La Rabbia [The Rage] (1963) [Pier Paolo Pasolini [English Subtitles]

La Rabbia (Anger) is an Italian documentary film produced by Gastone Ferranti and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini in the first half and by Giovannino Guareschi in the second half. Film producer Gastone Ferranti wanted to make a movie with two of the most important Italian intellectuals of the 1960s: Giovannino Guareschi and Pier Paolo Pasolini, despite them being diametrically opposite – one a right-wing monarchist, and the other a Communist militant, and yet branded as “heretics“ by their own side. The producer’s goal was to make a sort of “match“ where Guareschi and Pasolini gave their own answers to a single question, i.e. what was the cause of the discontent, of the fear and of the conflicts shaking the society of the time. The movie, analyzing the social conflicts of the contemporary world in a strongly critical and controversial way, was made through the montage of old footage from Ferranti’s Mondo Libero newsreels, archive material concerning different countries, pictures from art books and magazines. Guareschi criticizes the degradation of art for commercial aims, and more broadly the “soulless“ modernity wiping out any perspective other than materialism and, lastly, causes distrust towards the future. In his part of the documentary, Pasolini deals with the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and of the Cuban Revolution, praises progressivism, decolonization and class struggle, he takes Marilyn Monroe’s death as an example to speak about the death of beauty, complains about the disappearance of the rural world and heavily criticizes industrialization, conservatism, anti-communism and the bourgeoisie. Part of Pasolini’s film was cut to make room for Guareschi in the final cut. Despite starting from opposite positions, Guareschi’s and Pasolini’s statements have some points of convergence, especially regarding the alienation and de-humanization in the modern world. It might even seem that both turned out to be prophetic, although in a negative way.