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Review

The Canterbury Tales (aka - I Racconti di Canterbury) constitutes the second installment in controversial, late Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini’s fabled Trilogy Of Life, following on from The Decameron (1971) and preceding The Arabian Nights (1974).

Easily the least seen and arguably the least regarded of the Trilogy Of Life, The Canterbury Tales in many ways cemented Pasolini’s considerable infamy when its 1972 domestic release was delayed by the intervention of the Italian authorities who lauded the films rampant bawdiness as obscene. Since then The Canterbury Tales has essentially become a seldom celebrated anomaly in its makers portfolio, encountering mild praise from a few whilst being completely dismissed by many critics as irreverent, dirty-minded trash.

As he did with his adaptation of Bocaccio’s The Decameron, Pasolini utilises Geoffrey Chaucer’s 14th century texts which comprised the literary Canterbury Tales as a template for an independent, interlinked series of vignettes and tableaux with a frank, upfront and rather humorous, wry onus on human sexual practices of almost every conceivable variety. Pasolini totally disregards Chaucer’s original literary framing device of having the tales being told by pilgrims en route by foot to London and instead opts for a more novel and personal spin. Pasolini takes eight of Chaucer’s stories – those of The Merchant, The Friar, The Cook, The Miller, The Wife Of Bath, The Reeve, The Pardoner and The Summoner – and presents them as an unrelated series of shorts, interspersed by framing vignettes featuring Chaucer (played by Pasolini himself) scribbling these saucy tales down in his study, seemingly as a respite from the constant henpecking of his wife.

While viewers could certainly have been spared the horror of witnessing a pre-Dr WhoTom Baker contributing a brief nude scene The Canterbury Tales at least registers as one of the most spectacular directorial car crashes viewers are ever likely to witness. Pasolini seemingly sets out to make one of those films that (conceptually speaking) only makes any real sense in the mind of its creator. The forthright piety of Chaucer’s original texts is eliminated completely as is any sense of the personal perspective of those telling the tales. Instead Pasolini preoccupies himself almost entirely with the graphic depiction of sexual desires and practices. This is characterised by a deliberate sense of warts and all vulgarity which sees Pasolini run the gamut of varied, imaginative couplings as medieval Britain is depicted as a land occupied by sex-obsessed reprobates and religious fools. The films intentions are literally laid bare in the first tale as a lecherous old king rigorously services his handpicked young wife whilst she secretly lusts after a young suitor, only for fate to take a truly bizarre turn. This proves to be merely in the custard in a vast cinematic trifle that soon descends into an unrestrained festival of constant full frontal nudity (as much male as female), rampant sex, sadomasochism, mutual masturbation, flagellation and a slapstick anal branding via red hot poker! In what was a relative cinematic taboo for the time, rigorous homosexual couplings are shown in brief but graphic detail. Later one of these closet homosexuals is burned alive in what obviously seems to be the openly homosexual Pasolini’s idea of a thinly veiled dig at the totalitarian Italian authorities who had dogged much of his career. Ironically this perspective is vindicated to a degree when you consider that The Canterbury Tales itself got its collar felt by the Italian authorities.

Just when you think you have seen it all Pasolini assails the viewer with a truly jaw-dropping finale which sees him whisk us off for an impromptu visit to hell complete with Satan himself dispelling scores of Friars from his backside to the accompaniment of enormous, ear-splitting farts. This must surely mark a cinematic first and surely a cinematic last as well?

While The Canterbury Tales is without a doubt seriously risqué and upfront stuff by the standards of its time it is not especially shocking at all now, thirty-five years later. What does surprise however, is the prevalent sense of wry, playful comic mockery which sees Pasolini openly poking fun at the promiscuity and base sexual behaviour that the film at the same time marks such a spirited aesthetic celebration of. There is no attempt at eroticism; instead Pasolini focuses on the acts in all their vulgar coarseness. Unfortunately there is so much nudity and visually unappealing couplings on display that the viewer soon grows numb to it all. Eventually Pasolini’s obsession with it breeds contempt and the squarely placed emphasis on the pursuit of sex and then the act of sex tends to completely bury any message or perspective any of these stories might have had. The film is not helped either by Pasolini’s conceited decision to present the eight stories as a series of unrelated vignettes. This gives the film an uncomfortably disconnected feel and tends to constantly disengage the interest of the viewer just as soon as Pasolini has succeeded in piquing it.

On a technical level The Canterbury Tales is often a triumph. Pasolini does a sterling job of recreating medieval Britain due in no small part to the top drawer work of costume designer Danilo Donati and a unique, but effective score by Italian great Ennio Morricone, which presents subtly reworked variations on traditional folk ditties of the period. The presence of a great many British actors amongst the Italian cast members also lends the films setting some authenticity, but this leads to a rather bizarre situation in itself. Due to the film having been shot in England with so many British cast members, The Canterbury Tales was originally filmed in English with the Italian portion of the cast mostly lip-synching their lines to be dubbed into English at a later stage. While the original English version is available most versions are of Italian dubbed, English subtitled prints. Rather strangely this results in the sight off British actors silently mouthing English dialogue but clumsily over-dubbed in Italian, with English subtitles! Obviously this gives much of the acting a somewhat stilted, awkward feel although criticism of this is really negated by the fact that the cast amount to little more than muses for the directors flights of whimsy, as is often the case with Pasolini. It is however pleasing to note the presence of Pasolini (and Mario Bava) regular Laura Betti, who makes a strong impression as The Wife Of Bath. Wrestling fans of a certain age will no doubt derive much amusement too from spotting the flamboyantly camp British wrestling legend “Exotic” Adrian Street in a bit part as, yes you guessed it, a wrestler!

As the film draws closer to its conclusion it becomes plainly obvious that for all the gusto of his direction, Pasolini really does not take nor intend for these tales to be taken especially seriously. This is in many ways confirmed by the final shot of Pasolini as Chaucer writing that “Here end the Canterbury Tales, told only for the pleasure of telling them”. This raises the question as to why the viewer should really attach any importance to what is going on when Pasolini himself seemingly doesn’t? All the same the breezy, comical tone is liable to come as a shock for viewers who may only be familiar with Pasolini through the humourless, blackening nihilism of his far more infamous Salo (1975).

The real question is whether The Canterbury Tales ultimately qualifies as a clever, satirical take on humanities sexual mores, or as a cheap and puerile excuse to cram almost two hours of screen time with as much nudity, debauched spectacle, scatological humour and taboo subject matter as possible? There’s certainly room for argument and no doubt the more broadminded portion of the art house crowd and fans of cinematic anomalies will find enough to intermittently pique their interest en route to drawing their own conclusions. Either way however, it must be said that if The Canterbury Tales happened to be the only Pier Paolo Pasolini film, then it would be very hard to envisage too many gathering to mourn the absence of more.

Also Try… The Decameron / The Arabian Nights (1974, Pier Pasolini) / Salo / The Devils (1971, Ken Russell) / Monty Python And The Holy Grail.

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Piczo