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Chances are, if you’ve seen many of the late films of Theodoros Angelopoulos, Michelangelo Antonioni (everything since L’avventura), Marco Bellocchio, Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini (almost everything since Amarcord), Mario Monicelli, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, Andrei Tarkovsky (Nostalghia), the Taviani brothers, and/or Luchino Visconti, and paid much attention to their script credits, you know who Tonino Guerra (1920–2012) was and is—a ubiquitous presence in modernist European cinema, especially its Italian branches. Petri was his first cinematic employer, after Guerra started out as a schoolteacher and poet whose parents were illiterate; later on, he became a visual artist as well as a screenwriter with over a hundred credits.Even after one acknowledges the exceptionally collaborative role played by multiple writers on Italian films, it seems that no one else was considered quite as essential by so many important directors. In Nicola Tranquillino’s documentary about Tonino (visible on YouTube...

No Exit for Pasolini star Willem Dafoe with director Abel Ferrara: "You know concentric circles." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Abel Ferrara's Pasolini stars a divine Willem Dafoe as Pier Paolo Pasolini, with Maria de Medeiros, Riccardo Scamarcio, Adriana Asti, Valerio Mastandrea and Giada Colagrande. Developed by Maurizio Braucci from an idea by Nicola Tranquillino and Ferrara, Pasolini begins and ends on one fatal day.

Willem Dafoe as Pier Paolo Pasolini: "It's one thing to show, it's another thing to do."

Dafoe recently starred in Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man. I asked him if Lars von Trier's Antichrist and Martin Scorsese's Last Temptation Of Christ prepared him for Pasolini's final day. Ferrara told me what that means to him. Fashion, architecture, research, restaurants, apartments and the power of three, pushed our conversation into Abel Ferrara and Willem Dafoe's working relationship upon entering Pasolini's world.

"Rome is finished, my friend." Pier Paolo Pasolini is one of the most iconic filmmakers Italy has ever produced, and he also had his hands in many other arenas as a poet, novelist, journalist, playwright, actor, painter, philosopher, and more. Now Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, Out of the Furnace) will bring him to life in the aptly titled Pasolini, the latest film from Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, Mulberry St.). The film chronicles the final days of Pasolini's life and the events surrounding his murder. Now the first trailer for the film has arrived (the film plays at Tiff), and this looks to be a promising turn from Dafoe. Watch! Here's the first trailer for ABel Ferrara's Pasolini from Cine Maldito (via The Playlist): Pasolini is directed by Abel Ferrara (Bad Lieutenant, Mulberry St.) from a script he co-wrote with Maurizio Braucci and Nicola Tranquillino. The film is playing...