A short film directed by Pasolini in 1966, La Terra Vista dalla Luna, opens with a caption printed over a fixed image: 'Seen from the moon, this movie . . . is nothing and has not been created by anybody . . . But since we are on planet earth, it might be better to let you know that it is a fable written by Pier Paolo Pasolini.' It is a fable about the power of neo-capitalism and consumerism over the minds and actions of its two protagonists. The American way of life had just reached Italy, and Pasolini had witnessed first-hand its homogenising force. He called it the 'new Fascism', 'more insidious, elusive and destructive' than the historical kind - which had failed completely to unify the country's various cultures - because it both 'assimilates and homogenises'. Two foreign observers of Italy, David Lane, the Economist correspondent in Rome, and Paul Ginsborg, who teaches at Florence University, are now also arguing that fascism has returned to the country.

LRB 6 January 2005 | PDF Download