When I first saw this film in the '70s I assumed I was watching some mangled print that had been doing the rounds of the arthouses and had consequently lost a few chunks. Years later, watching the DVD, it seems that no, that's the film as released. What happened? How come Pasolini wasn't able to make a coherent whole of this? Where is the missing material,and what are the chances of a (posthumous) director's cut ever appearing?
shareAren't we all fed up with censors! There should be some thing on the box saying it was released in country x in a longer version.
Not sure which one you saw but the Italians and Dutch have released this in 125 mins pal, which equates to about 129/130 mins celluloid run time. The dutch one says original version on the cover.
UK has a 125min version aswell. France seems to sell 4:3 version unsure of the length, and Japan does a box set of the trilogy plus salo (available in france apparently only chinese and french subs)
Interesting to see France apparantly had 155mins runtime when released.
Check this. I'm aware that when the film debuted in Cannes in 1974, it ran at 155 mins. Although the film was well-received, the producer pleaded with Pasolini to shorten the film to heighten its chances of commercial success. Pasolini eventually caved, and since then, Il Fiore Delle Mille e una Notte's official run time has been 130 mins. On PAL video/DVD that'll clock in at about 125 mins. My understanding is he dropped two tales that he presumably felt were the weakest of the bunch, or at least, that he felt didn't add much else to the film.
I haven't actually seen the film, in any format, so I can't comment on how well it melds together. But judging by the earlier Trilogy of Life effort, Il Decameron, Pasolini's style with these films involves an profoundly episodic structure, with stories that abruptly end and others that start without warning. Il Decameron didn't feel like a cohesive film of any sort, although I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Also, I'd imagine that Pasolini wouldn't have approved the edited version of Il Fiore... if he didn't think it 'worked' as well as the original one.
So, honest opinion, is it worth shelling out 20 UK bucks for a poor-quality transfer of this film which seems to sharply divide audiences and critics? I want something to watch tomorrow night...
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These 3 films are based on books where you can find many short-stories which are non-related. In Decamerone, you see story after story; in Arabian Nights, like in the original book, each story begin before the last one has ended (that was made in order to keep the interest in the King, and therefore remain alive). There are no narrators in this films, but the sories are told just as in the original books.
The French DVD release has two deleted scenes (about 20 minutes, no dialogue, music only ) which are probably what Pasolini cut from the original version.
shareThe new Criterion Blu-ray has the material that had been in the 155 min. edition. Two scenes, although the soundtrack has been lost. One of them I would have liked to seen restored to the film, the other (the second of the two) is a lot like one of the tales already there and thus would have seemed repetitive to audiences--if maybe deliberately so. Who knows how much arm twisting was involved in having them removed, but they certainly aren't what makes the film seem choppy. The film, like much of Pasolini's work (particularly MEDIA) intends to have a somewhat fragmented narrative quality.
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