5. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pasolini was a true Renaissance man/polymath. He was a film director, a poet, a newspaper contributor, novelist, linguist, writer and playwright. As a film maker, Pasolini was also a true buccaneer - choosing highly controversial topics and presenting them in a way to comment upon society. The controversy started with The Gospel According to St Matthew in 1964 - possibly the greatest film ever that portrays the life of Jesus. Why a homosexual, Marxist, atheist man chose this subject matter is a little strange but the film was made provocative by Pasolini adding his left wing views into the movie - Jesus is portrayed as a revolutionary - not a figure of religion. Teorema in 1968 featured Terrence Stamp as a stranger who enters the house of a bourgeois family, seduces every member of the family and then vacates the house leaving its inhabitants in turmoil. Teorema was a direct attack upon the Italian capitalist, middle class and it must have provoked much bemusement in cinema going Italy. Pasolini showed his moxie in his next two films. Porcile in 1969 featured cannibalism, way before the likes of Ruggero Deodato and Umberto Lenzi made it the done thing to do in Italian cinema. Medea featured opera singer Maria Callas as the titular Medea who kills her children to spite her husband. Pasolini was really able to evoke the time period which he is filming. This can be seen in his Trilogy of Life which consists of Decameron, Arabian Nights and The Canterbury Tales. The greatest feat of buccaneering in his career came with his adaptation of the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom - which Pasolini called Salo. Salo is widely regarded as being one of the hardest films ever to watch. There is poop eating, torture, degradation, sadism and murder of children in the film. Pasolini obviously took a massive risk in attempting to make de Sade's work filmable and he largely pulls it off making for one heck of a viewing experience. Sadly, his life was ended shortly after Salo was filmed and we can only imagine the controversies and uproar this buccaneering director could have provoked in making more movies.