Not sure what "direction" this movie was trying to take. The finished product is a complete mess. Terrible representation of history and worse as a work of "art". If the cinematography is well cone,that is all that is well done. The story goes nowhere. The acting is very bad,at best. Reminds me,to some extent,of "Caligula", another terrible movie,however,this one is even worse.
share[deleted]
Fellini deliberately leaves it to the audience to relate the events, which is a special way of telling a story I suppose. But that also makes it difficult to follow.
But historically it was correct for the most part. In fact, more correct then Spartacus, or Gladiator, or Ben Hur.
[deleted]
That doesn't make it inaccurate. It keeps to the book for the most part.
In any case, the mainstream epics, like Gladiator, have lots more 'mistakes' in facts and social attitudes. They never stick to the historical sources, they always have to make it better (or try to).
[deleted]
No, I did not read it, I got this information from a professor in ancient history.
Anyway, it can't be less accurate then all other epics about Rome. At least it shows a wide variety of places and persons, not just emperors and gladiators.
[deleted]
Adapting a book or text to a movie is never easy. And Fellini certainly made his own impression upon it.
But my point is, as movie adaptations go, this one could have been much worse. It certainly makes an interesting counterpart to the Hollywood epics.
Come to think about it, there was a competing Satyricon adaptation that came out shortly before Fellini's, it would be interesting to see how that turned out if it ever came to DVD.
[deleted]
Oh yes, I see you wrote the review on the 1968 Satyricon?
I'm surprised it ever surfaced at all. I never saw any copy on VHS or otherwise.
Petronius's book is actually funnier than the movie. Fellini's aim is different: not to satirize or make a funny story, but to present ancient Rome as a totally alien place. Ancient Romans are kind of presented as Martians. I think both can be appreciated as separate art works. Remember that Fellini calls the film "Fellini Satyricon" to distinguish it from the original.
Actually, Petronius's book gives much less sense of alienness to ancient Rome. For example, he tells you there was a "puritanical" segment of society, and you'd never think so from the movie. The Romans weren't that different from us: there were puritanical and "hedonistic" segments of society.
But then there are some odd things about the Romans, too. I remember an ancient history professor saying that Marcus Aurelius was praised as a "humanitarian" because he reduced the price arenas had to pay for criminals to feed to wild animals. That seems to fit the theater scene at the beginning of the film pretty well. The Romans were used to a violent and bloody world. In a way, we shouldn't judge them too harshly for that. For example, a lot of the people who watched gladiators in the arena trying to kill each other had fought hand-to-hand themselves in the Roman army. That was the world they knew.
The first review on the opinions page says:
"The film warns us that we, over-civilized spectators of the 21st century, have wasted our lives, that we have not acted on our desires, that we have lost our most precious capital: youth."
I suppose there's some truth to that. There's always a risk of not living our lives as fully as we should, of missing opportunities. But there's a risk of living "too hard and fast," too, and burning ourselves out before we have the chance to do much. The Romans knew that as well as we do. So, contrary to what I think Fellini is saying, I don't think "over-civilized spectators of the 21st century" are particularly at fault there. That's probably a problem that occurs in any age.
But I do think this film is very valuable as a corrective to films that present ancient Rome in terms of Christian themes. I think it was really brave for Fellini to make this not too long after "Ben Hur" and "King of Kings."
I hate it when people compare this film to "Caligula." In my opinion, you have to be a sadist to like Caligula. It's a series of meaner and meaner scenes. Satyricon contains violence and other things we might object to, but there's no meanness to it. As I think Fellini said of the movie, it's just meant to give you a sense of the weirdness and unpredictability of life. It has to be one of the greatest spectacles in cinema history.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
The more Roman films I see, the more I think that Rome is anything we want it to be. For some movies the Roman Empire looks like a kind of old world USA, for others it's armies and gladiators and orgies and chariots.
So yes, it's very refreshing to see it as completely alien as you say.
Spiny_Norman,
I was interested to see you're involved with a Monty Python Museum. When I took a class on 2nd Temple Judaism (close to the time of Christ), we watched The Life of Brian on the last day of class. I fantasized about getting the professor to show Satyricon instead. There is a sort of genuine religious element to Satyricon: Encolpio defiles a temple and does other bad things, is struck impotent as a punishment, and then gets redemption from Oenothea at the end. There's quite a contrast between the two films, and it'd be fascinating to see the different reactions to them from the professor and students.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
But Satyricon doesn't really have anything to do with 2nd Temple Judaism... and Life of Brian may have a point about all the different tiny groups not getting anywhere.
I never really saw a relation between those two films, except that they both show the world invisible in the Hollywood Epic movies.
Yeah, you're right, Satyricon isn't as directly connected. But I do think it's a little more of a sampling of the ancient world than Life of Brian. Life of Brian is ABOUT the ancient world, I suppose, but Satyricon gives you more of a sense of its strangeness and distance from us.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
Remember that Fellini calls the film "Fellini Satyricon" to distinguish it from the original.No. It wasn't Fellini who called the film thus and not for this reason. The film is called "Fellini - Satyricon" in order to distinguish it from the "Satyricon" film by Gian Luigi Polidoro (1968) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0166788/. When it became public that Fellini planned to turn Petronius' fragmentary novel into a film, producer Alfredo Bini claimed to be in possession of the film rights and precipitated into finding a director to do a Satyricon film before Fellini could do his, that's how Polidoro's film came into being, done in a hurry and released prior to Fellini's film. The two producers of the rivalling films had a law-suit over this and the result was that Fellini's film had to be re-titled, hence "Fellini - Satyricon".
Sorry but you're completly wrong..It is a real and very good representation of the ancient roman empire
shareBack your statement with facts,not just opinion.A Roman empire composed mainly of fat,stupid,lazy people is total nonsense,as well as the belief that sexual behavior was different in the era.
shareUh, there is a plethora of evidence that pre-Christian sexual mores of the Roman's were vastly different from ours in the modern Western World. Pederasty/pedophilia, homosexuality, prostitution/temple sex, many types of incest, etc. were generally common and accepted in that world. There are actually several books written specifically on the subject of sexuality in Roman times, and many more general books on ancient Rome readily discuss the vast differences in sexual "morality" between the pagan and the Holy (i.e. Christianized) Roman Empire.
shareThis isn't a documentary, mind you.
shareHere's an interesting article on Roman morals.
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/bl/bl_text_satyricon6.htm
This excerpt fits the scene in the film after Encolpio and Gitone leave the theater quite well:
"With the regulations and arrangements of the brothels, however, we have information which is far more accurate. These houses (lupanaria, fornices, et cet.) were situated, for the most part, in the Second District of the City (Adler, Description of the City of Rome, pp. 144 et seq.), the Coelimontana, particularly in the Suburra that bordered the town walls, lying in the Carinae, -- the valley between the Coelian and Esquiline Hills. The Great Market (Macellum Magnum) was in this district, and many cook-shops, stalls, barber shops, et cet. as well; the office of the public executioner, the barracks for foreign soldiers quartered at Rome; this district was one of the busiest and most densely populated in the entire city. Such conditions would naturally be ideal for the owner of a house of ill fame, or for a pandar. The regular brothels are described as having been exceedingly dirty, smelling of the gas generated by the flame of the smoking lamp, and of the other odors which always haunted these ill ventilated dens."
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
He wasn't trying to make it historically correct.
"I am examining ancient Rome as if this were a documentary about the customs and habits of the Martians."-Fellini.
If he WERE trying to follow history accurately, there wouldn't have been:
-The city in the first scene, with so many levels
-An apartement that looks more like a hive
-That elevator at the gallery
-That glowing thing at Trimalchio's dinner
-All those multicolour faces
-The weird, box-like iron ships
-Weirdly coloured skies
Also, notice that most of the characters were simply caricatures. This movie was more of a dream/nightmare than a historical film.
This film was never claimed to be a historically accurate representation of life in Ancient Rome. Learn something about Fellini, he was a filmmaker who used imagination and thew subconscious. He was an artist and never thought to make anything that was "realistic."
shareFellini didn't set out to make a film that was as historically accurate as possible. He was inspired by Jungian psychology, so when you say "the story goes nowhere", it's not meant to go anywhere in a purely rational sense. Whether it succeeded as a poetic work of art is up to everyone's personal opinion, I think he did a good job, and judging by how many film directors were inspired by it (yes, including Tinto Brass) I'm not the only one.
shareI get your point.I understand your point of view.I just don't agree with it. Fellini could have conveyed his point in a much better way. Tinto Brass, using the forum of "Caligula" could have composed the story in a much better way. Actually( pathetically) "Caligula" is a beter movie in that it follows a progression and makes its point much more clearly.I would compare the "Satiricon" production to the nonsense portrayed on several off-broadway productions as "art". Not creative.Just bad.
shareThe point that Fellini conveys very clearly is that the book has no point itself. It only exists as fragments of the original story. And Fellini follows these fragmentary structure, even ending in mid-sentence as the original book ends.
[deleted]
[deleted]
Actually, based on the English translation I've read, the Petronius story is a lot funnier. Or maybe I should just say it's very funny, because I don't think Fellini is trying to be funny. While the Petronius story has details from Roman society that seem strange to us, it doesn't convey the sense of the Romans as "Martians" as Fellini's film does. They seem to be recognizable human beings that just lived in a different social setting. I like Fellini's film very much, but it's certainly not a "version" of Petronius's book in the literal sense.
I think if Petronius could see the film, he'd say, "wow, that's weird." It might be as weird to him as it is to us.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
[deleted]
You might be right. But I do think another notable thing about the original book is that it tells you there was a puritanical faction in Roman society, too. I think it links it with Cato. Watching the Fellini film, I don't know if you would guess that. I think Petronius knew he was definitely on the "libertine" side of Roman society. Not everybody in Rome was ready to try all the wildest sex acts.
Somebody said that Fellini wanted to show the preciousness of youth. I do think he sort of equates youth with goodness and age with corruption and evil, with the exception of Eumolpo. In that way Fellini's film is definitely a film of the 60's. I don't know if Petronius had that sort of agenda in writing the book. But you may be able to answer that better than I.
"Extremism in the pursuit of moderation is no vice."
[deleted]
The film is called "fellini satyricon" because it's HIS vision/interpretation of the book.
and I remember reading in an interview that he described the film as a Sci-Fi of the past
"What if there is no tomorrow? there wasn't one today...!"