Philo Bregstein

Philo Bregstein tells us this film looks at Pasolini's life and art to explain why he died. The film traces Pasolini's life chronologically - family roots, hiding during World War II, teaching, moving to Rome, being arrested and acquitted many times, publishing poems, getting into film, being provocative, and being murdered. Interviews with Alberto Moravia, Laura Betti, Maria Antonietta Macciocch, and Bernard Bertolucci are inter-cut with readings of Pasolini's poems and with clips from four films - primarily the Gospel According to St. Matthew - to illustrate his changing ideas and points of view. Bregstein makes a case for Pasolini's being lynched.

A group of expatriates living in Holland turn to sex, dope and music to augment their daily routines. One comes to resent a couple who becomes part of the exclusive social elite. An American actor muses over his draft notice, and he becomes jealous when a beautiful model he covets takes up with a radical writer.