Pier Paolo Pasolini, Edipo Re, 1967

According to Pier Paolo Pasolini, Edipo Re (1967) is his most autobiographical film. It is a cinematic interpretation of the drama Oedipus the King or Oedipus the Tyrant (ca. 429 – 425 BC), by the Greek tragedian Sophocles, which deals with the myth of Oedipus.

Pasolini’s cinematic version combines two Oedipus figures: an Oedipus character who finds himself in the 20th century, as well as the mythical figure from antiquity. The film begins around the 1920s with a boy being breastfed by his mother in a meadow. Due to the jealousy of his father, who fears that the love between son and mother is stronger than that between him and his wife, the mother’s attention towards her son decreases — the father is hateful towards him. The narrative then shifts to ancient Greece, where a young Oedipus is abandoned, found by a shepherd and brought to the king of Corinth, where he grows up. Oedipus, unaware of his true identity, kills his father, the king of Laius, and then marries his mother, Iocaste. After his deeds and his true relationship to the murdered King come to light, he loses everything, gouges out his eyes and leaves his palace, while Iocaste kills herself. Once again, the action shifts in time, now to the 1960s present day. The blind Oedipus sits in front of Bologna’s cathedral and plays a flute. He is finally led by a companion to the very meadow where the film began. This is where Oedipus finds peace.

Mathias Poledna’s intervention at HALLE FÜR KUNST draws comparisons to Pasolini’s cinematic imagery – not only through his alterations to the visual identity of the institution, which he keeps entirely in black and white, but also the way in which Pasolini jumps between antiquity and modernity, or to his present, creating references and following a similar procedure to how Poledna creates connections and references through objects in the exhibition like his own archive. The screening of Edipo Re  is another an intervention in Poledna’s exhibition, as it will be projected by a 35mm projector onto the projection screen built especially for the exhibition. There will not only be a projectionist for this event, but the film will be presented in its original Italian version with English subtitles provided by the Cinecittá distribution company in Rome.

Mathias Poledna himself will be on site to give an introduction.