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IMDbPro

The Decameron

Original title: Il Decameron
  • 19711971
  • RR
  • 1h 51m
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
11K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
7,267
699
The Decameron (1971)
An adaptation of nine stories from Boccaccio's "Decameron".
Play trailer1:28
1 Video
62 Photos
ComedyDramaHistory
An adaptation of nine stories from Boccaccio's "Decameron".An adaptation of nine stories from Boccaccio's "Decameron".An adaptation of nine stories from Boccaccio's "Decameron".
IMDb RATING
7.1/10
11K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
7,267
699
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Pier Paolo Pasolini
    • Writers
      • Giovanni Boccaccio(novel "Decameron")
      • Pier Paolo Pasolini
    • Stars
      • Franco Citti
      • Ninetto Davoli
      • Jovan Jovanovic(scenes deleted)
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Pier Paolo Pasolini
    • Writers
      • Giovanni Boccaccio(novel "Decameron")
      • Pier Paolo Pasolini
    • Stars
      • Franco Citti
      • Ninetto Davoli
      • Jovan Jovanovic(scenes deleted)
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 46User reviews
    • 61Critic reviews
    • Awards
      • 1 win & 3 nominations

    Videos1

    Trailer
    Trailer 1:28
    Trailer

    Photos62

    Mirella Catanesi, Giovanni Davoli, and Vittorio Vittori in The Decameron (1971)
    Vincenzo Ferrigno and Angela Luce in The Decameron (1971)
    Pier Paolo Pasolini and Giacomo Rizzo in The Decameron (1971)
    Vincenzo Amato in The Decameron (1971)
    The Decameron (1971)
    A1
    The Decameron (1971)
    The Decameron (1971)
    The Decameron (1971)
    The Decameron (1971)
    The Decameron (1971)
    The Decameron (1971)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Franco Citti
    Franco Citti
    • Ciappelletto
    Ninetto Davoli
    Ninetto Davoli
    • Andreuccio of Perugia
    Jovan Jovanovic
    • Rustico
    • (scenes deleted)
    Vincenzo Amato
    Vincenzo Amato
    • Masetto of Lamporecchio
    Angela Luce
    Angela Luce
    • Peronella
    Giuseppe Zigaina
    • Monk
    Maria Gabriella Maione
    Maria Gabriella Maione
    • Una madonna
    • (as Gabriella Frankel)
    Vincenzo Cristo
    Pier Paolo Pasolini
    Pier Paolo Pasolini
    • Allievo di Giotto
    • (as P.P. Pasolini)
    Giorgio Iovine
    • Lizio da Valbona
    Salvatore Bilardo
    Vincenzo Ferrigno
    • Giannello
    Luigi Seraponte
    Antonio Diddio
    Mirella Catanesi
    • Gemmata
    Vincenzo De Luca
    Erminio Nazzaro
    Giovanni Filidoro
      • Director
        • Pier Paolo Pasolini
      • Writers
        • Giovanni Boccaccio(novel "Decameron")
        • Pier Paolo Pasolini
      • All cast & crew
      • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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      Storyline

      Edit

      Did you know

      Edit
      • Trivia
        The first film in Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life", continuing with The Canterbury Tales (1972) and concluding with Arabian Nights (1974).
      • Goofs
        When the Mother Superior seduces the deaf-mute boy, he's sleeping in a tomato garden. Tomatoes are a New World crop that wouldn't be brought to Italy for another two centuries.
      • Quotes

        Allievo di Giotto: Why create a work of art when dreaming about it is so much sweeter?

      • Alternate versions
        Although the cinema version was intact the 1988 UK Warner video was cut by 22 secs by the BBFC to remove shots of naked genitals during the bedroom sex scene with the nun. The cuts were fully restored in the 2001 BFI DVD release.
      • Connections
        Edited into Porn to Be Free (2016)
      • Soundtracks
        Fenesta Ca Lucive
        Written by Guglielmo Cottrau, Vincenzo Bellini and Giulio Genoino in 1842

        Performed by Franco Citti

        Sung by Ser Ciappelletto and his Neapolitan hosts in Germany. Also sung by one of the Neapolitans to a monk.

      User reviews46

      Review
      Top review
      Sex and sainthood
      Pasolini is the only one of my cherished filmmakers who does not have a film in my list of greats, a weird thing. I love how he makes films but the main narrative thrust as carried in the long arch is usually so obvious, so extrovertly Italian, exposing modern absence of purpose in Teorema, human self-delusion here, that it seems like something we always knew.

      But he is a master of sculpting cinematic air, and this is a truly intelligent work of the medium, and not for any point it makes for sexual freedom or against religion.

      A few of the individual joys first, because he is so joyous to watch. The faces he finds, such astonishingly expressive Italians. they are not actors in the ordinary sense, they do not mask deeply troubled soul in the coy way of puritans like Bergman. They are human sculptures, each one seemingly handpicked as exuberant fresco of earthy, toothless mirth. His sense of place is naked, unadorned, discovered; unlike so many Merchant Ivory or Hollywood period pieces, I feel like I inhabit this world. His camera, again unadorned, even sloppy at times, but as revelatory as anyone's.

      In all these he teases the same spontaneous quality, that is what gives his work a certain careless air; but that is being carried by inspiration, instead of fixating on appearance. As honest as it is vital, because it was not excessively tampered with. He does not impose, paint beauty from the outside, it inwardly springs from air, from the flow of tangible emotion in tangible space jolting us into direct experience. Herzog could do it while being magical, few others. The film is a comic-book, an operabuffa in its narrative, but it's not without gravity that is life, nor is this the same as that tired business of 'realism' favored by the unimaginative like Nolan.

      Where it really soars is in the overall gaze, however pleasant, it is the gaze that elevates this to required viewing for me.

      All you need to know about the film is that it is in the form of thematically linked stories, centered in medieval Naples with rascals and scoundrels caught in mischief, often sexual. It is both funny and poignant, a film made for the same rowdy people it depicts. As said, the deeper purpose of the work is so readily available, show the marvelously flawed human being in all its buffonery and self- delusion, we may be inclined to think it 'small'. I think the problem is largely ours, myself included—we often mistake complexity for intelligence, reason with words instead of seeing the formative fabric.

      So this isn't complicated in what it says, but it is some of the most intelligent stuff I have seen.

      Look at the film again. In each story someone is being deceived, as are we watching a film. In each story, as in the overall film, the lie or deception reveals a more penetrating truth about self. Various selves pursue truth (linked to freedom from the norm), sometimes against the restraints of the story, sometimes killed by the story, sometimes negotiated to be a part of the story. So the easiest thing to do, what many crass minds would do, is to emphasize the strongest emotion, despair in one story, hypocrisy in another, and pull on that to draw audience reactions. We'd still have pretty much the same point, human buffoonery.

      It's all in Pasolini's multifaceted expression; in the first story with Andreuccio who came to buy horses, the poignant, ascetic lesson of 'thank god for losing your money' is uttered by two sneaky louts, so registers as both guidance and deception; in the story with the fake deaf-mute boy in the convent, the head nun deludes herself with the nonsensical miracle but simply oozes sexual joy as she rushes to ring the bell; in the story with two young lovers discovered the morning after sex by the parents of the girl, there is obvious hypocrisy by the father but everyone in the end happily gets his heart's desire; in the story with the illicit Sicilian boyfriend, we have both a sense of genuine bonding in the grove among the boys and awareness of its duplicity.

      The apotheosis, the most emblematic instance, is perhaps the cuckold potter; we get once more both the obvious duplicity, being cheated on, but also the ecstatic, enigmatic laughter of the divine fool who is each of us.

      See, Pasolini could point out social wrongs, or just plain stupidity, as well as Godard, but he could not afford to be a sweeping fool. Remember, he was a communist expelled from the Party in his youth because of his homosexuality—the best thing that could happen to him as an artist.

      What he does here is the same, a truly gentle soul. He sketches very simple desires, then bit by bit he challenges the simplicity of our logical leaps in dealing with them, leaps over unfathomable soul. The nun's miracle is nonsensical, but that is her way of coping with newfound joy.

      Who's to condemn her? Who, not being able to see her ecstasy, would be so dumb as to point out the fallacy of the miracle?

      This is real intelligence folks, the foundation of it. Seeing through the illusion to the self that gives rise to it, this being real freedom from the norm.
      helpful•13
      5
      • chaos-rampant
      • Jun 12, 2013

      Details

      Edit
      • Release date
        • October 29, 1971 (France)
      • Countries of origin
        • Italy
        • France
        • West Germany
      • Languages
        • Italian
        • Neapolitan
        • German
        • Latin
      • Also known as
        • Decameron
      • Filming locations
        • Mount Vesuvius, Naples, Campania, Italy
      • Production companies
        • Produzioni Europee Associate (PEA)
        • Les Productions Artistes Associés
        • Artemis Film
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Technical specs

      Edit
      • Runtime
        1 hour 51 minutes
      • Sound mix
        • Mono
      • Aspect ratio
        • 1.85 : 1

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