please excuse my not very nice scan but that photo is squeezed into a paperback of Claude Mauriac's hagiography of Laurent (when I say hagiography I mean he regularly calls him a dark angel or compares him to the sun because even his friends see him so rarely but are always blessed when they do... nothing pleaseth but rare accidents I guess) & I'm glad I got that off the shelf because on the facing page is a piece of mystifying information my American Friend (who can usually tell you what Laurent would have meant by x) & I have failed to understand for a solid 3 years. Laurent speaking:
Balzac knew he wouldn't have the time to write everything he wanted to write, create everything he felt the need to create. He drank a lot of coffee in a battle against time. It was sort of the same with Pasolini. By that time [1969], he was a man who was completely closed off. He wasn't in contact with anyone except his sister.
as far as we have ever been able to establish..... Pasolini does not have a sister. who on earth is Laurent talking about. does he just mean his mother??? he mentions the sister repeatedly & Mauriac never asks or comments:
[Mauriac has just asked Laurent if he felt Pasolini treated him differently 10 years after La notte brava because he was no longer young and hot] On the contrary, this was a relatively chaste period in his life. He led an almost family-like existence with his sister and Nino. Ninetto Davoli. A domestic life, very tidy and austere, with his sister taking care of everything.
now you'll have the same bright idea I had one day (to be exact, the day [early 2024, we barely knew anything about Pasolini] that hunting for some other information* I read a 1967 letter from PPP to Godard beginning "as for my non-carnal wife's assault over the telephone, I understand how traumatising it was for you" and said "your what???", a memory which now feels prehistoric): "it's Laura Betti"! and this -- providing a domestic backdrop, being used along with Ninetto as PPP's voice when he had trouble communicating with others outside of writing -- does all resemble the way other people describe their relationship. but ... Laura is mentioned by name several times in the book because Mauriac talked to her and Pasolini .... and also to Michel Foucault who says:
a certain Laura Betti [...] called me
sorry Claude but it is absolutely vital that you tell me what Foucault said about Laura Betti "[...]" that you couldn't print there!!! (is Laura Betti on the phone 24/7 terrorising French intellectuals in their Maoist era? probably)
so anyway (1) if Laurent meant Laura (this is very difficult to say sticking to both accents & I'm glad Autant-Lara is not in this sentence too) surely Mauriac could have clarified that? if only to protect himself from being telephoned
so anyway (2) PPP's mythic sister has become a character in this household to the extent that when I was bitching about The Silver Book in general & in particular wondering about Unnamed Blonde Woman With Black Make-Up whose only dialogue is explaining how to make blood sauce (& who I am not sure is supposed to be Laura because the only data on her is "my mother was from Piemonte" & I haven't been able to confirm whether this applies to Laura) A. just said "but that's obviously his sister"
*the other information was, A. swore she once read that Pasolini said "x is the most beautiful actor I ever worked with", but could not remember whether it was Laurent (whose filmography we'd been doing for half a year) or fellow certified dark angel Pierre (whose filmography we had just started on). we never solved that one either
sorry to Laurent for hijacking his day with this strongly Laura-based digression but well we'll rewatch La notte brava again tonight & I obviously won't be paying attention to anyone else then
dededos
kaledo-art
2087
jacobvanloon
yousharknotpass
