Saturday 18 February 2012

Racconti di Canterbury
[The Canterbury Tales]
(1971)

RATING:80%
FORMAT:DVD

Coming on as a kind of Carry On for highbrows, this is an amusing retelling of some of Chaucer’s old tales; benefitting greatly from being pornographic but not smutty.

Difficult to know on what basis the tales were selected for inclusion but one assumes, with director Pier Paolo PASOLINI that they are those allowing him to indulge his interest in the male physique - of which there are many examples here.

The orificial and earthy humor sits well with the realistic recreation of English medieval life. It is certainly more believable than anything Monty Python could have dreamed up, since it is not emotionally stuck in resentment and jealousy at the greater enjoyment of physical pleasures in an allegedly prelapsarian world. It also more actively embraces anti-Christian and pro-life rhetoric.

Demotic cinema implicitly and, here, explicitly condemns the hierarchies of Christianity and the religious hypocrisies they lead to. A film much more of political ideas than of characters.

Copyright © 2012 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.
Posted by Frank TALKER™ at 12:36
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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.



Albert Camus… (1913-60), French-Algerian writer & philosopher. The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt: New York: Vintage Books, (1984; page 182.)