Fellini - Satyricon

Starring:Martin Potter, Hiram Keller, Max Born, Salvo Randone, Mario Romagnoli, Magali NoÃ«l, Capucine, Alain Cuny, Fanfulla, Danika La Loggia, Giuseppe Sanvitale, Genius, Lucia BosÃ©, Joseph Wheeler, Hylette Adolphe, Tanya Lopert, Gordon Mitchell, George Eastman, Marcello Di Falco, Elisa Mainardi
Director: Federico Fellini
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com essential video

Trippy is as trippy does, even when you're talking about a movie set in ancient Rome. This 1969 Fellini opus was among the most visually arresting entries in a year when the psychedelic experience was trying to claw its way into every movie coming down the pike. But Fellini, in telling a negligible story about two young men tasting the various pleasures of Nero's hedonistic and priapic reign, aimed for images that jarred as well as seduced. He found humor in freakishness, contrasting beauty and ugliness while effortlessly passing judgment on the emptiness of a life devoted to sensation and personal freedom. More of a fever dream than a linear story, Fellini Satyricon crystallized the director's reputation as a visionary--but may have trapped him into spending the rest of his career (with the exception of Amarcord) trying to top himself in reaching new levels of outrageousness. --Marshall Fine

Description

Encolpius is a Roman student who begins by arguing with his friend Ascyltus over the affections of androgynous youth Giton. Ascyltus wins, whereupon Encolpius embarks upon an odyssey, partaking in a drunken orgy and being kidnapped by a bisexual sea captain and his concubine. Encolpius eventually rejoins Ascyltus to visit a suicidal Roman couple, join in a plot to kidnap a "sacred" hermaphrodite, and much more. Loosely based on the book "Satyricon" by Gaius Petronius, the "Arbiter of Elegance" in the court of Nero, Federico Fellini wrote and directed this tongue-in-cheek hymn to the "glories" of pagan times via a bizarre journey through the decadence and debauchery of Nero's Rome.

Customer Reviews:

Empty, loud, and shallow illustration to an ancient book.......2007-04-27

"Satyricon" studies ancient Rome of the first century, and is virtually plot less; images drive the movie, not the story and characters, and the movie is essentially a montage of unrelated scenes. Cinematography and art direction are wonderful and the film is truly the feast for eyes. Its beauty comes from El Fayum portraits, wall paintings (frescos) and mosaics from Rome and Pompeii. The problem with Satyricon is that IMO Fellini himself did not like it very much. He seems to be a remote observer in that gorgeous but empty, soulless, decadence world of Nero's Rome. The shocking and appalling scenes of violence and sex leave me indifferent after a while. Two main characters that connect unrelated events are so insignificant, dull, and futile that they only take a screen time from the magnificent images which are the main attractions of "Satyricon". Even those images cannot safe Satyricon from being just a glorious illustration to an ancient book.

"Satyricon" feels empty, loud, and shallow. I rather read Petronius's book or watch the immortal, impressive, and full of character El Fayum portraits.

I prefer more "Fellini's Roma" - as beautiful as "Satyricon", it is much more enjoyable, has a subtle message and a lot of heart. The magnificent Eternal City is deservingly the main character of the very personal film for its creator, Maestro Fellini.

A singular triumph.......2007-02-12

Many complain "Satyracon" is lewd and "over the top". Hello! It's Ancient Rome! Many complain "Satyracon" is fragmented and episodic. Wake up people! It's taken from an ancient episodic work [like the Odyssey] that has only survived in fragments.
"Satyracon" is genius! It's a dream, a romp through the civilized western world without Christ or Christianity. A place where homosexuality and slavery are taken for granted. Where magic rules and life has quite a different meaning than it does today. To understand the genius of this film, one can simply compare it to 2 other films of about the same era, and themes.
One is "Caligula". It takes place in the same period of Ancient Rome, and the film even has the same designers! But "Caligula" is trash and porn and is all shock value that leaves little behind after you struggle through it. It's crap. Not so for "Satyracon". Both films have blood and gore and sex, but "Satyracon" does it with style, and it is never gratuitous.
The other is "2001: a Space Odyssey". Both films are experiments in filmmaking firmly planted in the period in which they were made: the late sixties. They are based, sort of, on an aesthetic of the time called "the happening" in which events unfold spontaneously. Plot becomes secondary...or tertiary even. Remember the musical "Hair", a hit of course at the time, has no plot. This 60's notion can be seen in other films too, that don't work and have become very dated, like "Easy Rider" or "Lucky Man". But "Satyracon" and "2001" take this happening idea and use it to concentrate on images. After all these are "motion PICTURES" and both films could almost be silent films [how the very genre of film started!] and they still work. Both involve unfamiliar places and cultures, one in the future [for the 60's] and one in the past. The characters in both realms take for granted the things we look on with amazement.
Yes, "Satyracon" is a period piece, a 60's film, but unlike others who tried to get "the happening" to work and failed, this film succeeds beautifully [partly by cleverly basing the film of a fragmented source]. And like "2001" it is still original, unique, and mysterious. It's brilliant! Don't miss it!

Bygones.......2007-01-23

There is a gentleman here hoping for a better print of Satyricon. Sadly, the best print was when The Criterion Collection released it on laserdisc. I have not seen it anywhere for sale and I lost the VHS copy I made from the CAV many years ago. I sold all my laserdiscs 15 years ago. Had I known what one-of-a-kind things they were I would have saved them.

the fellini paradox.......2006-12-17

Satyricon is a film that may have multiple functions: it can be viewed as a "satire" of hedonistic Rome, portraying the emptiness of a life driven by banalities through the coldness with which Ascilto, Encolpius and the rest of the "supporting" (i think more of- "incidental") cast is presented and developed. We only keep a record of Ascilto and Encolpius' doings, while the rest of the characters involved vanish, disappear with their affairs unresolved, perhaps as a metaphor for the lightness of a life lived only for the purpose of receiving pleasure.
On the other hand, and paraphrasing Andy Warhol, it can be understood as a stationary work of art... a movie that acts as a hanging portrait: a visual treat, purely for the sake of pleasure (here the paradox!). Like Warhol used to say about his movies of men sleeping: something to look at, that i can go to the kitchen and return and will still be there, beautiful. The characters' handsomeness, the exciting, beautiful sets one after the other, the odd ugliness that becomes strange beauty being something only Fellini can accomplish... and most of all, the straying away from any sincere human feelings or eroticism, in order to keep any actual emotional involvement at bay, make it a worthy "picture" to look at for the hours of its duration.
Fellini surely had a blast making this film, and it shows. He added and substracted oddities, freaks, epic beauties and creatures as he pleased. Scene after scene, incoherently put together as they are, something shocking or hypnotizing awaits. He loosely based himself on a story that lent itself to be ornamented, and transformed it into the greatest and most imitated trip/movie ever.
The film therefore can be interpreted as either of these two options, or as both, or as anything one wants it to be; in this sense, it's anamorphic and subjective. One thing is sure, though: it is bound to keep your eyes fixed on the screen. You can get up for a while and return, and it will still be there in all its color and charm. Whether you wish to analyze its meanings and symbolism does not affect its value entirely, because it works either way.

A standard for surrealalism, if a bit creepy........2006-09-14

Quite astounding when it first came out, your values may have changed a bit since you first saw this film way back when. Definitely a benchmark for cinema, regardless of your revisionist take on Fellini's "values".

I have couple of technical issues with the DVD (I bought it in 2001):
1) A lip-synch error pervades the entire disc - the dialog lags the actors mouths by a consistent and noticeable fraction of a second.
2) A pivotal scene in the film, the death of the hermaphrodite in the white hot desert canyon, is intentionally over-exposed in the film to appear almost completely washed out on screen. The DVD production house has "corrected" this exposure, which now looks muddy and lacks its original magic and meaning.

Amazon replaced my first copy - same deal. Too bad either Fellini wasn't well enough to oversee these types of technical details, or else the people designated to do this for him couldn't be bothered to do their job. Or maybe it's been fixed by now. Caveat emptor.

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