Reading Images: The cinema of poetry (session 2)

Safaa Fathy and María Virginia Jaua - 'Film Poetry and Poetry in Film'

The cinema of poetry is a term coined by Pasolini. It describes a subjective method of framing and directing that dominates the prosaic narration and brings it within the realm of poetry. The cinema of poetry stands in opposition to the cinema of prose, as its pictorial language is indirect, subjective and free. Pasolini gives as examples the work of Godard, Antonioni’s Red Desert (Il deserto rosso) and Bertolucci’s Before the Revolution (Prima della rivoluzione). We can also include the films of Tarkovsky and Raul Ruíz in this form of free, subjective encounter.

The two sessions will study Pasolini’s text Cinema of Poetry (Cinema di poesia) and analyse Antonioni’s Red Desert (Il deserto rosso), Raúl Ruiz’s The Blind Owl (La chouette aveugle), Tarkovsky’s Solaris and Godard’s In Praise of Love (Éloge de l’amour).