Teorema (The Criterion Collection)

Description

One of the iconoclastic Pier Paolo Pasolini’s most radical provocations, Teorema finds the auteur moving beyond the poetic, proletarian earthiness that first won him renown and notoriety with a coolly cryptic exploration of bourgeois spiritual emptiness. Terence Stamp stars as the mysterious stranger—perhaps an angel, perhaps a devil—who, one by one, seduces the members of a wealthy Milanese family (including European cinema icons Silvana Mangano, Massimo Girotti, Laura Betti, and Anne Wiazemsky), precipitating an existential crisis in each of their lives. Unfolding nearly wordlessly in a procession of sacred and profane images, this tantalizing metaphysical riddle—blocked from exhibition by the Catholic Church for degeneracy—is at once a blistering Marxist treatise on sex, religion, and art and a primal scream into the void. DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New, restored 4K digital transfer • Alternate English-dubbed soundtrack, featuring the voice of actor Terence Stamp and others • Audio commentary from 2007 featuring Robert S. C. Gordon, author of Pasolini: Forms of Subjectivity • Introduction by director Pier Paolo Pasolini from 1969 • Interview from 2007 with Stamp • New interview with John David Rhodes, author of Stupendous, Miserable City: Pasolini’s Rome • New English subtitle translation • More! • PLUS: An essay by film scholar James Quandt