Pasolini and Photographic Representation

Marilyn Monroe, found footage in La Rabbia

The photographic representation makes it easy for viewers to discover their optical unconscious in an image. With the power of repetitive reproduction, the capability of investigating a crime scene or solve a photographic rebus in analyzing the trace/evidence in a photographic representation have shifted to the masses. According to Henry Bond’s research, people's constant interests in reading evidentiary photography probably link to the popularity of reality TV and people's desire to peel off the cover of privacy and the sacredness of life, and that impulse demonstrates a certain anxiety about reality itself.

Piere Paul Pasolini’s black and white films, especially the La Rabbia, the anger, and The Grim Reaper, could be examined again according to the notion above.

La Rabbia is a great example of artistic rephotography work that established new meanings and significance on collected historical footage and rephotographed news images. The relationship between messages and images can be deconstructed and rebuilt easily by the strategy of rephotographing. The format of this film is a part of its content that inquiring what is anger and what is truth, and wondering about the ambiguity between mediated images/messages and the real world. And that shows a certain anxiety about the reality itself.

On the other hand, the concept of repetition is well explained in the cinematography of The Grim Reaper. For instance, it repeatedly shows a rainy window view outside the hotel where the prostitute was; and also the use of dramatic lighting when the police was questioning different suspects again and again. With the question of who is the real killer in minds, audience will curiously examine every detail inside the b/w frames, trying to find out the answer by investigating those repetitive, filtered, manipulated visual elements. Any subject can be an important trace or evidence to unlock the key. The essentiality of trace or similar visual elements in evidentiary photography is demonstrated by itself.