The early and late sequences filmed within Italy are some of the best Pasolini has filmed. His confident and measured pace as well as his eye for composition and love of such basics as trees and sky and grass are a joy to behold. As for the rest, it can be very taxing. The Moroccan desert and mountain scenery is wondrous and the placing and movement of large numbers of peoples impressive but there is a lot of ponderous and somewhat languorous adherence to this titular tale. The associated screaming and passionate pondering as to the ins and outs of past events and just who did what with whom and for why become rather wearing.
20 Reviews
The Terrible Truth And Denial
XxEthanHuntxX13 March 2021
Pasolini tells the drama of a man who knows his destiny from the beginning but does not accept the awareness of evil, tries to escape an atrocious future, but is inevitably entangled in it. The director uses Oedipus, of a classic archetype, to tell the human condition, the inadequacy of those who know they must die, but are unable to accept it.
The Moroccan setting that hides a fantasy Greece, between desert and villages of shepherds, mountains, cities built with clay and destroyed by plagues, is wonderful. A film written in images, dialogues reduced to the essentials, use of captions as in the silent era, intense photography and - for the first time in a Pasolini film - use of color that renders the ocher chromatism of the desert well.
The film have some substantial flaws, especially the storytelling. But the great Pasolini-style shine's brightly throughout the film and Franco Citti is just amazing as Edipo himself.
The Moroccan setting that hides a fantasy Greece, between desert and villages of shepherds, mountains, cities built with clay and destroyed by plagues, is wonderful. A film written in images, dialogues reduced to the essentials, use of captions as in the silent era, intense photography and - for the first time in a Pasolini film - use of color that renders the ocher chromatism of the desert well.
The film have some substantial flaws, especially the storytelling. But the great Pasolini-style shine's brightly throughout the film and Franco Citti is just amazing as Edipo himself.
The story of Oedipus told in comedic, violent and surreal vignettes
tomgillespie200228 August 2015
Pier Paolo Pasolini's Oedipus Rex is a relatively faithful adaptation of Sophocles' Greek tragedy Oedipus the King. Beginning in 1920's Italy, a baby boy is born and is instantly envied by the displaced father. The setting then changes to ancient times, where a baby boy is being carried out into the desert by a servant to be left out to die from exposure. He is eventually picked up by a shepherd, who takes him back to the King and Queen of Corinth, who adopt the youngster and love him like one of their own. The child grows up to be Edipo (Pasolini's frequent collaborator Franco Citti), an arrogant youth who wishes to see the world for himself. And so he set out on the road to Thebes, the place of his birth.
Plagued by a prophecy that dictates he is destined to murder his father and marry his mother, Edipo is a tortured but intuitive soul. He murders a rich man and his guards after they demand he clear a path for them on the road, and later frees a town from the clutches of a Sphinx by solving its riddle. Staying true to his own recognisable style, Pasolini tells the story of Oedipus not with a sweeping narrative, but through a collection of comedic, violent and often surreal vignettes, the most bizarre and ultimately thrilling being the scene in which Edipo murders the guards. He runs away from them as they chase him, before charging at them one by one and cutting them down. It's a moment without any real motivational insight, offering but a glimpse into Edipo's damaged psyche.
Post-Freud, the story of Oedipus cannot be experienced without reading into the incestuous and patricidal undertones. But these themes are less explored by Pasolini than the idea of Edipo being ultimately responsible for his own downfall. Rather than the inevitability of fate, Edipo creates his own path, committing murder on a whim and marrying while blinded by ambition. For a bulk of the film, Pasolini keeps the audience at arm's length, favouring his own brushes of surrealism over a traditional narrative. While this may be occasionally frustrating - the pre-war scenes than book-end the film seem out of place and confusing - Citti's wide-eyed performance is a fantastic distraction, and the Moroccan scenery helps provide a ghostly, Biblical atmosphere as well as a beautiful backdrop.
Plagued by a prophecy that dictates he is destined to murder his father and marry his mother, Edipo is a tortured but intuitive soul. He murders a rich man and his guards after they demand he clear a path for them on the road, and later frees a town from the clutches of a Sphinx by solving its riddle. Staying true to his own recognisable style, Pasolini tells the story of Oedipus not with a sweeping narrative, but through a collection of comedic, violent and often surreal vignettes, the most bizarre and ultimately thrilling being the scene in which Edipo murders the guards. He runs away from them as they chase him, before charging at them one by one and cutting them down. It's a moment without any real motivational insight, offering but a glimpse into Edipo's damaged psyche.
Post-Freud, the story of Oedipus cannot be experienced without reading into the incestuous and patricidal undertones. But these themes are less explored by Pasolini than the idea of Edipo being ultimately responsible for his own downfall. Rather than the inevitability of fate, Edipo creates his own path, committing murder on a whim and marrying while blinded by ambition. For a bulk of the film, Pasolini keeps the audience at arm's length, favouring his own brushes of surrealism over a traditional narrative. While this may be occasionally frustrating - the pre-war scenes than book-end the film seem out of place and confusing - Citti's wide-eyed performance is a fantastic distraction, and the Moroccan scenery helps provide a ghostly, Biblical atmosphere as well as a beautiful backdrop.
The really real
chaos-rampant7 July 2013
Another marvelous film by Pasolini.
No one is as cinematically intense as this man, but it's not an ordinary intensity he affects. It does not result from the withholding of narrative or visual information, it is not primarily a dramatic intensity; Lean, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, all did some terrific work in that external mode where we see the struggling human being in the cleanly revealed world of choices and fates.
Pasolini works his way around all that, starting with one of the most archetypal stories. Here we have anticipation, foreknowledge as fate. And of course there is some dramatic intensity in this and others of his films, but that's not what makes him special. He can create heightened worlds that we experience with a real intensity. It goes back to that film movement called Neorealism which thrived in postwar Italy, where the utmost goal was to soak up a more human, more universal conflict as we staggered through broken pieces of the world.
Looking back now it seems stale, we have a much more refined sense of what is real, we can see the conceit of the camera. But two filmmakers emerged from out of this movement who did work in a more radical direction, moving the images closer to perception.
Antonioni is one of the greatest adventures in film. Pasolini is the other. The larger point with him is to have an intensely spiritual experience of a whole new storyworld, to that effect he selects myths that we have more or less fixed notions about how they should be (this, Medea, his Gospel film) and films them to have invigorating presence in the now.
Every artistic choice in the film reflects that; the dresses, the swords, the landscapes, the faces, it's all intensely unusual to what you'd expect from Greek myth, seemingly handcarved to be from a preconscious world outside maps and time. The camera also reflects that; he could have plainly asked of a fixed camera and smooth, fixed traveling shots from his crew, but evidently he wants that warm lull of the human hand. It's a different sort of beauty, not in some painted image but in our placement in evocative space.
When Oedipus visits the oracle at Delphii, we do not have sweeping shots of some ornate marble structure as you'd expect in a Hollywood film. A congregation of dustcaked villagers is gathered in a clearing before a group of trees, the oracle is a frightening old crone attended by slender boys in masks. The roads are dusty, interminable ribbons dropped by absent-minded gods. A Berber village in Morocco stands for ancient Thebes. Sudden dances. Silvana Mangano. And those headgear! It's all about extraordinariness in the sense of moving beyond inherited limits of truth.
It works. This is a world of divinity, causal belief, and blind seeing into truth that even though it was fated, we discover anew in the sands.
The sequence where a feverish Oedipus confronts his father at the crossroads will stay with me for a long time, the running, the sun, the distance where tethers are pulled taut.
No one is as cinematically intense as this man, but it's not an ordinary intensity he affects. It does not result from the withholding of narrative or visual information, it is not primarily a dramatic intensity; Lean, Hitchcock, Kurosawa, all did some terrific work in that external mode where we see the struggling human being in the cleanly revealed world of choices and fates.
Pasolini works his way around all that, starting with one of the most archetypal stories. Here we have anticipation, foreknowledge as fate. And of course there is some dramatic intensity in this and others of his films, but that's not what makes him special. He can create heightened worlds that we experience with a real intensity. It goes back to that film movement called Neorealism which thrived in postwar Italy, where the utmost goal was to soak up a more human, more universal conflict as we staggered through broken pieces of the world.
Looking back now it seems stale, we have a much more refined sense of what is real, we can see the conceit of the camera. But two filmmakers emerged from out of this movement who did work in a more radical direction, moving the images closer to perception.
Antonioni is one of the greatest adventures in film. Pasolini is the other. The larger point with him is to have an intensely spiritual experience of a whole new storyworld, to that effect he selects myths that we have more or less fixed notions about how they should be (this, Medea, his Gospel film) and films them to have invigorating presence in the now.
Every artistic choice in the film reflects that; the dresses, the swords, the landscapes, the faces, it's all intensely unusual to what you'd expect from Greek myth, seemingly handcarved to be from a preconscious world outside maps and time. The camera also reflects that; he could have plainly asked of a fixed camera and smooth, fixed traveling shots from his crew, but evidently he wants that warm lull of the human hand. It's a different sort of beauty, not in some painted image but in our placement in evocative space.
When Oedipus visits the oracle at Delphii, we do not have sweeping shots of some ornate marble structure as you'd expect in a Hollywood film. A congregation of dustcaked villagers is gathered in a clearing before a group of trees, the oracle is a frightening old crone attended by slender boys in masks. The roads are dusty, interminable ribbons dropped by absent-minded gods. A Berber village in Morocco stands for ancient Thebes. Sudden dances. Silvana Mangano. And those headgear! It's all about extraordinariness in the sense of moving beyond inherited limits of truth.
It works. This is a world of divinity, causal belief, and blind seeing into truth that even though it was fated, we discover anew in the sands.
The sequence where a feverish Oedipus confronts his father at the crossroads will stay with me for a long time, the running, the sun, the distance where tethers are pulled taut.
Pasolini has taken both Homer and Sophocles as his source, but with a difference!
fisherforrest15 November 2006
Warning: Spoilers
I have heard some say this film, as far as it interprets the old legend, is "a piece of c***". I would not go that far, there are some good bits, but Pasolini's approach to telling a story on film is definitely not to my taste. The editing is rough, some of the actors just seem to walk through, like Silvana Mangano as Iocasta, others, like Pasolini himself as Oedipus seem in a constant manic state. You have to look fast to see Alida Valli as Merope, but her performance is the one I remember with the most pleasure. The camera work is unrelentingly stark to the point of boredom. And why, in the name of Pete, that modern "book-end" at the beginning and the end? No sense at all to it, unless Pasolini is trying to say "this is a story for all ages", but, heck, I already knew that.
The story as Pasolini tells it follows Sophocles fairly well, with touches taken from Homer, but he doesn't mind going off on his own once in a while. If there is anyone who doesn't know the story, don't read any more until you have seen the film (there's an excellent DVD). In Sophocles, after Oedipus finally realises he has killed his father and fathered four children with his mother as his wife, he blinds himself. Pasolini leaves us there by going back to his modern conclusion. Actually, in the legend, his two daughters, Ismene and Antigone (subjects of another play by Sophocles) guide him on his way to Athens where he ultimately dies. I wish Pasolini had at least given us a glimpse of the girls and this journey. Oh, well, just call me a philistine who doesn't appreciate "real art".
The story as Pasolini tells it follows Sophocles fairly well, with touches taken from Homer, but he doesn't mind going off on his own once in a while. If there is anyone who doesn't know the story, don't read any more until you have seen the film (there's an excellent DVD). In Sophocles, after Oedipus finally realises he has killed his father and fathered four children with his mother as his wife, he blinds himself. Pasolini leaves us there by going back to his modern conclusion. Actually, in the legend, his two daughters, Ismene and Antigone (subjects of another play by Sophocles) guide him on his way to Athens where he ultimately dies. I wish Pasolini had at least given us a glimpse of the girls and this journey. Oh, well, just call me a philistine who doesn't appreciate "real art".
Autobiographical sensorium
oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx2 January 2011
This tale of Oedipus starts off and ends in the twentieth century, though for the most part is set in a primitive version of ancient Greece. There is not much rational connection between the stories, but Pasolini manages to forge himself a free pass on that one. Whilst the Oedipus Complex theme of the first story is meant to be taken quite literally, and is basically autobiographical, the middle story, recognisably Sophoclean, is more, in my opinion, meant to be about an angry confused man who cannot stomach his fate nor confront truths about his identity. As both sections do genuinely feel autobiographical they knit together just fine.
The first section of the film set in the 1920s is the best piece of filming I have seen from Pasolini and made me really excited. There's a wide open scene of children running off around a playing field on a hot piercing day, one of those thick childhood days when the emotions battened down the hatches on squire intellect. I was reminded very much of an Edith Sitwell poem (Green Flows the River of Lethe - O):
"I stood near the Cities of the Plains / And the young girls were chasing their hearts like the gay butterflies / Over the fields of summer - / O evanescent velvets fluttering your wings / Like winds and butterflies on the Road from Nothing to Nowhere!"
The sentiment all the more surprisingly apt given that the second part of the film is shot in what could be the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah (the Cities of the Plains) for all we know.
The rage of Oedipus, which occurs frequently in the movie could be liked to another part of the poem:
"But in the summer drought / I fled, for I was a Pillar of Fire, I was destruction / Unquenched, incarnate and incarnadine // I was Annihilation / Yet white as the Dead Sea, white as the Cities of the Plains / For I listened to the noontide and my veins / That threatened thunder and the heart of roses."
Part of Pasolini's drive for shooting the films seems to be to continue his fascination with ancient buildings and ruins which he demonstrated three years earlier in his superb 1964 documentary The Walls of Sana'a for which he travelled to Yemen.
The end of the playing field scene features Jocasta suckling Oedipus. She gazes directly at the camera and thus the audience for a long period, in which she goes through a range of emotions, including what could be arousal, followed by disquiet, which ultimately turns into a distanced understanding. For me this is cinematically equivalent to the Mona Lisa, which is also a gay man's meditation on his mother, greatly cryptic yet provocative, set in against a natural backdrop.
Silvana Mangano, who plays the mother in both parts of the movie (and would star in Pasolini's Teorema the following year), carries a lot of it. Her beauty, her alabaster skin and wispy eyebrows, her perfectly tangled plaits (which would send Fuseli to his knees), are commanding. She has an artistic skill that eclipses that of Franco Citti (Oedipus) and Ninetto Davoli (Thebes' crier) quite totally. Franco Citti's lack of skill, whilst occasionally infuriating in the context of the story (his is not the demeanour of a king) do however lend the film a level of authenticity, given the primary motive of this sequence, which was to demonstrate a pained adolescent fury and denial, which was ignorant at its base.
There's an unusual device of writing characters' thoughts in black lettering on a white background, which doesn't quite work but which would be far better than the presumable alternative of camera-faced soliloquies.
Some of the locations in the movie felt truly dream-like to me, for instance the unkempt walled piazza-garden of Jocasta, the crumbled ruin where Oedipus meets a naked adolescent girl on his peregrinations, the mountainous areas between cities.
The props in the movie are cheap and fantastical but quite brilliant, the wind-blown hands on the milestones to Thebes, the quite bizarre head gear of the Pythoness, the soldiers, and King Laius. Modern producers who delight in throwing money at movies, please note how Pasolini achieves far better results with great economy.
Cultural references abound, my favourite being the Japanese music, which doesn't seem to have been referenced anywhere (there are no closing credits in the movie), but sounded very much like the Toru Takemitsu scores of Ansatsu (Assasination), Woman in the Dunes, and Harakiri.
The story in a strict narrative sense has problems, Citti doesn't convince as any type of king or warrior, giving the appearance of not understanding his lines at some points, and the suicide of Jocasta makes no sense in the wake of her discussions with her son. It is a movie where feeling rather than thinking brings greater rewards.
The first section of the film set in the 1920s is the best piece of filming I have seen from Pasolini and made me really excited. There's a wide open scene of children running off around a playing field on a hot piercing day, one of those thick childhood days when the emotions battened down the hatches on squire intellect. I was reminded very much of an Edith Sitwell poem (Green Flows the River of Lethe - O):
"I stood near the Cities of the Plains / And the young girls were chasing their hearts like the gay butterflies / Over the fields of summer - / O evanescent velvets fluttering your wings / Like winds and butterflies on the Road from Nothing to Nowhere!"
The sentiment all the more surprisingly apt given that the second part of the film is shot in what could be the ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah (the Cities of the Plains) for all we know.
The rage of Oedipus, which occurs frequently in the movie could be liked to another part of the poem:
"But in the summer drought / I fled, for I was a Pillar of Fire, I was destruction / Unquenched, incarnate and incarnadine // I was Annihilation / Yet white as the Dead Sea, white as the Cities of the Plains / For I listened to the noontide and my veins / That threatened thunder and the heart of roses."
Part of Pasolini's drive for shooting the films seems to be to continue his fascination with ancient buildings and ruins which he demonstrated three years earlier in his superb 1964 documentary The Walls of Sana'a for which he travelled to Yemen.
The end of the playing field scene features Jocasta suckling Oedipus. She gazes directly at the camera and thus the audience for a long period, in which she goes through a range of emotions, including what could be arousal, followed by disquiet, which ultimately turns into a distanced understanding. For me this is cinematically equivalent to the Mona Lisa, which is also a gay man's meditation on his mother, greatly cryptic yet provocative, set in against a natural backdrop.
Silvana Mangano, who plays the mother in both parts of the movie (and would star in Pasolini's Teorema the following year), carries a lot of it. Her beauty, her alabaster skin and wispy eyebrows, her perfectly tangled plaits (which would send Fuseli to his knees), are commanding. She has an artistic skill that eclipses that of Franco Citti (Oedipus) and Ninetto Davoli (Thebes' crier) quite totally. Franco Citti's lack of skill, whilst occasionally infuriating in the context of the story (his is not the demeanour of a king) do however lend the film a level of authenticity, given the primary motive of this sequence, which was to demonstrate a pained adolescent fury and denial, which was ignorant at its base.
There's an unusual device of writing characters' thoughts in black lettering on a white background, which doesn't quite work but which would be far better than the presumable alternative of camera-faced soliloquies.
Some of the locations in the movie felt truly dream-like to me, for instance the unkempt walled piazza-garden of Jocasta, the crumbled ruin where Oedipus meets a naked adolescent girl on his peregrinations, the mountainous areas between cities.
The props in the movie are cheap and fantastical but quite brilliant, the wind-blown hands on the milestones to Thebes, the quite bizarre head gear of the Pythoness, the soldiers, and King Laius. Modern producers who delight in throwing money at movies, please note how Pasolini achieves far better results with great economy.
Cultural references abound, my favourite being the Japanese music, which doesn't seem to have been referenced anywhere (there are no closing credits in the movie), but sounded very much like the Toru Takemitsu scores of Ansatsu (Assasination), Woman in the Dunes, and Harakiri.
The story in a strict narrative sense has problems, Citti doesn't convince as any type of king or warrior, giving the appearance of not understanding his lines at some points, and the suicide of Jocasta makes no sense in the wake of her discussions with her son. It is a movie where feeling rather than thinking brings greater rewards.
Oedipus Rex: A scandalous shining work of art
skyalwalker5 April 2019
Warning: Spoilers
Pasolini's Oedipus Rex is a remarkable movie, which has a strong thought-provoking effect on the audience. There is a lot to think about when we watch it either as a laic or as a professional critic. From the highly unusual set, to the divisive acting and the symbols' shades of meaning, the viewer has many details to consider.
Firstly, I would emphasize that Oedipus Rex was not made for every age group. It was pure suffering when I watched the movie first time (I was 14 years old) because I couldn't grasp the artistic elements and the intellectual background. My lack of susceptibility and mature mentality made the whole movie unpalatable for me. In conclusion, I recommend Oedipus Rex to a receptive (most preferably to an adult) audience on account of the movie's unique artistic and complex character.
However the plot itself is easy to follow through the entire film. Its first part comprises the story (or myth) of Oedipus from the point of his recovery by the Corinthian shepherd until he claims the throne of Thebes after the sphinx's defeat. The second part includes the actual story of the sophoclean drama, so the investigation after Laios's murderer, the conflict between Tiresias and Oedipus, Jocasta's and Oedipus's relationship, and there is of course the finale when the cursed king blinds himself as he realises his fulfilled destiny.
After the examination of the plot, the most conspicuous element of Oedipus Rex is the set. Although the movie is ought to be set in the ancient Greece, I found the adaptation too frugal. Officially the scenes were shot in Morocco to make us feel like we truly are in the earliest years of greek culture, but I think Pasolini exaggarated with this kind of scenery. On the one hand, according to historians and geologists, ancient greek environment had more green areas with a wide variety of bushes, and fruit trees. Nonetheless Pasolini depicted a harsh, desert-like place which associates with ancient Egypt, or ancient Mesopotamia, more than ancient Greece. On the other hand, the cities' delapidated condition in the movie do not reflect the real greek city states in that age. Besides in reality the oracle of Delphi was established in the 8th century when a whole building was contructed for her, yet it seems Pasolini chose a minimalistic way of depicting her sitting under a sole tree. So without proper historical surroundings, I couldn't indulge in the film as much as I wanted.
In addition, the costumes were shocking, sometimes scandalous for me. The grotesque crown of Laios and Oedipus was ridiculous, not to mention the soilders' armor, and the ludicrous hats worn by other actors (for example: the hat or mask of Delphi's oracle, or the sphinx's mask). I understand that these were symbols, but I still can't accept such superficial and abstract costume design when a director is tasked with making the adequate adaptation of a most significant and honored ancient drama. I believe Pasolini had put so much of his ideas and conceptions into Oedipus Rex, that the movie lost its visual essence and became a totally different modern mess. All in all, watching these awfully constructed, designed, and furnished scenes was a real misery.
On the contrary, Pasolini had prominent positive ideas, such as the usage of original sophoclean text, and conversations or the innovatively presented metaphors. The drama's genuine phrases and words were implemented fabulously and could neatly fit in the scenes. Moreover, I really appreciated the aforementioned metaphors, like the sphinx and his death (it perfectly represented Oedipus's wrath, pure hopelessness and rage), or the three turns the main hero made when he came across a crossroads while he was wandering in the desert (with this method Oedipus sought to avoid his destiny but nonetheless he ended up in Thebes and couldn't omit his fate). These flashes of genious showed Pasolini's real artist character and they were the only reason I continued on watching Oedipus Rex.
And of course the essence, the core tragedy of Sophocles's drama could be found in the exceptionally beautiful mother-son (king-queen) relationship scenes, as well as in the conflicts and the finale.
To sum it up, I think Oedipus Rex is a truly unique creation with deep metaphors, containment of original elements of the world-famous drama and artistic solutions. However the hideous environment, and the austere set destroyed the whole movie's atmosphere so it is extremely hard to enjoy the film if the audiuence is not prepared for a raw artistic illustration of the world-famous drama.
Firstly, I would emphasize that Oedipus Rex was not made for every age group. It was pure suffering when I watched the movie first time (I was 14 years old) because I couldn't grasp the artistic elements and the intellectual background. My lack of susceptibility and mature mentality made the whole movie unpalatable for me. In conclusion, I recommend Oedipus Rex to a receptive (most preferably to an adult) audience on account of the movie's unique artistic and complex character.
However the plot itself is easy to follow through the entire film. Its first part comprises the story (or myth) of Oedipus from the point of his recovery by the Corinthian shepherd until he claims the throne of Thebes after the sphinx's defeat. The second part includes the actual story of the sophoclean drama, so the investigation after Laios's murderer, the conflict between Tiresias and Oedipus, Jocasta's and Oedipus's relationship, and there is of course the finale when the cursed king blinds himself as he realises his fulfilled destiny.
After the examination of the plot, the most conspicuous element of Oedipus Rex is the set. Although the movie is ought to be set in the ancient Greece, I found the adaptation too frugal. Officially the scenes were shot in Morocco to make us feel like we truly are in the earliest years of greek culture, but I think Pasolini exaggarated with this kind of scenery. On the one hand, according to historians and geologists, ancient greek environment had more green areas with a wide variety of bushes, and fruit trees. Nonetheless Pasolini depicted a harsh, desert-like place which associates with ancient Egypt, or ancient Mesopotamia, more than ancient Greece. On the other hand, the cities' delapidated condition in the movie do not reflect the real greek city states in that age. Besides in reality the oracle of Delphi was established in the 8th century when a whole building was contructed for her, yet it seems Pasolini chose a minimalistic way of depicting her sitting under a sole tree. So without proper historical surroundings, I couldn't indulge in the film as much as I wanted.
In addition, the costumes were shocking, sometimes scandalous for me. The grotesque crown of Laios and Oedipus was ridiculous, not to mention the soilders' armor, and the ludicrous hats worn by other actors (for example: the hat or mask of Delphi's oracle, or the sphinx's mask). I understand that these were symbols, but I still can't accept such superficial and abstract costume design when a director is tasked with making the adequate adaptation of a most significant and honored ancient drama. I believe Pasolini had put so much of his ideas and conceptions into Oedipus Rex, that the movie lost its visual essence and became a totally different modern mess. All in all, watching these awfully constructed, designed, and furnished scenes was a real misery.
On the contrary, Pasolini had prominent positive ideas, such as the usage of original sophoclean text, and conversations or the innovatively presented metaphors. The drama's genuine phrases and words were implemented fabulously and could neatly fit in the scenes. Moreover, I really appreciated the aforementioned metaphors, like the sphinx and his death (it perfectly represented Oedipus's wrath, pure hopelessness and rage), or the three turns the main hero made when he came across a crossroads while he was wandering in the desert (with this method Oedipus sought to avoid his destiny but nonetheless he ended up in Thebes and couldn't omit his fate). These flashes of genious showed Pasolini's real artist character and they were the only reason I continued on watching Oedipus Rex.
And of course the essence, the core tragedy of Sophocles's drama could be found in the exceptionally beautiful mother-son (king-queen) relationship scenes, as well as in the conflicts and the finale.
To sum it up, I think Oedipus Rex is a truly unique creation with deep metaphors, containment of original elements of the world-famous drama and artistic solutions. However the hideous environment, and the austere set destroyed the whole movie's atmosphere so it is extremely hard to enjoy the film if the audiuence is not prepared for a raw artistic illustration of the world-famous drama.
Hauntingly beautiful!
johannes2000-118 April 2020
I was very impressed, I really do think that this is a masterpiece! Pasolini used the original text of Sophocles' tragedy, so the story is tightly knotted, which gives the whole film a tangible urgency. There are, apart from the at times stunning amounts of extra's, only two main actors. Silvana Mangano as Giocasta only appears halfway through the movie and has hardly any lines, but she plays her part impressively by her facial expressions and her stature. Franco Citti as Oedipus is the absolute core of the movie, he dominates the screen with his rugged and fascinating face, he laughs and cries and screams, and all the time stays totally convincing as the self-assured ego-tripping hero, who gradually slips into the awareness that his whole life is based on unspeakable crimes and that he is toyed with by the gods and fate. Some reviewers opinioned he acted way over the top, but I assume it was all deliberately so orchestrated by Pasolini, emphasizing the origin of a Greek tragedy that had to be delivered from an open-air rostrum to a distant audience.
The locations are dazzlingly beautiful, Morocco in fact, not Greece, but it works wonderfully well, as do the weird costumes which look like they were sowed and tinkered by the crew or the many locals themselves, but with the amazing effect of something out of a dream (or nightmare). The musical score is extremely subtle, at many times just the soft bleak rhythmic blows of a single drumstick, with an almost haunting effect.
Strangely enough the prologue and epilogue are set in modern times, this doesn't add anything as far as I'm concerned, but as it was it gives us yet some other beautiful images, with the same vast green lawns and waving tree-tops in the opening and closing scene, completing a perfect circle.
The locations are dazzlingly beautiful, Morocco in fact, not Greece, but it works wonderfully well, as do the weird costumes which look like they were sowed and tinkered by the crew or the many locals themselves, but with the amazing effect of something out of a dream (or nightmare). The musical score is extremely subtle, at many times just the soft bleak rhythmic blows of a single drumstick, with an almost haunting effect.
Strangely enough the prologue and epilogue are set in modern times, this doesn't add anything as far as I'm concerned, but as it was it gives us yet some other beautiful images, with the same vast green lawns and waving tree-tops in the opening and closing scene, completing a perfect circle.
Bend towards the self
davidmvining8 March 2024
Gosh...Pier Paolo Pasolini really hated his father. He would call this his most autobiographical film, but unless he seriously dealt with an Oedipal Complex regarding his mother (which seems doubtful considering his homosexuality, but I'm not a psychologist steeped in the nonsense writings of Sigmund Freud), that autobiographical content seems relegated to the anachronistic bookends of this story of Ancient Greece. Essentially, Pasolini's Oedipus Rex ends up being two films in one: the bookends which directly deal with Pasolini's tumultuous inner life, and the large center, which is a straightforward telling of the story, largely as laid out by Sophocles (though not limited by the Greek rules of drama around place and time).
The opening is set in 1920s Italy with Laius (Luciano Bartoli) as a young Italian military officer whose wife, Jocasta (Silvana Mangano), has given birth to the baby Oedipus. None of these characters are named in the opening, by the way. The antagonism between Laius and Oedipus in this opening isn't about a prophecy of future patricide but out of jealousy over the lost love that Laius feels that Jocasta now directs towards the infant son. When he sends Oedipus off to die, it's done without Jocasta's knowledge, and that's when the film switches time to Ancient Greece (really filmed in Northern Africa) as the King of Thebes' servant takes the young prince into the mountains to die, saved by a servant of King Polybus (Ahmed Blehachmi) whose queen, Merope (Alida Valli), takes him willingly into her home as her own son. Grown up, Oedipus (now played by Franco Citti), is beset by dreams and goes to see the Oracle of Delphi who tells him the prophecy of murdering his father and bedding his mother. Thinking that Polybus and Merope are his real parents, he refuses to go back to Corinth, heading towards Thebes where he meets Laius on the road, killing him and his party, and making it to Thebes where he kills the Sphinx plaguing the city, gaining the right to marry Jocasta.
It's really a straightforward telling of the background of the Oedipal story. The play by Sophocles was limited by the rules of time and place (also action) as laid out by Plato in Poetics, and it's really limited to the twenty-four hour period where Oedipus has to deal with the curse on Thebes, only able to be lifted by the death or exile of the man who killed Laius. It's an investigation done through witness testimony that leads Oedipus to realize his own guilt that seems to obvious on its face but he was unwilling to see because it meant that he would have to give up everything, that he was living a terrible lie, and that the prophecy that he had tried to avoid he had fulfilled in that attempt.
All of that is captured here by Pasolini, though he stretches time and action to happen longer than a mere day with events occurring outside of the immediate vicinity of the court. One of the things that I've grown to really appreciate about Pasolini is his propensity to simply filming outside. It's amazing how much better things can look when you film in front of a thousand year old stone structure rather than stretching a miniscule budget to try and build something approximating it. It's amazing how great a frame can look when one goes outside to take in the countryside with one's subject at the center of it all. It was obvious in The Gospel According to Matthew that Pasolini knew that if he was going to film outside in the country, he was going to take full advantage of it visually, but it's been clear from his first film, Accattone, limited to the confines of Roman streets, that he wanted to bring in more than just his actors into focus. Here, using color for the first time, Pasolini's frame is bursting with detail in pleasing compositions in exotic locales. It's a great looking film.
The investigation plays out without much variation from Sophocles' play. Witnesses are brought in who reveal little bits of information about the murder of Laius on the road, Oedipus refuses to make the logical connections himself, requiring more detail from more witnesses before he can come to accept it himself. Jocasta figures it along with him, taking extreme measures to clear herself of the incestuous situation she's been in for more than a decade, and Oedipus takes his famous last measure to rob himself of sight for what he'd done.
And then the film jumps time again to contemporary Rome where a blind Oedipus (no longer with gouged out eyes, simply blinded some other way) is led around to play his flute by Angelo (Ninetto Davoli), the modern version of the messenger who greeted Oedipus to Thebes. Pasolini repeats something he did in The Hawks and the Sparrows by including some real-world footage, this time of striking workers in Italy, a sight that, while Oedipus can't see it, frightens him.
If we take Pasolini's word that the film is autobiographical, then I think I have to take this final section in a similar way as the finale to The Hawks and the Sparrows, meaning that it's a reflection of a Marxist thinker who sees the world he had wanted to change changing in ways that he didn't expect, leaving his ideology behind (to paraphrase the crow in the previous film). How this actually relates to the story of Oedipus Rex, though, is beyond me, making me feel like the bookends and the actual meat of the film are essentially two different works sandwiched together, Pasolini taking a story with passing direct relation to his own life and using the bookends to make it more self-reflective than the actual story of Oedipus.
I think that contrast is my central issue with the film. I think it's overall a good film, it's just that these three sections clash against each other. The story of Oedipus is well-told with beautiful cinematography. The bookends are interesting regarding the biography of Pasolini (though the opening works better than the ending), but they seem only tangentially related to the actual tale of Oedipus.
So, it's a good film that Pasolini bent towards himself in a way that doesn't mess with the actual story, leaving that largely alone, but framing in a way that's intensely personal, even if it doesn't quite fit. Well, it's certainly better than a bad take.
The opening is set in 1920s Italy with Laius (Luciano Bartoli) as a young Italian military officer whose wife, Jocasta (Silvana Mangano), has given birth to the baby Oedipus. None of these characters are named in the opening, by the way. The antagonism between Laius and Oedipus in this opening isn't about a prophecy of future patricide but out of jealousy over the lost love that Laius feels that Jocasta now directs towards the infant son. When he sends Oedipus off to die, it's done without Jocasta's knowledge, and that's when the film switches time to Ancient Greece (really filmed in Northern Africa) as the King of Thebes' servant takes the young prince into the mountains to die, saved by a servant of King Polybus (Ahmed Blehachmi) whose queen, Merope (Alida Valli), takes him willingly into her home as her own son. Grown up, Oedipus (now played by Franco Citti), is beset by dreams and goes to see the Oracle of Delphi who tells him the prophecy of murdering his father and bedding his mother. Thinking that Polybus and Merope are his real parents, he refuses to go back to Corinth, heading towards Thebes where he meets Laius on the road, killing him and his party, and making it to Thebes where he kills the Sphinx plaguing the city, gaining the right to marry Jocasta.
It's really a straightforward telling of the background of the Oedipal story. The play by Sophocles was limited by the rules of time and place (also action) as laid out by Plato in Poetics, and it's really limited to the twenty-four hour period where Oedipus has to deal with the curse on Thebes, only able to be lifted by the death or exile of the man who killed Laius. It's an investigation done through witness testimony that leads Oedipus to realize his own guilt that seems to obvious on its face but he was unwilling to see because it meant that he would have to give up everything, that he was living a terrible lie, and that the prophecy that he had tried to avoid he had fulfilled in that attempt.
All of that is captured here by Pasolini, though he stretches time and action to happen longer than a mere day with events occurring outside of the immediate vicinity of the court. One of the things that I've grown to really appreciate about Pasolini is his propensity to simply filming outside. It's amazing how much better things can look when you film in front of a thousand year old stone structure rather than stretching a miniscule budget to try and build something approximating it. It's amazing how great a frame can look when one goes outside to take in the countryside with one's subject at the center of it all. It was obvious in The Gospel According to Matthew that Pasolini knew that if he was going to film outside in the country, he was going to take full advantage of it visually, but it's been clear from his first film, Accattone, limited to the confines of Roman streets, that he wanted to bring in more than just his actors into focus. Here, using color for the first time, Pasolini's frame is bursting with detail in pleasing compositions in exotic locales. It's a great looking film.
The investigation plays out without much variation from Sophocles' play. Witnesses are brought in who reveal little bits of information about the murder of Laius on the road, Oedipus refuses to make the logical connections himself, requiring more detail from more witnesses before he can come to accept it himself. Jocasta figures it along with him, taking extreme measures to clear herself of the incestuous situation she's been in for more than a decade, and Oedipus takes his famous last measure to rob himself of sight for what he'd done.
And then the film jumps time again to contemporary Rome where a blind Oedipus (no longer with gouged out eyes, simply blinded some other way) is led around to play his flute by Angelo (Ninetto Davoli), the modern version of the messenger who greeted Oedipus to Thebes. Pasolini repeats something he did in The Hawks and the Sparrows by including some real-world footage, this time of striking workers in Italy, a sight that, while Oedipus can't see it, frightens him.
If we take Pasolini's word that the film is autobiographical, then I think I have to take this final section in a similar way as the finale to The Hawks and the Sparrows, meaning that it's a reflection of a Marxist thinker who sees the world he had wanted to change changing in ways that he didn't expect, leaving his ideology behind (to paraphrase the crow in the previous film). How this actually relates to the story of Oedipus Rex, though, is beyond me, making me feel like the bookends and the actual meat of the film are essentially two different works sandwiched together, Pasolini taking a story with passing direct relation to his own life and using the bookends to make it more self-reflective than the actual story of Oedipus.
I think that contrast is my central issue with the film. I think it's overall a good film, it's just that these three sections clash against each other. The story of Oedipus is well-told with beautiful cinematography. The bookends are interesting regarding the biography of Pasolini (though the opening works better than the ending), but they seem only tangentially related to the actual tale of Oedipus.
So, it's a good film that Pasolini bent towards himself in a way that doesn't mess with the actual story, leaving that largely alone, but framing in a way that's intensely personal, even if it doesn't quite fit. Well, it's certainly better than a bad take.
Authenticity is not the issue
returning3 October 2004
We do ourselves no favour by fixating on how well a film uses every little detail and line in an original text. Certainly, by those standards this is a mediocre, and possibly lazy, film at best. But at the same time there is the problem of being so liberal in one's adaptation that every goes sour, the latest attempt at "Vanity Fair" is a perfect example. But this film, along with Bresson's "Pickpocket," should stand as the rules of adaptation for every young director. Both films are very interpretative, but the directors aren't so naive as to think that mere plot details can constitute a film. So what pushes this film beyond a mere surface-level adaptation? In this case, it takes a deep insight into the nature of Greek tragedy itself. Tragedy's dualism (the representational and the chaotic) is prevalent in all Pasolini's works, it was especially essential in his "Gospel," and I was excited to see how it played out in its own source, and the results are absolutely fantastic. Visually imaginative and so intellectually superior to its contemporaries it seems out of place in film.
5 out of 5 - Essential
5 out of 5 - Essential
Excellent Film as Art
DAHLRUSSELL25 September 2006
This film is possibly the most brilliant - color - film AS ART that I I have ever seen. It combines beautiful and fascinating poetic color visuals, unusual landscapes and locations with the classic story of Oedipus.
The story is told with very little dialog, (subtitles for the dialog where present) and this enhances the internal, primal feeling of the piece. Pasolini was often compared to Fellini, but I feel he is much better, because he uses his visuals always to advance and to the purpose of the story. To me Fellini's visuals were often purposeless antic oddity. Here, any ambiguity is not in the story, but in character motivation, which lends modern reality and immediacy to the whole.
The acting style combines the classic Greek use of stylized mannerisms and mask work seamlessly with smaller modern film acting. The setting transitions from 1960s Italy to a primitive/tribal landscape which lends itself beautifully to the timeless/ancient feeling of the Greek story. An example of detail: tribal body painting is used to represent both a ritual queen in shades of Elizabeth R, to the whiteness of a plague death; the costume designs are a combination of rustic and Egyptian/Papal religious.
Cast mainly with little known actors, the big name actor in this film was international star Alida Valli, who has only two or three brief scenes. Her talent is fairly wasted here, but her presence is riveting as the aging, childless queen. (Valli: A brilliant Italian actress who had a brief career here in the 40s-50s, then returned to Italy/Europe, and balanced her commercial work in slashers with more oddball artistically challenging work. Her work often embodies "excess within control," the dichotomy of superficial clam with seething internal emotion. PARADINE CASE, THE THIRD MAN, THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS, CASSANDRA CROSSING, EYES WITHOUT A FACE, SENSO, WALK SOFTLY STRANGER.) This film is the kind of work I would hope to be a part of as an actress and artist. This film could easily be in theatres today and be even more appreciated now than it was at the time of its making.
Theatrically literate, visually stunning, gutsy, and intelligent. Enjoy!
The story is told with very little dialog, (subtitles for the dialog where present) and this enhances the internal, primal feeling of the piece. Pasolini was often compared to Fellini, but I feel he is much better, because he uses his visuals always to advance and to the purpose of the story. To me Fellini's visuals were often purposeless antic oddity. Here, any ambiguity is not in the story, but in character motivation, which lends modern reality and immediacy to the whole.
The acting style combines the classic Greek use of stylized mannerisms and mask work seamlessly with smaller modern film acting. The setting transitions from 1960s Italy to a primitive/tribal landscape which lends itself beautifully to the timeless/ancient feeling of the Greek story. An example of detail: tribal body painting is used to represent both a ritual queen in shades of Elizabeth R, to the whiteness of a plague death; the costume designs are a combination of rustic and Egyptian/Papal religious.
Cast mainly with little known actors, the big name actor in this film was international star Alida Valli, who has only two or three brief scenes. Her talent is fairly wasted here, but her presence is riveting as the aging, childless queen. (Valli: A brilliant Italian actress who had a brief career here in the 40s-50s, then returned to Italy/Europe, and balanced her commercial work in slashers with more oddball artistically challenging work. Her work often embodies "excess within control," the dichotomy of superficial clam with seething internal emotion. PARADINE CASE, THE THIRD MAN, THE MIRACLE OF THE BELLS, CASSANDRA CROSSING, EYES WITHOUT A FACE, SENSO, WALK SOFTLY STRANGER.) This film is the kind of work I would hope to be a part of as an actress and artist. This film could easily be in theatres today and be even more appreciated now than it was at the time of its making.
Theatrically literate, visually stunning, gutsy, and intelligent. Enjoy!
Superficially impressive but a desecration of the Greek from which it claims its heritage
Chris_Docker25 December 2019
Bookended by the modern world, Pasolini then transplants classical drama to North Africa. The Sphinx and the Oracle at Delphi are portrayed as slightly ridiculous primitive figures and Oedipus, instead of being an upright individual who commits horrendous acts unknowingly, is a rather unsympathetic character. Sophocles' syuzhet is replaced with a more manageable chronological fabula yet the subtlety of the ancient drama is lost. Must-see bits of gore and sex are amplified yet in one interview Pasolini even admitted that he didn't understand what some of the original text was about - text which he leaves unattributed even if he helps himself to it once Oedipus gets to Thebes. Superficially arty and impressive, this is sadly a major disappointment from the hands of a great director.
Oedipus the Psycho
aliasanythingyouwant9 July 2005
Warning: Spoilers
Pasolini's Oedipus Rex is a crazy, brutish parade of primitivism, psychosis and weird head-gear - the play as Sophocles himself might've mounted it were he under the influence of some strong hallucinogen. This is one of Pasolini's favorite pastimes, the staging of old literary works as nut-job pageants suffused with a genuine feel for the random craziness of ritual, the sense of people adorning themselves in keeping with impenetrably bizarre superstitious imperatives. The array of outlandish head-wear in this movie would be enough for a museum - three-foot-tall cylindrical gold crowns; helmets composed of curved iron segments dangling from the brim of a saucer-shaped hat; garlands of woven straw worn not horizontally around the skull but vertically ringing the face. Even the Oracle of Delphi gets in on the act, sporting a tall snow-man-shaped pottery-mask-looking contraption with a sprig of vegetation sticking out the top. It's as if ancient life were nothing but one big act of head-wear oneupmanship.
The play survives intact despite Pasolini's odd-ball preoccupations. The director's favorite Cro-Magnon thespian, Franco Citti, portrays the hapless Oedipus, while the formidable Silvana Mangano tackles the role of Jocasta, Oedy's self-absorbed mother/wife. The melodrama plays out with all its earth-shaking inevitability, following Oedipus from foundling to patricidal loon to incestuous king to blind wandering fool; Pasolini staging the action so bluntly, so rawly, that we could be watching an ancient performance captured by curious aliens with movie-cameras. The acting as usual is variable. Citti, a physically striking if technically inept actor, creates an Oedipus who seems completely free of snappy psychological accoutrement - an Oedipus who is, quite literally, an over-grown child. As Jocasta, Mangano displays the kind of subtle technical command that Citti utterly lacks, but doesn't have enough scenes to really bring forth a character (Pasolini uses her mostly as an embodiment of overwhelming feminine presence, much as he did Maria Callas in Medea, the companion-piece to Oedipus). There's very little that's subtle about the way Pasolini attacks the central psychological issues of Oedipus, the stuff that has made for one psychiatric treatise after another since the days of Freud. The emotions are splashed all over the screen in typically unrestrained Pasolini fashion. Oedipus is a ranting lunatic; the scene where he kills his father, Laius the King of Thebes, is a homicidal tantrum to make Travis Bickle blush. Citti is not a commanding enough actor to give his scenes any real melodramatic weight, but this doesn't matter given that Pasolini is less interested in melodrama than he is in conveying the idea of psychosis as a kind of universal human condition. This is not Oedipus the grand tragic figure, this is Oedipus the psychopath. There is little in this character that could be described as redeeming - he's a cowardly, childish, mindlessly violent hypocrite. He wears a false beard to show that he's a false king, and after he blinds himself, so he will no longer have to look upon the horrors he himself has been guilty of unleashing, Pasolini transports him to the modern world for a sort of ironic coda that, like the central juxtaposition in his semi-masterpiece Porcile, makes explicit his point about modern humanity's inability to escape its own primal urges.
This isn't Intro to Greek Literature Sophocles, it's a mining of Sophocles for the kind of brutishness that turns Pasolini's crank. The question one must ask again is, How the hell does Pasolini get away with it? Why does the kind of material that would seem the stuff of exploitation and rank tastelessness in another director's hand become, in Pasolini's, the stuff of primitive/modern art? There's nothing particularly beautiful in the images, except for the savage beauty of the prehistoric settings. There's almost none of that high-culture flush that symbolists like Fellini and Bergman were able to give their film-buff-coddling "masterpieces." The secret must be in Pasolini's straight-forwardness, his complete lack of moral pretense. He's one of the few directors I can think of who could get away with turning Oedipus into an example of humanity's inherently psychotic nature and still not come across like a high-minded putz. He tears Oedipus Rex down from the realm of stodgy high-culture and re-envisions it as a cry of psychopathic rage, set in a world as inscrutable as the mind.
The play survives intact despite Pasolini's odd-ball preoccupations. The director's favorite Cro-Magnon thespian, Franco Citti, portrays the hapless Oedipus, while the formidable Silvana Mangano tackles the role of Jocasta, Oedy's self-absorbed mother/wife. The melodrama plays out with all its earth-shaking inevitability, following Oedipus from foundling to patricidal loon to incestuous king to blind wandering fool; Pasolini staging the action so bluntly, so rawly, that we could be watching an ancient performance captured by curious aliens with movie-cameras. The acting as usual is variable. Citti, a physically striking if technically inept actor, creates an Oedipus who seems completely free of snappy psychological accoutrement - an Oedipus who is, quite literally, an over-grown child. As Jocasta, Mangano displays the kind of subtle technical command that Citti utterly lacks, but doesn't have enough scenes to really bring forth a character (Pasolini uses her mostly as an embodiment of overwhelming feminine presence, much as he did Maria Callas in Medea, the companion-piece to Oedipus). There's very little that's subtle about the way Pasolini attacks the central psychological issues of Oedipus, the stuff that has made for one psychiatric treatise after another since the days of Freud. The emotions are splashed all over the screen in typically unrestrained Pasolini fashion. Oedipus is a ranting lunatic; the scene where he kills his father, Laius the King of Thebes, is a homicidal tantrum to make Travis Bickle blush. Citti is not a commanding enough actor to give his scenes any real melodramatic weight, but this doesn't matter given that Pasolini is less interested in melodrama than he is in conveying the idea of psychosis as a kind of universal human condition. This is not Oedipus the grand tragic figure, this is Oedipus the psychopath. There is little in this character that could be described as redeeming - he's a cowardly, childish, mindlessly violent hypocrite. He wears a false beard to show that he's a false king, and after he blinds himself, so he will no longer have to look upon the horrors he himself has been guilty of unleashing, Pasolini transports him to the modern world for a sort of ironic coda that, like the central juxtaposition in his semi-masterpiece Porcile, makes explicit his point about modern humanity's inability to escape its own primal urges.
This isn't Intro to Greek Literature Sophocles, it's a mining of Sophocles for the kind of brutishness that turns Pasolini's crank. The question one must ask again is, How the hell does Pasolini get away with it? Why does the kind of material that would seem the stuff of exploitation and rank tastelessness in another director's hand become, in Pasolini's, the stuff of primitive/modern art? There's nothing particularly beautiful in the images, except for the savage beauty of the prehistoric settings. There's almost none of that high-culture flush that symbolists like Fellini and Bergman were able to give their film-buff-coddling "masterpieces." The secret must be in Pasolini's straight-forwardness, his complete lack of moral pretense. He's one of the few directors I can think of who could get away with turning Oedipus into an example of humanity's inherently psychotic nature and still not come across like a high-minded putz. He tears Oedipus Rex down from the realm of stodgy high-culture and re-envisions it as a cry of psychopathic rage, set in a world as inscrutable as the mind.
"I projected psychoanalysis onto the myth" (Pasolini)
hasosch23 February 2009
Warning: Spoilers
Like in other Pasolini movies, we have here two parallel told stories: There is a first "Oedipus", in the 20ies of the 20th century, a baby is nursed by his beautiful mother, sitting on a meadow. His father is afraid that the baby will steal his love. Then there is the second "Oedipus", based on Sophocles, but very freely interpreted by Pasolini, both what concerns the landscape (Southern Italy, Maroque) and the costumes, as well as the original texts (Pasolini shows parts of "Oedipus on Kolonos"). Otherwise, we are told here the mystic story of Oedipus, who is left by his parents, grows up with the king of Korinthos, gets to kill his father and to marry his mother, being fully unaware of what he is doing: he is doomed. At the end, the first Oedipus is coming back: As a blind beggar (the mystic Oedipus was blinded on his own wish) he sits in front of the cathedral of Bologna, is accompanied by a young boy and seeks that meadow where the movie started.
"Edipo Re" (1967) is one of those films by P.P. Pasolin about which we have extensive comments by the author and film director. Pasolini considered this film autobiographic, being himself that baby on that meadow suckling the milk from his beautiful mother's breast and causing unintentionally his fascist-fathers hatred. He made himself responsible for the death of him whom he loved and hated at the same time. Also, in this picture, there is the complicated relationship of the gay-man towards his mother which Pasolini called "latent". Pasolini wrote that he intended a completely metaphorical and mysticized autobiography, but instead of projecting the myth onto psychoanalysis, he would project psychoanalysis on the myth. So, there is only to say that we know Pasolini's mother Susanna from several of her son's movies in which she played minor, but often crucial roles - in the "Gospel according to St. Matthew" she was the old Marie ... .
"Edipo Re" (1967) is one of those films by P.P. Pasolin about which we have extensive comments by the author and film director. Pasolini considered this film autobiographic, being himself that baby on that meadow suckling the milk from his beautiful mother's breast and causing unintentionally his fascist-fathers hatred. He made himself responsible for the death of him whom he loved and hated at the same time. Also, in this picture, there is the complicated relationship of the gay-man towards his mother which Pasolini called "latent". Pasolini wrote that he intended a completely metaphorical and mysticized autobiography, but instead of projecting the myth onto psychoanalysis, he would project psychoanalysis on the myth. So, there is only to say that we know Pasolini's mother Susanna from several of her son's movies in which she played minor, but often crucial roles - in the "Gospel according to St. Matthew" she was the old Marie ... .
Pasolini and Ancient Greece
mariammansuryan31 July 2018
Warning: Spoilers
It really helps when you know the myth of Oedipus. You understand the story much better and can more easily follow the stages of madness of Oedipus.
For Greeks, it was not a dishonor to make fun of their Gods, as many did in comedies. But it certainly was a dishonor not to recognize their power. The Gods were so powerful for the Greeks that they could tell you their horrific prophecies and you would still have the same fate despite this. I think the work really encapsulated all of Greek theatre in it. There were people in masks and crowds representing the chorus that in a hidden way was the protagonist narrator of the story back BC. There was a protagonist in his hero's journey and the story was practically the same.
One difference was how Pasolini blended the modern times with the antiquity of Greece. Truly amazing how the film starts and end by the same sequence: spinning around, looking up at the treetops, and end with the finite horizon of the green valley. This shows that even though the times have changed and now instead of carriages people travel in cars, and even though Oedipus is not truly blind, nothing has really changed. It's the same journey in the hero's head.
This also very strongly links with Pasolini's Porcile (Pigsty) for me. The same combination of modernity and antiquity to begin with, however there, the world is parallel. I would even go as far as to say that Julian was none else but Oedipus. He says he killed his father, ate human flesh and is still full of joy. So was Oedipus. He was full of joy at the end, when he was blind, couldn't see anything and wanted to hear nothing, he didn't belong in this world.
Another striking similarity is the carriage that appears in both these films. There is a certain irony in that too because in Porcile there are three women following the carriage instead of men, but still, nothing is different. And Julian still kills his father, that is what his modern self is referring to. And when I was reviewing Porcile, I wasn't sure what the pigs represented. But now I think I know. The pigs are the chorus, the Gods or the society. The pigs are the silent narrators of the story yet again.
The portrayal of modern man in both those films is very similar too. He's lost, as if he lives in the past reality and is consumed by the business of the modern world. Deep inside he is still the same man, the same hero undergoing the same journey. The boy is not actually eaten by pigs, but rather hung from the cross in Porcile. And Oedipus truly does lose his sight despite having eyes. There is even a certain feeling that fate is truly predisposed before a child is even born.
Another motif in both those films was the musical instrument. In Procile, father of Julian plays the harp that seems to be controlling the world with his Nazi German magic wand. In Rex, Oedipus plays the reedpipe, and I noticed that the sound of this reedpipe recurs through the entire movie many times. It's like all those people are music that a god or gods control, and they don't even know about it.
Overall a really cool film, I liked most of the things about it.
For Greeks, it was not a dishonor to make fun of their Gods, as many did in comedies. But it certainly was a dishonor not to recognize their power. The Gods were so powerful for the Greeks that they could tell you their horrific prophecies and you would still have the same fate despite this. I think the work really encapsulated all of Greek theatre in it. There were people in masks and crowds representing the chorus that in a hidden way was the protagonist narrator of the story back BC. There was a protagonist in his hero's journey and the story was practically the same.
One difference was how Pasolini blended the modern times with the antiquity of Greece. Truly amazing how the film starts and end by the same sequence: spinning around, looking up at the treetops, and end with the finite horizon of the green valley. This shows that even though the times have changed and now instead of carriages people travel in cars, and even though Oedipus is not truly blind, nothing has really changed. It's the same journey in the hero's head.
This also very strongly links with Pasolini's Porcile (Pigsty) for me. The same combination of modernity and antiquity to begin with, however there, the world is parallel. I would even go as far as to say that Julian was none else but Oedipus. He says he killed his father, ate human flesh and is still full of joy. So was Oedipus. He was full of joy at the end, when he was blind, couldn't see anything and wanted to hear nothing, he didn't belong in this world.
Another striking similarity is the carriage that appears in both these films. There is a certain irony in that too because in Porcile there are three women following the carriage instead of men, but still, nothing is different. And Julian still kills his father, that is what his modern self is referring to. And when I was reviewing Porcile, I wasn't sure what the pigs represented. But now I think I know. The pigs are the chorus, the Gods or the society. The pigs are the silent narrators of the story yet again.
The portrayal of modern man in both those films is very similar too. He's lost, as if he lives in the past reality and is consumed by the business of the modern world. Deep inside he is still the same man, the same hero undergoing the same journey. The boy is not actually eaten by pigs, but rather hung from the cross in Porcile. And Oedipus truly does lose his sight despite having eyes. There is even a certain feeling that fate is truly predisposed before a child is even born.
Another motif in both those films was the musical instrument. In Procile, father of Julian plays the harp that seems to be controlling the world with his Nazi German magic wand. In Rex, Oedipus plays the reedpipe, and I noticed that the sound of this reedpipe recurs through the entire movie many times. It's like all those people are music that a god or gods control, and they don't even know about it.
Overall a really cool film, I liked most of the things about it.
Il Naturalismo del mito
frcata27 March 2022
Uno dei migliori film di Pasolini. Il mito è ricomposto al meglio, con il solito grande naturalismo, con la consueta attenzione alla scenografia, alle musiche (entrambi molto impregnati di significati aggiuntivi), alla dimensione del dramma profondo del protagonista.
Il prologo e l'epilogo sono due pezzi del mosaico incastonati alla perfezione. Poi ci sono ovviamente anche la bravura elevata di Franco Citti e la bellezza tagliente di Silvana Mangano.
Qui Pasolini raggiunge un punto molto alto nella sua ricerca dell'arcaico facendoci toccare direttamente con mano un dramma che dovrebbe essere mitico, quindi irraggiungibile.
Il prologo e l'epilogo sono due pezzi del mosaico incastonati alla perfezione. Poi ci sono ovviamente anche la bravura elevata di Franco Citti e la bellezza tagliente di Silvana Mangano.
Qui Pasolini raggiunge un punto molto alto nella sua ricerca dell'arcaico facendoci toccare direttamente con mano un dramma che dovrebbe essere mitico, quindi irraggiungibile.
Pasolinis worst movie
Magicnet211 June 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I believe this movie, Edipo Re, to be the worst movie Pasolini ever made. I kind of like his other films, but this one is unbelievable. As already said, the characters speak their lines as if they were on a stage, trying to give it too much of a feeling and effect, making the dialogues and Oedipus' monologues especially, very annoying to me. Sometimes the actors tried too hard and sometimes they seemed as if they were just cold machines with no feelings at all. And the fact, that half of the time someone, but mostly Oedipus is screaming as if they would torture him, was extremely disturbing me. Actually the first time I watched it, I had to stop it somewhere in the half of the movie. I finished it only a bit later. The actors' performances were under my opinion weak. It may surprise you all, but I give it just 2 stars meaning "very weak" and that only because it carries the name Pier Paolo Pasolini. If it would be someone else's movie and if it would be possible on this site I'd give it a straight 0, what would mean "totally dreadful".
"haunting experience"
butterfinger16 October 2004
Oedipus Rex: Oedipus Rex is a haunting experience. The final scene on the city streets is enchanting. The scene in which Oedipus kills three Roman guards is one of the finest tapestries of tension and viscera in cinema. The acting isn't worth mentioning; this film is Pasolini's triumph. It is mainly a triumph of striking and occasionally nauseating imagery. The shifts in time periods are rather tacky and simplistic in retrospect; they are done so gracefully though. The conclusion is pulled together with beautifully written dialogue that only Paolo Pasolini could deliver. The film is not one that is easily forgotten and is sure to be remembered for a long time.
Read the play, then see the film.
nnad29 January 2001
Sophocles' Oedipus Rex is adapted well for the foreign screen. Pasolini, better known for the controversial Salo; 120 Days of Sodom, has kept the intensity level to a minimum while still presenting the perverse qualities for which he would be known for. If you don't know the story (like who doesn't) read the play before seeing the movie - there tends to be a shortage on literature freaks these days. Beautifully filmed, Oedipus Rex begins in modern times, continues sometime BC, and finally ends back in the 20th century; thus presenting a sociological thesis for the viewer. The acting is a bit hammy (seeing Oedipus with a mad streak can be over the top) although the characters are developed well and recite their lines as if on stage. My only complaint is the subtitles seem to blend in with the scenery --- white subtitles against a white background. Therefore, this flaw makes it difficult to enjoy some scenes, and Pasolini's poetry is usually superb. Nevertheless, it's still a great film and is worth a look, especially by people with preconceived hatred for Pasolini's later work -and there's definitely a lot out there.
the meanings
Kirpianuscus8 August 2016
one of films who remands. the rules of Greek tragedy. the limits of interpretation. the manner to use the myth as contemporary mirror. the art of Piero della Francesca. the conflict between past and present. a film of actors. because each trace of acting defines not the vision of Pasolini about the fate of king from Thebes but its search of truth. the truth - basis of all. Edipo re impress. for atmosphere, for costumes and the use of myth.the eyes of Franco Citti. the presence of Silvana Mangano. the first scenes who are parts from a possible Visconti. the end as warning about the price of fight against yourself. Edipo re is support for reflection. not a new version of well known myth because the important details of myth are insignificant. not example of high art. because it is far to be a show. it is only exploration of meanings. and the sketch about different forms of pride and sacrifice. looking for authenticity. precise definition of life.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
