Product Details

• Format: Color, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rated: X (Mature Audiences Only)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Water Bearer Films
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Run Time: 116 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301149580
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,868 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

A collection of bawdy tales from Boccaccio, adapted and directed by the taboo-busting Pier Paolo Pasolini--sounds irresistible, doesn't it? Pasolini approaches the material not like a literary classic to be reverently served, but rather as if the various anecdotes were episodes from scruffy, everyday life in medieval Italy, caught on the fly, like neighborhood gossip recounted in a taverna. The film is black-sheep kin to the director's amateur-theatrical take on Scripture, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964); both films abound in earthy settings framing vivid faces that might have gazed out of a Renaissance painting. Yet where Gospel was searing, The Decameron is perfunctory. Most of the stories dribble away absentmindedly before they've even begun to establish a situation, let alone any tension. Pasolini himself reappears periodically as an artist--Giotto--planning an epic cathedral painting. At the end, he's still thinking about it and wondering, "Maybe it's enough to dream a masterpiece rather than paint it." Which seems a handy copout for not really making the film we've been trying to watch. --Richard T. Jameson

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is a bad edition of Pasolini's magnificent film, October 9, 1999

By A Customer

Boccacio's Decameron consisted of ten realistic stories told by travelers during the plague. Pasolini tied them together and reframed them within the theme of art-does-not-imitate-life. This DVD cut out some scenes essential for understanding the film (e.g., dinner with water melons in the first story, The Invitation), and sanitized certain erotic ones (e.g., Mute Gardener). It is also a pity that the stories have been edited back-to-back without breaks or subtitles so that the viewer not familiar with the original is left guessing where one story ends and another begins. But the greatest injustice to Pasolini is in cutting out most of the final scene that ties all the stories together and gives them a meaning. In that scene real-life thieves, pedophiles, grave-robbers, murderers, adulterers, con artists, and blasphemers - the stories' characters - are shown depicted on cathedral frescos as saints, angels, and archangels by the starry-eyed painter. At the very least, the buyer should be warned that this DVD is an abridged version of the original, and that its editors took poetic licence with it.

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Probably Pasolini's best, October 1, 2003

By 

Wayne M. Malin "Preppy" (Malden, MA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Decameron (DVD)

Pasolini's first film in his "Trilogy of Life". It tells nine separate tells from the book "The Decameron". All have a very ribald sense of humor and has a surprising amount (for an R rated film) of male and female nudity. Not for anyone who is easily offended but a fairly good film for those who are interested. Also there are a few really huge swipes at the Catholic Church--one story has a convent of nuns using a man to sexually satisfy all of them--and this is shown in a positive light!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An entertaining tour through mediaeval Italy, August 15, 2000

By 

Brian "beejay46" (London, England) - See all my reviews

This is the first film in Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life" (the others being "The Canterbury Tales" and "Arabian Nights"). It contains eight tales from Boccaccio's mediaeval work, filmed with Pasolini's usual mixture of realism and visual beauty. The natural locations used here also give a lift to these stories combining love, lust, deception, murder, and religion.

As is common in his films, Pasolini has used a combination of non-professional actors and regulars, including Franco Citti in the 'false saint' story, and Ninetto Davoli as a man whose luck goes through several reverses before he comes out on top. Pasolini himself also appears as the mediaeval painter Giotto.

"The Decameron" is quite bawdy, although it never reaches the heights scaled by "The Canterbury Tales" in this department. On the plus side, however, it's in the original Italian (with English subtitles), so it doesn't suffer from the poor dubbing that afflicts "The Tales".

"The Decameron is weakened a bit by the disjointed editing. I'm not sure whether the original film was like that, or if this version used for the DVD was chopped about in some way. Even so, it's an entertaining film with varied stories and a nice period atmosphere.