The Canterbury Tales (film)

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The Canterbury Tales

Directed by	Pier Paolo Pasolini
Produced by	Alberto Grimaldi
Written by	Pier Paolo Pasolini
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Cinematography	Tonino Delli Colli
Release date(s)	2 July 1972 (premiere at BIFF) 2 September 1972 30 March 1980
Running time	122 min.
Language	Italian
Preceded by	The Decameron
Followed by	Arabian Nights
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The Canterbury Tales (Italian: I racconti di Canterbury) is a 1972 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini and based on the medieval narrative poem The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. It is the second film in Pasolini's 'Trilogy of Life'. The tales contain abundant nudity, sex, and slapstick humor.

The adaptation is relatively faithful but sometimes diverges from Chaucer. In Pasolini's version of the fragmentary Cook's Tale, Ninetto Davoli plays the role of Perkyn in manner clearly inspired by Charlie Chaplin.

The Friar's Tale is expanded upon: where the Friar leads in with a general account of the archdeacon's severity and the summoner's corruption, Pasolini illustrates this with a specific incident which has no parallel in Chaucer. Two men are caught in an inn bedroom committing buggery. One is able to bribe his way out of trouble, but the other, poorer man is less fortunate: he is tried and convicted of sodomy—it doesn't occur to the judge that such an act cannot be committed by one person alone—and is sentenced to death. As a foretaste of Hell, he is burned alive inside an iron cage ("roasted on a griddle" in the words of one spectator) while vendors sell beer and various baked and roasted foods to the spectators. (Medieval executions were usually festive occasions for all but the condemned. They were thought to be a source of moral instruction and "innocent merriment," to use the words of Gilbert and Sullivan in The Mikado).

v • d • e Films directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini

Accattone • Mamma Roma • La ricotta (RoGoPaG) • The Gospel According to St. Matthew • Love Meetings • The Hawks and the Sparrows • The Witches • Edipo re • Theorem • Love and Anger • Pigpen • Medea • The Decameron • The Canterbury Tales • Arabian Nights • Salò