Film Forum

(1970) A young Sicilian is swindled and turns to grave-robbing; a laborer poses as a deaf-mute to enter a convent of curious nuns; teenaged lovers are caught post-flagrante by the girl’s parents; a crafty priest tries to seduce his friend’s wife; a con and cheat on his deathbed fools the church with tales of his saintly life… All tales from Boccaccio’s renaissance classic, in the first of Pasolini’s bawdy, vibrant “trilogy of life” (originally rated X!... It would probably still rate an NC-17) – each one lensed in color by Sergio Leone cinematographer Tonino delli Colli (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, etc.). With Pasolini regulars Franco Citti and Ninetto Davola, Silvana Mangano in a cameo as the Madonna, and the director himself as a student of Giotto, commissioned to paint a new 3-paneled church fresco – one of the screen’s greatest depictions of the creation of art. Winner, Special Jury-Prize, Berlin Film Festival. 35mm. Approx. 111 min.

Part of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life.