolini, Pier Paolo, Saggi sulla politica e sulla società, ed. by Walter Siti and Silvia de Laude, 2 vols (Milan: Mondadori, 1999)
  • Viano, Maurizio, A Certain Realism: Making Use of Pasolini’s Film Theory and Practice (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)

Cite as: Astrid Deuber-Mankowsky, ‘Cinematographic Aesthetics as Subversion of Moral Reason in Pasolini’s Medea’, in The Scandal of Self-Contradiction: Pasolini’s Multistable Subjectivities, Geographies, Traditions, ed. by Luca Di Blasi, Manuele Gragnolati, and Christoph F. E. Holzhey, Cultural Inquiry, 6 (Vienna: Turia + Kant, 2012), pp. 255–66 <https://doi.org/10.37050/ci-06_14>