This is the first of Pasolini's so-called "Trilogy of Life"- adaptations of Renaissance story collections. Pasolini highlights the bawdy, anarchic nature of such literature to suggest a popular culture that was actually less oppressive and repressed than that of modern capitalism.
I watched the Trilogy entirely out of order and while I rather regret doing so, there might have been some advantages to this. I saw Canterbury Tales, the middle film and the slightest, before the last and first entries. In retrospect, Canterbury seemed more interesting to me than it really is because it was the film that introduced me to the style of the trilogy. In fact, as is common, the first and last entries of the series are the strongest.
I think this first film is my favorite of the three. Pasolini appears as an actor in all of these films, but it is here that he is the most important presence. Playing a master painter, he depicts himself trying to create sketches of the many stories we see on screen. His painting only depicts a part of what the film shows us, and the film only attempts to adapt a handful of the stories that comprise the epic poem, The Decameron. This is a statement on the fragmentary nature of adaptation and translation, and therefor of art itself. It also suggests strongly that only that which is fragmentary, which does not yearn for totality, can be liberating.
I watched the Trilogy entirely out of order and while I rather regret doing so, there might have been some advantages to this. I saw Canterbury Tales, the middle film and the slightest, before the last and first entries. In retrospect, Canterbury seemed more interesting to me than it really is because it was the film that introduced me to the style of the trilogy. In fact, as is common, the first and last entries of the series are the strongest.
I think this first film is my favorite of the three. Pasolini appears as an actor in all of these films, but it is here that he is the most important presence. Playing a master painter, he depicts himself trying to create sketches of the many stories we see on screen. His painting only depicts a part of what the film shows us, and the film only attempts to adapt a handful of the stories that comprise the epic poem, The Decameron. This is a statement on the fragmentary nature of adaptation and translation, and therefor of art itself. It also suggests strongly that only that which is fragmentary, which does not yearn for totality, can be liberating.