Who Killed Pasolini?

Was the Deep State involved?

Letters from Vienna #122

Who Killed Pasolini?

Was the Deep State involved?

Narrator #1 Ed Vulliamy

“Pasolini was killed the day after his return from Stockholm, where he had met Ingmar Bergman and others in the Swedish cinematic avant-garde, and given an explosive interview to L’Espresso magazine,” The Guardian’s Ed Vulliamy wrote in 2014. “In it, he addressed his favourite theme: “I consider consumerism to be a worse form of fascism than the classic variety.””

“Pasolini’s view of a new totalitarianism whereby hyper-materialism was destroying the culture of Italy can be seen now as brilliant foresight into what has happened to the world generally in an internet age. But his critique had been, for months before the murder, more specific. He had singled out television as an especially pernicious influence, predicting the rise and power of a type such as media-mogul-turned-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi long before time. More specific still, he had written a series of columns for Corriere della Sera denouncing the leadership of the ruling Christian Democratic party as riddled with Mafia influence, predicting the so-called Tangentopoli – “kickback city” – scandals 15 years later, whereby an entire political class was put under arrest during the early 1990s. In his columns, Pasolini declared that the Christian Democratic leadership should stand trial, not only for corruption but association with neo-fascist terrorism, such as the bombing of trains and a demonstration in Milan.”

“Again, a spine-chilling vindication: these were the so-called “years of lead” in Italy, culminating in the bombing of Bologna station five years after Pasolini's death by neo-fascists working with the secret services, killing 82 people.”[1]

Narrator #2 France 24

“Italy marks the 100th anniversary on March 5 of the birth of one of its leading left-wing intellectuals,” France 24[2] reported a year ago.

“But the most crucial questions that have gripped Italy since his mangled body was found on a beach of Ostia outside Rome on November 2, 1975 – who ordered his killing and why – remain unanswered.”

“Pasolini was only 53 when he died, beaten with fists and sticks, then run over by an Alfa Romeo GT, either his own or someone else’s.”

“A 17-year-old male prostitute, Giuseppe “Pino” Pelosi, was stopped while running away from the filmmaker’s car and admitted killing him, saying Pasolini tried to rape him.

Pelosi was jailed for nearly 10 years, but in 2005 he recanted on his confession, instead blaming three unnamed men with Sicilian accents.”

“The investigation was reopened in 2010, based on DNA found on Pasolini’s clothes, but only one sample could be identified – Pelosi’s.”

“In the years since Pasolini died, theories have swirled about why the artist was killed, ranging from blackmail to a hit by the far-right or mafia.”

“Pasolini lived his life unafraid of controversy as he took aim at bourgeois values, Catholic censorship and the threat of neo-fascism, while exposing the hardships of life through an often unbearably grim lens.”

“He was “an uncomfortable person for those in power”, his childhood friend, Silvio Parello, told AFP at his Rome workshop that has become a shrine to the filmmaker.”

“Through his essays, poems, plays and films, Pasolini highlighted the downsides of Italy’s post-war “economic miracle”, which brought modernity but also shanty towns and growing regional inequality.”

““All his life he sought out an archaic, pre-industrial, pre-globalised peasant world, which he saw as innocent,” another friend, Italian writer Dacia Maraini, told AFP.”

“Pasolini was already known in Italy for his poetry when he began in film. His last movie, “Salò or the 120 Days of Sodom”, was released after his death.”

“The films range from gritty realism to loose adaptations full of symbolism – “Salò” was based on the work by the Marquis de Sade – while his novels reveal a fascination with small-time hooligans from the Rome suburbs.”

“To scandalise is a right. To be scandalised is a pleasure,” he said in his last television interview, in Paris, on October 31, 1975.”

“But not everybody appreciated what he was trying to do.”

“Shortly before his death, the filmmaker received threats over “Salò”, a critique of Fascist Italy that caused outrage because of its graphic depiction of violence and sexual abuse.

Some believe Pasolini’s murder was linked to his investigations into the suspicious death of Enrico Mattei, the boss of energy giant Eni, in a 1962 plane crash likely caused by a bomb.”

“For criminologist Simona Zecchi, author of two books on Pasolini, the writer was killed for his journalism at a time when Italy was in the throes of violence between far-left and far-right groups, known as the “Years of Lead”.”

“In 1974, Pasolini – who was close to Italy’s Communist party – published an inflammatory article about the December 1969 Piazza Fontana attack in Milan, which left 17 people dead and more than 80 injured.”

“It was first blamed on anarchists, then members of a neo-fascist group. Pasolini claimed he knew who was responsible, but said he had no proof. No one was ever convicted.”

“There is also speculation blackmail played a role in his death, as weeks before, reels of “Salò” had been stolen in Rome.”

“Zecchi believes there was never any will to find out what really happened. “Italy has a problem with the truth, because this truth has often passed through the dark side of our institutions,” she said.”

“Pasolini’s French biographer, Rene de Ceccatty, said solving the murder is complicated by the “several layers” of individual actors likely involved.”

“From the moment you accept it was a political crime, it’s not surprising that there is so much fog around it.”

Narrator #3 Paolo Melissi

“On the night between 1^st and 2^nd November 1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italian writer, poet, director and intellectual, was barbarously killed on the Idroscalo of Ostia beach” Paolo Melissi wrote[3]. “His body was found in the morning by a woman and recognized by his friend and actor Ninetto Davoli.”

“The investigations led to the arrest of Pino Pelosi, who was stopped that night while driving Pasolini’s car. After a dinner at the trattoria Biondo Tevere, the two headed for Ostia, where a quarrel would turn into murder. And Pelosi, after having hit Pasolini with violence, then passed several times over his body with the car, causing his death. However, the reconstruction of the facts, to which Pelosi himself contributed, immediately showed inconsistencies and obscure sides.”

“Two weeks after the murder, an article – signed by the writer Oriana Fallaci on the European – raised the first doubts about the incident, assuming at the same time the premeditation of the murder and, the direct participation of two other people in the crime. A possible direct witness of the murder was identified by a journalist, but it was not possible to gain his testimony, as he declared he would risk the loss of his life. Other testimonies highlighted the fact that, that night, more than two people slaughtered the writer, whose cries for help fell on deaf ears.”

“Twenty years after the murder, Pasolini, an Italian crime, the film-investigation by Marco Tullio Giordana, highlighted the idea that Pelosi was not alone that night. The latter, on the other hand, later affirmed that he was not the material executor of the crime, which would have been committed by three other people. And that these arrived on the scene of the crime in a car, and then killed him after having insulted him as a homosexual. In 2008, however, Pelosi communicated the name of his “accomplices”, declaring that he had not spoken until then to not endanger his family.”

“But, the hypotheses concerning the death of Pier Paolo Pasolini do not stop here. In fact, there is another path, which leads to the fight in the field of petrochemical production which was taking place in those years. Pasolini was interested in the case and the death of Enrico Mattei, one of the main characters in the events linked to the competition between Eni and Montedison, also writing his novel entitled, symptomatically, Petrolio. According to some, Pasolini’s death is linked to the investigation conducted on that “hot” topic.”

“The other hypothesis, however, links the murder to Italian political circles, probably colluded with the attacks and massacres that come under the name of “strategy of tension”.”

“Finally, some have pointed out that, through the testimonies of the managers of Biondo Tevere, the identikit of the man who was in the company of Pasolini that night did not correspond at all with the appearance of Pino Pelosi.”

“Whatever actually happened the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini has never been fully clarified; like many other obscure events that marked the history of the Italian state during the 1970s.”

Given that the “Pino Pelosi is the sole murderer” theory is implausible if not impossible (for the simple reason that Pino Pelosi is short and weak, Pasolini was extremely fit and extremely strong) it’s a safe assumption that the Deep State, which was responsible for so many crimes in Italy (see Letter #78) was directly responsible for his murder too.

The motive is clear; his film: “Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma” (“Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom”) touched a raw nerve (much in the same way that Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” did much later).

As the reader will remember from letter #120: the Fascists remained in power after the war and didn’t want to be reminded of their past and present. The sad fact is that sophisticated, erudite, cold-blooded Satanists and Nihilistic Utilitarians (as well as cynics) of the type on display in “Salò” (and who formed the model for Raskolnikov (see letter #121)) are still ruling the world today.

What Pasolini said about the evils of consumerism and Fascism didn’t help his case. It’s hardly surprising that such a perceptive, harsh and bitter critic of the establishment (and of the world in which we live) would be disposed of in such a brutal fashion.

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[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/24/who-really-killed-pier-paolo-pasolini-venice-film-festival-biennale-abel-ferrara

[2] https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220303-who-killed-pasolini-italy-still-questions-century-after-birth

[3] https://italian-traditions.com/pasolini-murder-misterious-death/