The Academy Museum is about to launch a wonderful film series about Italian filmmaker PIER PAOLO PASOLINI (1922-1975). Aside from his cinematic work which includes the masterpiece MAMA ROMA (1962), a brilliant portrait about the struggles of a former prostitute (played by Anna Magnani) who raises her son under precarious circumstances, Pasolini was also an intellectual who pondered about existential matters, including the pressure of success and how it defines a person's value.
In his words:
"I think it is necessary to educate the new generations about the value of defeat, about how to deal with it, and about the humanity that emerges from it. In building an identity capable of embracing a common destiny in which it is possible to fail and start over without your value and dignity being affected.
I'm not being a social climber, in not passing over the body of others to arrive first in this world of vulgar and dishonest winners, of false and opportunistic prevaricators, of important people who occupy power, who hide the present, not to mention the future, of all the neurotics of success, of appearing, of becoming.
Faced with this anthropology of the winner by far I prefer the one who loses. It is an exercise that seems good to me and that reconciles me with myself. I am a man who prefers to lose than win with unfair and cruel ways. Serious fault of mine, I know.
The best thing is that I have the insolence to defend this guilt, and consider it almost a virtue."
For more information about the film series Carnal Knowledge: The Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini (February 17 - March 12), visit: https://lnkd.in/gZc_UgHs
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