"I looked out to see what was happening inside the soul of an underprivileged man living on the outskirts of Rome (and I insist that he is not an exception, but rather typical of at least half of Italy). In him I recognised all the ancient ills (and all the ancient, innocent goodness of pure life). I could only document: his material and moral misery, his ferocious but useless irony, his degenerate and obsessive anxiety, his contemptuous laziness, his sensuality without ideals and, together with all this, his ancient, superstitious, pagan Catholicism. So he dreams of death and going to heaven. And thus only death can ‘secure’ his pale and confused act of redemption." Pier Paolo Pasolini, “Vie nuove”, n. 26, 1st July 1961