Two movies from Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini are making their way onto DVD in July as part of Eureka Entertainment’s Masters OF Cinema Series.
Pasolini’s Pigsty (Porcile) and Hawks And Sparrows (Uccellacci E Uccellini) are to be released in the UK on DVD on 23 July 2012.
Eureka described the 1960s movies as “typically provocative Pasolini films”.
If you were worried that wasn’t an accurate description, bear in mind that Pigsty is a portrayal of bestiality, degradation and bourgeois life circa 1969.
It comprises parallel stories: (1) Franco Citti and Pierre Clémenti playing cannibalistic savages who rampage a world outside of any distinct time or place, and who push against the boundaries of human morality; (2) Godard-regulars Jean-Pierre Léaud and Anne Wiazemsky as a romantically engaged couple in a contemporary Germany painted as a morass of industrialisation, fascist impulse, and bestial instincts.
“Not only an exquisitely revolting satire, it is also Pasolini’s most fascinating piece of cinema,” said Time Out Magazine
The new edition of Pigsty has been taken from a HD master and features include:
* Original Italian theatrical trailer
* Newly translated optional English subtitles
* Illustrated booklet featuring rare archival imagery and the words of Pasolini.
* Certificate: 15
* Run Time: 98 minutes
* Format: 1.85 :1 OAR/ B&W
Meanwhile, Hawks And Sparrows (1966) is a political comedy starring popular Italian actor Totò and a Marxist talking crow!
Widely acclaimed, it recveived a nomination for the Palme d’or top prize at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival
One of the handful of films that found Pier Paolo Pasolini sustaining a merrier mode of cultural assault, Hawks and Sparrows features Italy’s popular comic actor Totò (known to cinephiles as the star of Roberto Rossellini’s Dov’è la liberta…?) and Pasolini regular Ninetto Davoli in a picaresque fable that lampoons politics, religion, and the legacy of neorealism.
Featuring a score by the legendary Ennio Morricone (we shouldn’t really have to list The Good, The Bad And The Ugly next to his name but we will), Pasolini’s anarchic comedy remains a time-capsule of the giddy tensions torqued by the dawn of the late Sixties.
This DVD also features a new high-definition transfer in the film’s original aspect ratio. Other
* Original Italian theatrical trailer
* Newly translated optional English subtitles
* Run Time: 89 minutes
* Format: 1.85 :1 OAR/ B&W
The latest Pasoli DVDs from Eureka follow earlier releases of The Gospel according to Matthew & Accattone.
Both Pigsty and Hawks And Sparrows have a recommended retail price of £16.34.
