‘Somewhat of an affectation’: Bach, Vivaldi, and the Early Films of Pier Paolo Pasolini

Abstract

Abstract Critics and film theorists have frequently drawn attention to the use of J. S. Bach’s music in Accattone (1961), Pier Paolo Pasolini’s first film. Many have noted the strangeness of the musical choice and in particular its sociocultural disconnection from the film’s setting of the borgate, the deprived areas on the outskirts of Rome. Pasolini’s second film, Mamma Roma (1962), similarly focuses on the lives of an underclass of pimps, prostitutes, and scroungers, yet its use of the music of Antonio Vivaldi has elicited little study. This article explores the imbalance of critical responses in the context of Pasolini’s political aesthetic. I argue that the imposing figure of Bach has distracted commentators, and that Pasolini is less interested in the cultural associations of individual composers and compositions than in the formal properties of Baroque music. Close analysis of the films reveals careful correspondences between film and music that show both the potential and the limitations of Baroque music when applied to the moving image.