in the begining, the film is set in modern day greece, but then moves to the correct time setting for the original play of oedipus rex. but then the film moves back to a more modern setting. what is up with this. it is as if the same story happened in the more modern time setting. comments?
shareActually the beginning seemed like it was set in WWI or WWII. It seems like he was displacing some of his own issues by making Oedipus feel more like a universal thing, instead of just a period piece which audiences could feel a bit removed from.
sharethe beginning shows the story of oedipe is also about rivalry between a father and his son, and it'll always be so. at the end i think it's symbolic: oedipe is exiled and he keeps on his exile for milleniums. anyway that's basically how i see it, but i don't think this movie was made to be understood
shareBrilliant interpretation
shareWho the *beep* knows? This movie is really weird. We watched it in English. it was just very very strange.
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Veronica Mars died for the CW's sins.
beginning of the movie: pre-war Italy...
end - after the war...
Pasolini used to juxtapose different historical periods in order to contrast or to compare his basic premises through the history.
Besides "Edipo Re" I can think right now on "Porcile" and "Uccellacci e uccellini" as Pasolini's films where the story jumps from past to present or the time-frame it's intercalated.
Perhaps Pasolini used the same technique in other films, but I can't say it for sure since I haven't seen all of his films.
One suggestion I read: the bookends show the psychological reality, in between is the myth that illustrates the universal truth.
shareI was told by my classical studies teacher, that it probably had to do with the generation of Italian men, who were fascist nazi-supporters during and after WWII.
He claimed that there seemed to be a hatred towards these fathers, because they were all out at war while the children (especially sons) grew strongly attached to their mothers. Supposedly, Pasolini experienced this himself.
Also, there was some mention of Pasolini believing that the people of the 60's were, generally, stupid...
Finally, there's the thought that the middle part of the movie, was just a nightmare sequence. I did object to this, given the flute.
I myself suggested the possibility, that the curse of Oedipus was passed on for generations, along with the need to exact payment on ones own head. This could explain him the flute...
I don't know, rant over....
the location changes because the middle part is supposed to represent a dream. That is why the costume and props bear no cultural attachments and seem somewhat unrealistic. For example Oedipus' sword (which also represents a penis and vagina) and the giant hats. The begining of the film is set in early 20th century Italy as Pasolini used this as a kind of biography. His father was a soldier and his mother beared a strong resemblance to the actress who played Oedipus' mother.
shareThe end is set in Bologna, the city where Pasolini (and me, too ^^ ) was born.
shareIf we're talking Freud, the mythological Oedipus did not have an Oedipus Complex, simply because he didn't know his mother until later life.
Freud is considered nonsense by most contemporary psychologists anyway.
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I don't properly understand the modern "bookends" either. It's difficult to see how they fit in the film, other than somehow being related to Pasolini himself.
I think the bookends are an effort on Pasolini's part to integrate the mythical world Oedipus' Greece into modern day society. Such an integration encourages the viewer to conceive of the problem of Oedipus as a universal problem which affects all humans at all times - I must state strongly, however, that Pasolini's interpretation of the myth is a totally Freudian one, one which is not anywhere corroborated in the text of Sophocles. As an above poster has said, Oedipus, in the myth, does not know consciously or subconsciously that he is bedding his mother or has killed his father. It is in fact a story about fatalism and the dangerous and crippling effects of total knowledge. Pasolini's Freudian interpretation has, I think, been conditioned by his own life and times - his 50s and 60s Italy was populated by sons whose fathers had been away at war, and the sons therefore had stronger bonds with their mother. Hence, in Edipo Re, Oedipus' father is a soldier, jealous of his wife's affections towards the little Oedipus.
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Being a Pasolini film the myth of Oedipus illustrates his view of contemporary Italy at a Political and political level. The myth of Oedipus is closely linked to narcissism because of the themes of sight and blindness. Combined with this we have a cast out son who returns to murder and disrupt the status quo.
A bird sings and the mountain's silence deepens.share