Following its theatrical release this month, the BFI will bring Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem (1968) to Blu-ray for the first time in the UK when it is released complete and uncut in a Dual Format Edition (includes a DVD disc) on 27 May 2013. The new high definition digital transfer has restored picture and sound. Special features include a filmed interview with Terence Stamp, a feature commentary and an optional English language soundtrack.
A handsome, enigmatic stranger (Terence Stamp) arrives at a bourgeois household in Milan and successively seduces each family member, not forgetting the maid. Then, as abruptly and mysteriously as he arrived, he departs, leaving the distraught members of the household to make what sense they can of their lives in the void of his absence.
In this cool, richly complex and provocative political allegory, Pasolini uses his schematic plot to explore family dynamics, the intersection of class and sex, and the nature of different sexualities. After winning a prize at the Venice Film Festival, Theorem was subsequently banned on an obscenity charge, but Pasolini later won an acquittal on the grounds of the film’s ‘high artistic value’.
Theorem is visually ravishing, with superb performances from its international cast and a brilliantly eclectic soundtrack featuring music by composers ranging from Mozart to Morricone.
• Presented in both High Definition and Standard Definition;
• Optional alternative English language soundtrack;
• Audio commentary by Italian film expert Robert Gordon;
• An Interview with Terence Stamp (2007, 34 mins, DVD only);
• 2013 theatrical release trailer;
• Illustrated booklet with an essay by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, a review by Philip Strick and biographies of Pasolini and Stamp.
Pe-order/buy:Theorem (DVD + Blu-ray)
