Il marxismo francofortese di Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini was one of the major figures in Italian literature and a worldwide known film director. The aim of this paper is to dig the philosophical roots of his Marxist thought and his sociopolitical passion, which he developed and exposed throughout his opera, then to compare them with the coeval most influencing Marxist theory after Marx, the critical theory by the Frankfurt School. By splitting his career into two parts, before and after 1968, among Pasolini’s first period works will be highlighted the imprints of Gramsci and Freud, that will prove to be very similar to the early theoretical position of the Frankfurt School, in particular to Theodor W. Adorno’s philosophy; then the focus about Pasolini’s second period will be set on the student protest, such event leading to his direct confrontation with Herbert Marcuse, and the results of the author’s political analysis will eventually be defined with respect to the thoughts of the other Frankfurter philosophers, especially Max Horkheimer’s one. Pasolini’s last and currently valid warning to our society – echoing, above all, Marcuse – is to never stop fighting against life’s commodification and standardisation, by being caring for others, scandalously different, culturally free.