The Canterbury Tales

When I was going to see "Canterbury Tales", I knew Pasolini was infamous director who made crazy films, that weren't for everyone's taste.When I saw it. It was one of those movie experiences that change the way you see films. It's not that I loved this film, I don't see how I can use word "love" here. It's just that from the beginning to the end I couldn't believe my eyes. Sequence after sequence, the movie became one of the most original films I ever seen in my life. Wife having sex standing on her husband's shoulders, woman farting in the face of the young boy who loves her, drunken man, p***ing on dining people, giant ass, that defecates with demons, it's shocking, yes, but it's not the point. The point is,we believe every single thing we see on the screen. Of course, it's because Pasolini uses natural lightning, unprofessional actors, and partly because when there is fucking on the screen, it's not simulation, it's real f**king (what other film can be classified as "porn", and also have Oscar-winning costume designer in its credits?). But it's not the reason. I always admired Pasolini, because he was one of those people, who make others respect them, who have remained hip even twenty years after they are dead. And being this incredibly fascinating person, he could put part of the magic that made him the person he was into his movies.

This movie is second of Pasolini's so called 'Trilogy of Love' (Il Decameron, I Racconti di Canterbury, Il fiore di mille e una notte; 1970-1974). All these movies are quite specific, there are said not to be that provocative or intriguing. They are greatly influenced by the fact that while directing them Pasolini was contented because of his intimate relationship with the 'innocent barbarian', actor Ninetto Davoli. It is also said that in 'Trilogy of Love' Pasolini became resigned to the present time world by escaping to the past.

However I don't think it's true. In these movies, Pasolini introduces to the audience an incorrupt world where people don't care about 'material aspects of life', they try to live at the full stretch, they seek love and, of course, sex and they do not respect 'the repressive limits imposed by religious and bourgeois morality' (Gino Moliterno). This is probably why Pasolini later declared that these three films were most ideological of his career (in his famous and long interview with Massimo Fini). I suppose Pasolini tried to confront such 'primitive' world with the world he had lived in and which he had hated so much (this confrontation is present all the time, especially by the contrast between the love and the death, by the contrast between the first tales, in which the human naked body dominates, and the last two tales in which pursuit of money causes death and perdition. Because of such end it is also suggested that I Racconti di Canterbury are very close to Pasolini's disillusioned last movie, Saló).

It is common to hear that Chaucer must have rolled over in his grave after this movie was released. But if you try to understand The Canterbury Tales in the context of Chaucer's attitude towards love in his (other) literary works, you will probably find that Chaucer would resemble to Pasolini alias Mr Chaucer ends the film with writing 'Here end the Canterbury Tales, told for the mere pleasure of their telling, Amen'.

This is the second in Pasolini's series of setting classic bawdy tales to film… In this case, he selected eight of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, including the infamous miller's tale and the incident with the red hot poker kiss…

The tales revolve around a group of pilgrims who are journeying to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket of Canterbury… The trip is so boring that they begin telling each other stories that soon get obscene, gory and very sexy… Pasolini adds another motif to his visualization by placing Chaucer himself into the movie, periodically cutting to him writing at his desk...

Pasolini inserts pleasure and amusement at social customs, especially marriage… Some of the stories are funny, others are deadly serious… The scene where a young man is burned for making love to another of his own sex, for example, is chilling...

In fact, Pasolini's using non professional actors, is more in keeping with the tone of the original than the usual romanticized versions...

Continuing his 'Trilogy of Life' cycle exploring medieval literature, The Canterbury Tales by Pier Paolo Pasolini, delves into some of the tales weaved within Geoffrey Chaucer's famous stories. It explores the myriad sexual depravities and allusions with bawdy gusto, featuring almost every perversion known, from voyeurism, flagellation, homosexuality, to even the "love" of a watermelon. The disparate, prurient tales are interwoven with Pasolini plays Chaucer here at his writing desk, imaging his lasciviousness upon villagers. There is even a strange comic interlude paying homage to Charlie Chaplin, in the form of Pasolini regular, Ninetto Davoli.

Whilst the visual style is similar to The Decameron (1970 - Dante Feretti again is art director), the stories do not intertwine as well here, which could create some confusion in the viewer. With a largely British cast (including Tom Baker, Hugh Griffith, Jeeny Runacre, and even Robin Askwith), the film film sometimes feels like a slightly less repressed 1970's British sex comedy (Carry On Canterbury, if you like). With its delight in sexual promiscuity and perversion, it is certainly one of Pasolini's less than intellectual affairs, and even fails to humour. Unless of course your funny bone is easily pleased by fart jokes.

With a bizarre finale set in hell (its visual design clearly inspired by the painting of Hieronymus Bosch), we see an over-sized Satan shitting out some plebeian folks, to the obscene delight of those scattered round the pits. Whilst this incredibly short ending is disgustingly joyous, it fails to save a very scatological film, that vies more towards the crass than the enlightening.

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Making a film about the Canterbuy Tales, one that lasts one to two hours, presents one with the decision of how to go about it.

The logical approach would be to tell of the pilgrimage itself, and then splice 2 or 3 tales at a time, probably beginning with the joke tales, like the miller's.

It would be doubtful that one could get all the stories in, and still have a pilgrimage tale.

Here, the pilgrimage is pretty much forgotten, just mentioned at the beginning.

The cuts between stories are sometimes straights cuts, and sometimes back to Chaucer writing the tale.

The bawdiness is kept, although it is done more Italian style than English. There is a mixture of the two cultures involved here.

The stories stay fairly true to form.

It would take a huge budget to include the squire's story, and indeed, the squire's story would take some interpretation to finish. Sadly, it is left out.

Which leaves the pardoner's story as the "thriller" story. I was very much hoping this story, a natural finale, would be the climax.

I wasn't disappointed. The pardoner's tale is the masterpiece in terms of action and adventure. It isn't exactly the very last tale, but close enough to serve as the climax, as there are two very brief joke tales that follow it.

Would I piece it together like this? Probably not. I think each person would direct this in a different way, with about a half dozen general methods.

However, I liked the way this film was done. It stayed very true to form, in my opinion. Most of the tales are "raunchy humor" tales, showing the mores of what one would expect to be puritan people, most of them professionals in religion. This was well done.