OEDIPUS REX

Italy, 1967, 100 minutes, Colour.
Franco Citti, Silvana Mangano, Ninetto Davoli, Carl Beck.
Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Oedipus Rex is Pier Paolo Pasolini's version of Sophocles' classic play. Pasolini, novelist and poet, had written for films and begun directing with Accatone in the early '60s. He made The Gospel According to Matthew. In the late '60s he was to make a version of Euripedes' Medea with Maria Callas. He then moved on to his trilogy of The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and The Arabian Nights. His final film was Salo.

Pasolini has a prologue to the play set in the '30s and has an epilogue set in contemporary Italy. As with Medea, he uses the landscapes to vivid effect. There is a contrast between lush greens and desert barrenness. There are stylised costumes and decor for the interiors. There is very little of Sophocles' text left - the reliance is on visuals and drama.

There was made, at the same time, a version using Sophocles' text by Philip Saville and starring Christopher Plummer and Orson Welles.

1. Sophocles' classic play? Pasolini's interpretation? The transfer from theatre to cinema?

2. Pasolini's vision: the prologue of the '30s, Ancient Greece, the contemporary setting? The tragedy transcending ages? The experience of Oedipus, the meaning of his experience, the tragedy?

3. The colour photography, the Italian location settings? The sunlit '30s, the dark interiors? The contemporary city and its industrial settings? Busy, tourists? The same location - but the changes of time? Ancient Greece: the same location, the city, the green fields, the barren desert, Corinth, the dry landscapes? The ancient buildings in the city? Their beauty and ruggedness?. Interiors? Stylised decor and costumes?. The musical score with lilting melodies, flute music and airs?

4. Sophocles' tragedy and its background: public performance, religious setting, stylised presentation, poetry? Pasolini's adaptation: the losing of the words, the few cards with quotations, the contrast in staging, the use of stylisation and formality? Eliciting the meaning of the tragedy?

5. The prologue in the '30s, the Fascist state, summer elegance? The birth of the child and the audience observing outside the window, sharing the child's perspective as it grew older, the girls on the green field, Jocasta and her feeding the baby, her look at the audience? Tenderness? The hostility of the officer father, the telepathy as he thought his hostility and the child cried? The mother and her tenderness, the outing, the child on the balcony crying at the fireworks? The relationship between Jocasta and Laius? The prophecy and Laius' hostility, his giving the child over to be killed? The setting of the play, the dramatics, the characters, issues?

6. The familiarity of the plot and its mythical status: the child with its feet bound, the name of Oedipus, saved by the servant, rescued by the old man, growing up in Corinth, his parents the King and Queen of Corinth, Oedipus as a young man, the prophecies, going to Delphi, the Oracle, the encounter with Laius and killing him, going to Thebes,
the encounter with Jocasta and the marriage, the plague-stricken city, the Oracles of Tiresias, fate, passion, the news about Corinth, the beginning of the revelation, the. old man from Corinth, seeking out the servant, the truth? The death of Jocasta? Oedipus blinding himself? Doom, destiny?

7. The epilogue in the contemporary setting: Oedipus still walking the same locations, Angelo at play, his reliance on Angelo, playing the flute, wandering the city in grief?

8. Pasolini and his interpretation of Oedipus' experience: the questions of individualism responsibility, coping? Gods, predestination, Oracles, fate? Seeming freedom? Interrelated destinies? The cruelty of the gods? A grim and pessimistic finale? His interpretation of Sophocles' play as a tragedy or not? The cathartic effect for the audience?

9. Jocasta and Laius? Happy, the doubts about the child, the decision to kill it? Laius' arrogance confronting Oedipus on the road? His death? Jocasta and her giving up her child? The encounter with Oedipus, her seeming agelessness, sharing the rule, power in Thebes, love and passion, truth and fate? Her playful behaviour - and the transition to her hanging herself? Themes of parents, love, threat to parents from children, cruelty, vengeance and self-destruction?

10. Oedipus as a baby and audience sympathy, the child and its mother, the mother almost Madonna-like, the child gazing at the green trees, the encounter with Laius and his hostility, in the home, the fireworks, sleeping? His parents' hostility, his becoming victim, his being carried by the servant, his feet bound - and his name? His being spared, saved by the old man? The tenderness of the King and Queen of Corinth? His growing up, the discus-throwing, the laurels and his pettiness? His decision to seek his destiny, going alone? The final farewell to his adoptive parents? The travelling to Delphi, hearing of the Oracle, laughing and then fearing it? The decision not to return to Corinth to spare his parents? The irony of his blind turning in circles and going towards Thebes? The encounter with Laius and his servants, his running, the hostility, his killing the servants, anger with Laius? The servants' escape? His own arrogance? The encounter with the Sphinx and the power of the 't Sphinx? The doom on the city? His marrying Jocasta, his sitting in state, ruling, relationship with Kreon? Peace and order and its destruction? People dying in the streets? Plague? Kreon and his visit to the Oracle, jealousy? Fate and doom? Teiresias and the accusations? The truth and their verification? His passionate feeling, shouting, Jocasta's death, his blinding himself? The reasons, his tragedy?

11. The mountains and the old man and his being saved? The peace of Corinth? Growing up an ordinary young man, cheating at games, winning the laurel, his arrogance? The seeking of his fate?

12. The Sphinx and its power, enigmatic confrontation with Oedipus? His defeat of the Sphinx?

13. Kreon and Teiresias, the insight of the blind seer? The truth?

14. The old man and his news about the death of the King of Corinth? Seeking out the servant on the fields and Oedipus making him admit and proclaim the truth?

15. Angelo as the messenger in Ancient Greece, the friend and confidante in the contemporary period?

16. The film as an exploration of human nature, society? As religious? As psychological? Myth and truth? Pasolini's idiosyncratic insights and interpretation?