The Decameron (1971 film)
| Il Decameron | |
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Il Decameron film poster
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| Directed by | Pier Paolo Pasolini |
| Produced by | Alberto Grimaldi |
| Written by | Pier Paolo Pasolini (from Giovanni Boccaccio) |
| Starring |
Franco Citti Ninetto Davoli Pier Paolo Pasolini |
| Music by | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography | Tonino Delli Colli |
| Edited by |
Nino Baragli Tatiana Casini Morigi |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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West Germany 29 June 1971 (première at the Berlin Film Festival) US 12 December 1971 |
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Running time
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106 minutes |
| Country | Italy |
| Language | Italian |
The Decameron (Italian: Il Decameron) is a 1971 film by Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini, based on the novel Il Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio. It is the first movie of Pasolini's Trilogy of life, the others being The Canterbury Tales and Arabian Nights.
The tales contain abundant nudity, sex, slapstick and scatological humor. The film was entered into the 21st Berlin International Film Festival, where it won the Silver Bear Extraordinary Jury Prize.
The film, shot in Neapolitan dialect at the behest of the director, offers a variety of episodes from the stories most characteristic of the work of Giovanni Boccaccio, and are linked through a pupil of the painter Giotto (played by Pasolini himself) who arrives in Naples to paint a mural.
In the first episode, Andreuccio of Perugia is cheated by a Neapolitan and dropped in a trough of excrement. The young man is found in the pulp by two thieves who are attempting a coup at a nearby church to steal the jewels from the tomb of a bishop who died a few days earlier. Andreuccio is persuaded and, with a brilliant ruse, manages to steal for himself the most beautiful ring of the deceased.
In the second episode, a young man, Masetto da Lamporecchio, is encouraged by some nuns in a convent to have sex with them. In fact, the young man already had this idea, pretending to be deaf and dumb. But the sisters prove insatiable, and the young man finally breaks his silence to protest that he cannot keep up with their demands. The mother prioress declares his sudden ability to speak a miracle from God, but this is merely an excuse to keep the young man at the convent.
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