Canterbury Tales
(Racconti di Canterbury, I)
Screening on Film
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
With Tom Baker, Hugh Griffith, and Jenny Runacre.
Italy, 1972, 35mm, color, 109 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
With Tom Baker, Hugh Griffith, and Jenny Runacre.
Italy, 1972, 35mm, color, 109 min.
Italian with English subtitles.
Susan Sontag called Pasolini "the most remarkable figure to have emerged in Italian arts and letters since the Second World War." The second entry in his erotic Trilogy of Life, Canterbury Tales re-interprets Chaucer’s classic tales ("The Cook’s Tale" is expanded into an homage to Chaplin and American silent comedy), continuing The Decameron’s epic—and outrageous—celebration of life and the naked human body. While some sensed a "loss of confidence in the liberating powers of human sexuality" (Peter Bondanella), the Canterbury Tales did not fail to provoke, or find critical success; it had the Italian censors infuriated by its obscenity and "vilification of religion,” and won the Golden Bear at Berlin in 1972.
