A Mighty Good Man
Teorema packs multiple theses’ worth of themes and allusions into its 98-minute running time, but it’s also a slyly seductive piece of entertainment: its dirty little secret is that it’s terrific fun.
Teorema Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italy, 1968; The Criterion Collection
MARXIST POET/PLAYWRIGHT/FILMMAKER Pier Paolo Pasolini—who went through life with all but (1975). His audacious (1968) is a mesmerizing chronicle of transfiguration through sins of the flesh, as members of a wealthy Milanese household—mother, father, son, daughter, and live-in maid—are sequentially seduced by a nubile stranger (the slim, vaguely androgynous Terence Stamp) whose sensual attentions rip them loose from their comfortable, conventional moorings.
