Oedipus Rex - The Masters Of Cinema Series [DVD] [1967]

Description

SYNOPSIS: Three years after The Gospel According to Matthew , Pier Paolo Pasolini resumed his series of classical adaptations with a savage, highly personal take on Sophocles' ancient Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex [Edipo Re]. As his first colour feature, Oedipus Rex makes brilliant use of wildly alternating Moroccan landscapes to transpose collective myth into a particular vision that is at once tender, sensual, and wholly unsparing. The film is divided into three sections set in different eras. The opening takes place in 1920s Italy, and recounts a birth that echoes that of the director himself, the product of a beautiful bourgeoise's affair with a military officer. The mid section depicts a time "outside of history" - it is here that the myth of Oedipus (portrayed by Franco Citti of Accattone and Coppola's The Godfather ), one of patricide and incest, plays out opposite the young man's mother/lover (Silvana Mangano). An epilogue shot on the streets of present-day Bologna finds Oedipus playing his flute for a bustling citizenry. With its kinetic handheld camerawork and strikingly primeval costumes, Pasolini's film rattles its art-genre framework in the enduring quest to exorcise repressive emotional forces. The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present Pier Paolo Pasolini's Oedipus Rex for the very first time on Blu-ray, in a Dual Format (Blu-ray + DVD) edition. SPECIAL DUAL FORMAT (BLU-RAY + DVD) EDITION FEATURES "Slow-moving, sensual, and often gorgeous to behold" --TV Guide's Movie Guide "One of the most underrated, neglected, and powerful of Pier Paolo Pasolini's features." --Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader Review: A tough watch, but well worth it. - I don't know how many out there would call this a masterpiece, not very many if I'm honest, but I for one will hold my hand up and say that it is. It's a very idiosyncratic piece of filmaking by a man who seemed to scorn the usual ways of telling a story, a man wasn't interested in giving us a coherent narrative, or filling in the gaps, a man who refused to pander to the Hollywood like need to glamorise everything up. Consequently, we find ourselves in a version of ancient Greece that is probably nearer to the truth than we're used to, an ancient world that, far from seeming glamorous and romantic, appears to have been stitched together out of bits and pieces of very different cultures with a kind of mix and match set of beliefs, a world full of people who are clumsy and frightened and, as we see in the scene where Oedipus slaughters a bunch of inept soldiers, very far from noble. Review: For the more esoteric viewer, perhaps. - My 16 year old son is studying Oedipus Rex as part of his French baccalaureate and was advised to watch this. Since my 14 year old son is learning Italian I made them both watch it (it's in Italian with subtitles in English). I thought it was a good version of the story, but we were all a bit bemused by the style. Pasolini is obviously an aquired taste that I need to work on. The boys were less charitable.