"The films of Pier Paolo Pasolini were, and are, absolutely essential for me. Every time I go back to them, they seem to have evolved and grown and adapted to the current state of humanity. They are unlike anything else in the history of cinema, and one of the key elements in each Pasolini film is design: color, texture, the extraordinary balance between history and myth. Dante Ferretti was one of Pasolini’s closest and greatest collaborators, and this book is so much more than a tribute to a cherished friend. It’s a precious gift – to Pasolini, to us, and to future generations of filmmakers and film lovers".
(Martin Scorsese)

This book is the vivid, intimate memoir of Dante Ferretti, the legendary three-time Academy Award-winning set designer who shaped the visual worlds of Italy’s most iconic filmmakers. In this powerful narrative, Ferretti recounts his twelve-year collaboration with Pier Paolo Pasolini – from The Gospel According to St. Matthew to Salò – and their lifelong friendship. Through personal memories, poetic reflections, and evocative anecdotes, Ferretti invites readers behind the scenes of cinematic masterpieces, revealing the artistic, emotional, and philosophical ties that bound these men in life and in death.

The author

Dante Ferretti (Macerata, 1943), the legendary three-time Academy Award-winning set designer, has had a career that began in his twenties with Pier Paolo Pasolini, serving as assistant set designer for The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964), The Hawks and the Sparrows (1966), and Oedipus Rex (1967). With Pasolini he signed his first set design for Medea (1970), and from then on, the director kept him by his side through his final film, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975). Ferretti went on to work with some of the most important Italian filmmakers –Luigi Comencini, Marco Bellocchio, Elio Petri, Liliana Cavani, Marco Ferreri, Ettore Scola, and Franco Zeffirelli – and most notably with Federico Fellini. He served also as assistant set designer on Fellini Satyricon (1969) and later as production designer on five of the maestro’s films, including Fellini’s final feature, The Voice of the Moon (1990). The visionary, ingenious worlds he created for The Name of the Rose (1986) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) – which earned him his first Academy Award nomination – brought him international acclaim, opening the way to an extraordinary series of collaborations with directors such as Terry Gilliam, Neil Jordan, Anthony Minghella, Brian De Palma, Martin Brest, Julie Taymor, Tim Burton, and Kenneth Branagh. Above all, Ferretti forged a special creative bond with Martin Scorsese, designing the sets for nine of his films, from The Age of Innocence (1993) to Silence (2016).