Viterbo – Maria Andaloro at the inauguration, yesterday afternoon at the Santa Maria in Gradi complex, of ‘Medea Ritrovata fra la Cappadocia e la Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’
by Maurizia Marcoaldi
Viterbo – “This exhibition reconstructs a deleted scene from Pasolini’s film Medea, a sequence set not in Cappadocia but in Chia”. Thus Maria Andaloro at the meeting for the inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Ritrovata tra la Cappadocia e la Tuscia con Pasolini e Maria Callas’, promoted and created by the University of Tuscia and the Unitus Mission “Research and restoration in Cappadocia”. The initiative took place yesterday afternoon at the Santa Maria in Gradi complex.
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Found between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’
The exhibition is conceived by Maria Andaloro and is curated by Maria Andaloro, Gaetano Alfano, Paola Pogliani and Valeria Valentini. An initiative that starts from the study of the film “Medea” shot by Pasolini in Cappadocia in 1969 and which underlines the writer’s deep connection with Tuscia and its landscape. The rector Stefano Ubertini, Maria Andaloro and Roberto Chiesi intervened to talk about the exhibition. In the room, among those present, also the deputy mayor Alfonso Antoniozzi,
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Found between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’
“The exhibition consists of reconstructing a deleted scene from the film Medea, shot in 1969 by Pasolini – explained Maria Andolaro -. A scene linked to both Cappadocia than in Tuscia, literally. In fact, the crew shooting the film moved from Cappadocia to Chia in a few days. And so the landscape of the cut scene coincides, according to studies, with that of Tuscia”.
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Rediscovered between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’ – Roberto Chiesi
This scene was in fact cut from the film, which featured Maria Callas as the protagonist, but managed to survive thanks to the still photographer Mario Tursi.
“We understood, through studies, that it was the landscape of the Cascatelle di Fosso Castello a Chia, the same one where Pasolini had filmed the Baptism of Christ in The Gospel According to Matthew in 1964. This deduction was possible thanks to Mario Tursi’s stage photographs”, explained Maria Andolaro.
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Rediscovered between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’ – Roberto Chiesi – Maria Andaloro
Who added: “We have also shown that that scene, which is so elegiac with women dancing, actually hides another content where what is represented is a sequence of the ritual killing of the moon.”
The exhibition is made up of two sections. “The first corresponds to the scene of the moon killing with 13 photographs of Tursi – concluded Maria Andolaro -. The journey ends with two photos placed next to each other with the offering of the head of the immolated victim to the moon, belonging to the ‘rediscovered’ scene of Medea, and the other with the baptism of Christ taken from the film The Gospel according to Matthew shot in 1964. In the second section we will instead find what we call ‘camera picta’ of the ‘rediscovered’ scene with the only 7 existing color photos of Medea in Chia. This is followed by explanatory panels and photos of how Pasolini experienced the set and finally a section describing the University of Tuscia’s mission to Cappadocia”.
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Rediscovered between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’ – Roberto Chiesi
Also broadcast during the meeting was a video based on 65 photos of Mario Tursi on the scene of Medea.
Also speaking was the rector Stefano Ubertini who defined the exhibition as “very suggestive and beautiful from all points of view”.
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Rediscovered between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’ – Roberto Chiesi
“We decided to place it under the cloisters because they are very significant for our university, a place of passage between students and teachers. It will be possible to admire it until September 6th”, concluded the rector.
Among the greetings also that of the deputy mayor Alfonso Antoniozzi, the speech of the secretary of the Turkish embassy in Rome and that of Roberto Chiesi.
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Found between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’
“I am profoundly grateful to Maria and her collaborators for the discovery they made because it is a confirmation of how Pasolini’s imagination was overflowing – stated Robertoaski-. He demonstrates how Pasolini was unable to stay within pre-established standard measures and with this I therefore exclude that the cuts were due to any type of censorship. In fact, there was such an imagination and fantasy in Pasolini that in many of his films there are scenes and sequences that he somehow had to give up. Waivers linked to those compromises that an author must necessarily take into account.”
Viterbo – Inauguration of the exhibition ‘Medea Found between Cappadocia and Tuscia with Pasolini and Maria Callas’
The exhibition has its roots in another exhibition, the one with the partly corresponding title “Parlami, Terra!” Medea in Cappadocia with Pasolini and Maria Callas, created by the Italian Cultural Institute of Istanbul and the Research and Restoration Mission of the University of Tuscia in Cappadocia, on the occasion of the centenary of the director’s birth.
Maurizia Marcoaldi
May 10, 2024
