As one might gather from the title (which means "Theorem"), this key film from Pier Paolo Pasolini is more concerned with philosophical concerns than traditional movie "entertainment," and along with the similarly "empty" films of Michelangelo Antonioni, this became one of the major art house favorites of the 1960s. The casting of British heartthrob Stamp in the lead role was a wise move, as his natural magnetism grounds a film that otherwise threatens to go drifting off into the stratosphere like Betti's religious airborne flight in the third act.
It's not difficult to regard the film as Pasolini's intellectual response to domestic transformation chamber pieces like Boudu Saved from Drowning or My Man Godfrey, though here the events are played less for comedy and more for sheer, outlandish absurdity, dappled with a little frontal nudity and promiscuity to ensure international box office attention. Similarly, much later films like American Beauty seized on many of the same concepts, proving that some things never change by ultimately drawing the same conclusion found here: as much as we would like to keep our lives tidy and ordered, a catalyst will ultimately upend everything eventually. How a person responds to change, whether in panic or ecstasy, reveals the ultimate nature of one's character.
As with most Italian films of the period, Teorema was shot without sound due to the international nature of the cast. An Italian-looped version with English subtitles was seen most widely in English-speaking territories, though the English language dub is, surprisingly, a very rewarding experience in itself. There's not much dialogue here to begin with (less than 1000 words, according to the press materials), but hearing Stamp's natural English voice is a major asset and contradicts the common wisdom that this is a film best seen in Italian. Koch Lorber's pricey anamorphic DVD looks quite fine but retains only the Italian track, with optional English subtitles; anyone interested in the alternate language version should check out the Italian DVD, which retains the English dub for its non-anamorphic but otherwise equally attractive transfer. The mono audio sounds fine and does justice to the very minimal audio, which features a barely-there Ennio Morricone soundtrack whose two catchy pop compositions are all but lost in the mix. Though none of the European DVDs offer anything in the way of extras, the Koch disc includes a 53-minute featurette, "Pasolini and Death: A Purely Intellectual Thriller," in which one of his collaborators awkwardly expounds in Italian (with English voiceover) about the director's life and career without offering much that will convert the uninitiated. For a more rewarding video resource on the director, try to track down the one-hour documentary "Whoever Says the Truth Must Die," which offers considerable insight and will make this film far more easy to appreciate.
For more information about Teorema, visit Koch Lorber Films. To order Teorema, go to TCM Shopping.
by Nathaniel Thompson
