Pasolini and Popular Music

This article explores popular music in the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini. Pasolini conceived of two broad categories of popular music: folk music, which he understood to represent pre-capitalistic, pre-industrial cultures; and contemporary, radio-ready musical genres like pop and jazz, which he tied to bourgeois culture. I show how these two categories, like so many of Pasolini's categorical distinctions, were permeable, and explore his own role as mediator and transmitter of music.