Color, 1968, 105m. / Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini / Starring Terence Stamp, Silvana Mangano / Un Mondo di Cinema (Italy R2 PAL), Films Sans Frontieres (France R2 PAL) / WS (1.85:1)
Since the early days of film, the mysterious outsider infiltrating a bourgeois family has been a reliable source for drama and/or amusement, ranging from the French classic Boudou Saved from Drowning to countless screwball comedies. Leave it to Pier Paolo Pasolini to put a sexual and religious spin on the idea with Teorema (which translates as "Theorem"), one of the archetypal '60s art films. Like
A magnetic stranger (Stamp) arrives during a party at a typical house populated by a factory manager father (Massimo Girotti), an elegant and aloof mother (Death in Venice's Silvana Mangano), a daughter (Anne Wiazemsky), a son (Andrés José Cruz Soublette), and a homely maid (Twitch of the Death Nerve's Laura Betti). The stranger and the son share a room, but one by one the newcomer finds a way to psychologically and physically seduce everyone around him. Igniting spiritual needs as well as sexual ones, he abruptly disappears and leaves his conquests to deal with the aftermath in their own fashion. Needless to say, some of them adapt far better than others as divine influence and madness come into view.
Like many Italian films of its era and onward, Teorema was shot with an international cast and dubbed in every territory in which it was released. Most viewers got an Italian language version with subtitles in their own native language, but the DVD release from Italy contains both the Italian audio (no English subtitle options) as well as the far more obscure English dubbed track.
THE DECAMERON
Color, 1970, 107m. / Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini / Image (US R1 NTSC), BFI (UK R2 PAL) / WS (1.85:1)
The first Pasolini film to hit the DVD market, The Decameron, is a bawdy adaptation of Boccaccio's famous moral tales. The US edition from Image sports a great reproduction of the US poster art on the cover and is pretty much the same transfer as the long unavailable laserdisc release; both are now unavailable. The same transfer later appeared in the UK from the BFI, with optional English subtitles. The print is acceptable but a bit coarse; the sound is scratchy and easily betrays the film's impoverished budget. It's strange that a better print can't be found in Italy (and perhaps including a few of the notorious scenes that were excised prior to its general release); however, completists will be thankful this exists at all. The film itself has aged rather well, combining the raucous humour and elegance which would mark the later Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights, respectively. Sexual content is the lowest of this "Trilogy of Life," confined mainly to some relatively chaste frontal nudity and a few naughty jokes. Newcomers would do well to start here.
THE CANTERBURY TALES
Color, 1971, 110m. / Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini / Starring Laura Betti, Tom Baker / Image (US R1 NTSC), BFI (UK R2 PAL) / WS (1.85:1)
The late Pier Paolo Pasolini's second film in his "Trilogy of Life" series, The Canterbury Tales, at least ranks as the most ribald and coarse entry in this literary cycle. While The Decameron and The Arabian Nights based their sometimes shocking imagery on the events in the stories themselves, Pasolini felt compelled to embellish these Chaucer stories (which everyone probably remembers from school) with a number of explicit incidents. While the infamous "Miller's Tale" obviously didn't need much elaboration in the raunchiness department, the other stories, while true to their origins, have been fleshed out (with Pasolini himself playing Chaucer!) to include S&M and other unexpected "modern" touches. Whatever your opinions about the merits of the film (and most critics don't acknowledge very many), this edition is, like the other trilogy installments, probably the best we will see. Derived from the archival MOMA print, this likewise bears occasional signs of wear (some speckling here, a splice there), and the added clarity of the DVD format makes the low budget's limitations even more obvious. However, if you're a Pasolini completist, there's no excuse not to pick this up. The strange collection of actors includes everyone from Dr. Who's Tom Baker (doing a highly unnecessary nude scene) to Italian super-bitch specialist Laura Betti (1900, Bay of Blood), not to mention Josephine Chaplin, of all people. The result is a bizarre aural clash between authentic English voices and some wildly anachronistic faux-Cockney accents given to blatantly Italian actors; the whole production was post-dubbed, but the results are highly inconsistent. If you're looking to shock your friends who think they've "seen it all," don't miss the film's now-legendary final minutes in hell; no description could possibly do this over-the-top sequence justice.
THE ARABIAN NIGHTS
Color, 1972, 131m. / Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini / Image (US R1 NTSC), BFI (UK R2 PAL) / WS (1.85:1)
Pier Paolo Pasolini's directorial career hit a lavish high point with The Arabian Nights, a conclusion to his "Trilogy of Life." As with the Image and BFI releases of The Decameron and The Canterbury Tales, this DVD has been culled from the Museum of Modern Art print, which means that it's letterboxed (approximately 1:85:1, a little more severe than the 1.75:1 indicated on the package), with subtitles that cannot be removed from the picture. Considering the film's low budget and ragged history, the print looks acceptable; the colours are much punchier than any other version available on video, and the grain isn't as noticeable as it is on The Decameron. The film itself is generally regarded as Pasolini's most accomplished entry in the trilogy, and it certainly is the most visually sumptuous. The framing device involves a slave girl, Pelligrini, around whom the numerous tales are spun as she rises to power and schemes to reunite with the man she loves. The graphic violence and frontal nudity may put off casual viewers, but this is one of Pasolini's more accessible films. The stunning visual settings, which were shot on location, give the proceedings a strange, hallucinatory edge, and even the most extreme moments have a touch of elegance that should prevent anyone from becoming offended enough to turn it off (as opposed to, say, the shocking Salo). The notes on the back claim this is the "original uncut version," but rumors persist that an even longer, 155 minute edition existed at one point. It's hard to imagine what could have been cut, unless it was an entire story, but this will most likely remain the definitive edition unless someone in Italy uncovers the lost footage someday (if it exists). (Note: It's too bad the DVDs couldn't include the trilogy's original (and graphic) English language trailers, which are quite a riot.)
vspace="8">such fellow headscratchers as Blow-Up and Last Year at Marienbad, the film is primarily an allegory filled with symbols intended to resonate differently with each viewer, spiced up with enough controversial content to pull in the masses at the box office as well. A pivotal turning point in the director's career between his gritty early classics and his outrageous later work, Teorema is well worth viewing for anyone who doesn't mind filling in more than a few blanks at the end.
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Slow, formally composed, and absolutely a product of its time, Teorema concerns itself with transformative power, be it through God, sex, or the act of watching cinema itself. Pasolini constrasts sepia-toned and color footage, windswept wilderness with the developing city, low class peasants with empty middle-to-upper class members; the camera lingers on the actors' bodies in a detached but strangely erotic fashion, though Mangano's sexual awakening turns ugly in the final act. Groundbreaking at the time for its politics, expressionistic acting, and surprising full frontal nudity, Teorema became an international favorite of the critical and coffee house set, becoming one of Pasolini's most widely discussed titles (often among those who couldn't sit through the entire film).
vspace="8">Surprisingly, the latter is by far the more satisfying of the two; the dialogue is recorded and mixed more naturally, and the English track features a much more prominent and engaging use of the wild Ennio Morricone score including some catchy pop music and peculiar atmospheric compositions. Though the film only contains a few minutes of dialogue during its running time, the presence of Stamp's real voice on the English version is quite welcome and makes this, along with a few other rare exceptions like Fellini Satyricon and Fitzcarraldo, that rare "foreign language" film whose English track provides a solid argument against the "native language with subtitles" argument. Though not anamorphically enhanced, the widescreen Italian DVD looks beautiful and easily surpasses the grungy, battered transfers which blighted the home video market for years. A widescreen French DVD is also available, in a far less colorful and satisfying transfer in Italian with French subtitles. Extras on both are mainly text-based, though the Italian disc does contain newly created trailers for a handful of the company's other arthouse favorites such as Belle de Jour and Throne of Blood.
