Girl in the Trimalchio Scene

The sprinkling of faces throughout the film looking directly into the camera may possibly be representative of "...phantoms from the past looking through time and space to those presently alive as if to question..." (re: "Pan shot following main characters in catacombs" thread)

It seems there was a faint glimmer of light and culture amidst the decadence; for example, the quotations by the refined but ridiculed Eumolpus, the presentation by the Greek theatre troupe and the recitation of the Turkish poem. The whole scene was finally finished off with Eumolpus being ejected from the feast and lying wounded in a field wherein he bequeathed to Encolpio, as writer Eileen Hughes so elegantly put it, "...his legacy of beauty..."

Personally, it's just a thought, but I thought the bizarre, discordant music and dancing was possibly representative of the widespread twentieth century acceptance of jazz and rock n' roll from the possible perspective of a classically trained purist.

p.s. I just watched the scene again and noticed that a black girl gets the rhythm going by clapping her hands. At one point during the dance the profile of a man is shown with his fingers in a snapping position as his head bounces back and forward to the music; a the look not unlike that of a member of the "beat" generation.

I, too, wondered about why this young woman peers at us viewers as the dancing takes place. Whatever else we may say about this--and it is a characteristially Fellini touch--it may give the viewers the sense that they are particpants in Trimalchio's decadent revelry. She is sort of flirting with all of us.

I can't say this is one of Fellini's greats (e.g., 8 1/2 or Amarcord), but, upon a second viewing as an older person, it is better--more tightly executed--than I first thought. It also helps that I have actually read Petronius and can see, in part, what he's up to there. In fact, I now quite like this film.