Fellini - Satyricon (1969)

Director:

Federico Fellini

Writers:

Petronius (book)
Federico Fellini (writer) ...

Release Date:

11 marzo 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Fantasy | Horror | Romance | Sci-Fi

Frase comercial:

Rome. Before Christ. After Fellini.

Plot:

In first century Rome, two student friends, Encolpio and Ascilto, argue about ownership of the boy Gitone...

Plot Keywords:

Surreal | Avant Garde | Dwarf | Ancient Architecture | Bright Color

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 5 wins & 2 nominations

Comentarios de los usuarios:

Visually Splendid--But Extremely Problematic

Cast

Martin Potter	...	Encolpio
Hiram Keller	...	Ascilto
Max Born	...	Gitone
Salvo Randone	...	Eumolpo
Mario Romagnoli	...	Trimalcione (as Il Moro)
Magali Noël	...	Fortunata
Capucine	...	Trifena
Alain Cuny	...	Lica
Fanfulla	...	Vernacchio
Danika La Loggia	...	Scintilla
Giuseppe Sanvitale	...	Abinna
Genius	...	Liberto arricchito
Lucia Bosé	...	La matrona
Joseph Wheeler	...	Il suicida
Hylette Adolphe	...	La schiavetta

También conocida como:

Fellini Satyricon (UK) (USA)
Satyricon (France) (International: English title) (short title)
The Degenerates
Satiricon (Argentina) [es]

Duración:

128 min

País:

Italy | France

Idioma:

Latin | Italian

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sonido:

Mono

Clasificación:

Italy:VM14 | Argentina:18 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Cinecittà Studios, Cinecittà, Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Les Productions Artistes Associés

Trivialidades:

The Latin phrase recited by the woman about to commit suicide was: "Animula, vagula, blandula, hospes comesque corporis", the emperor Hadrian's supposed dying words. Hadrian died 72 years after Petronius, the author of "Satyricon".

Quotes:

Encolpio: Ascilto... what does the poet say? Each moment presented may be your last, so fill it up until you vomit... or something such?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Richard Dreyfuss/Jimmy Buffett, Gary Tigerman (#3.19)" (1978)

Visually Splendid--But Extremely Problematic

If one rates a film on visuals alone, Fellini's SATYRICON would surely be completely off the scale: a phantasmagorical mixture of sensual beauty and the distasteful but evocative grotesque set in an ancient Rome that never was, never could have been, and yet which plays up to every extreme concept we secretly harbor about Roman decadence. The leading men are incredibly beautiful; the women are generally seductively depraved; and the broad vision that Fellini offers is easily one of the visually stunning creations ever put to film.

And yet, oddly, the film is sterile. The story is impossible to describe, a series of largely unrelated events in the lives of two impossibly handsome youths (Martin Potter and Hiram Keller) who begin the film by battling over the sexual favors of a slave boy (Max Born) who alternately unites and divides them until all three find themselves sold into slavery and flung from adventure to adventure, most often with sexual (and frequently homosexual) connotations. Clearly, Fellini is making a statement about the triviality and emptiness of a life lived for physical pleasures alone.

But the film is jumpy, disjointed, disconnected; the sequences do not always arise from each other in any consistent way, leaving viewers with a sort of "what the ..." reaction when the film unexpectedly shifts without explanation. (This is actually in keeping with the original ancient text, of which only portions remain.) In consequence, SATYRICON is ultimately less about any philosophical statement Fellini may have had in mind than it is about sheer pictorial splendor and deliberate weirdness.

Whatever its failings, it is an astonishing film, and one that would have tremendous influence on a host of directors who followed in Fellini's wake--although all to often without his style and vision. Clearly Pasolini, director of such works as SALO, ARABIAN NIGHTS, and CANTERBURY TALES spent the better part of his largely unlamented life trying to out-Fellini Fellini; likewise, it is impossible to imagine how Tinto Brass and Bob Guccione arrived at the notorious CALIGULA without reference to Fellini's SATYRICON.

Such efforts to expand on SATYRICON were merely more explicit and less interesting than the original, and I do not really recommend them--nor do I really recommend SATYRICON for any one other than Fellini fans, for with its oddly disjointed feel it is unlikely to please those raised on mainstream. Still, it is a powerful, remarkably beautiful, and completely unexpected film that must be seen at least once by any one with a serious interest in world cinema, and to those I recommend it without hesitation.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer