Pier Paolo Pasolini and Leo Tolstoy (The Theorem and The Death of Ivan Ilyich)

he late L. Tolstoy and P.P. Pasolini belong among authors who are trying to combine a saturated art principle with edifying, conditional figurativeness and at the same time tendentiousness.The main subject of both the authors’ descriptions is the inner world of a personality, a being of consciousness. The sociality for each of them acts merely as a certain “code”, important but still outside life. The sociality acts as a subject to the analysis and finally to the reduction for the sake of something different – of the idea of spiritual renewal of a man as shown in The Death of Ivan Iljich and The Theorem. It calls into question the declarative ideas of the authors – Tolstoy’s “swarm” life, Pasolini’s “prehistoric” and conditional-communist ideal.The being of Tolstoy and Pasolini defies all that is known and ha-bitual – and the moment of their vital catastrophe only confirms their being: above “physics” and “biology”, above “logic”, on such a level of being of consciousness where cancellation of the outside world means precisely its full and loving acceptance.