The Decameron (film)
[3] Prologue: The film, shot in Neapolitan dialect at the behest of the director, offers a variety of episodes from the stories in Giovanni Boccaccio's book, and are linked through a pupil of the painter Giotto (played by Pasolini himself) who arrives in Naples to paint a mural.The credits roll while the song-play Zesa Viola o La Zita in cerca di un marito is played over top.The young man escapes and meets two thieves who are attempting a robbery at a nearby church to steal the jewels from the tomb of the Archbishop Filippo Minutolo [it] who died a few days earlier.Ciappelletto, the Thief: In Naples, an old man is reading to an interested crowd a bawdy story (based on Ninth day, second tale) in Neapolitan.The Mother Superior who was sleeping with a priest is awakened by knocking on her door in the middle of the night and quickly gets dressed.The abbess declares his sudden ability to speak a miracle from God, but this is merely an excuse to keep the young man at the convent.That night, Ciappelletto has an ominous dream that he is being paraded around while wrapped in a burial shroud while around him friars and monks play volleyball with human skulls.They happily sing the Neapolitan song Fenesta ca Lucive together and drink wine but Ciappelletto falls down in a faint.Ciappelletto devises a plan to confess and calls a monk to tell him several lies and half-truths that make him seem very pure, while pretending to cringe over venial sins.The monk delivers a eulogy to "Saint Ciappelletto" and urges everyone in attendance to take heed and remember his holy actions.After the eulogy, many poor, disabled and sick people enter the room where Saint Ciappelletto is kept and touch his body in praise.The cart he is in is stopped by the rain and they take cover with a toothless farmer nearby named Gennari who gives the passengers clothes.She tells her mother that the inside of the house is much too warm for her and that she wants to stay outside so she may hear the nightingale sing in the morning.The father covers her mouth and explains that the boy is a good match, as his marriage would earn a significant amount of money through dowry and it would improve their social standing.They invite Lorenzo to their private garden under the pretenses of having lunch but then stab him in the back with a dagger in order to save their family's honour.Elizabeth spends nights crying over him after which his ghost appears to her in a dream and tells her that he was killed and buried in the family's garden.The next day, Elizabeth asks for permission to go the garden and the brothers give it to her, not suspecting her to know that Lorenzo was killed and buried there.Don Gianni strips Gemmata naked in front of Pietro and grabs her breasts, hair, back and bottom, and describes how each part will appear when she is a mare.Epilogue: The final scene returns to the pupil of the painter Giotto, who has completed his fresco, which illustrates episodes of the film.This also enables Pasolini to put commentaries on the class conflicts and economic exploitation of the contemporary society in the stories."By grafting the marginal modern (the Italian lumpen poor, the third world) onto medieval texts, Pasolini hoped to fashion an alternative to a present that he found ever more repellent."[4] According to Ben Lawton, "Pasolini's intention was not to recreate the medieval world of Boccaccio's characters but instead to comment on contemporary Italian society through the metaphorical use of the original novellas of the Decameron.With consulation of Ennio Morricone, Pier Paolo Pasolini chosen representative examples of Italian folk songs from different localities and Latin mediaeval chants.She tells her female servants that it was wrong for Neerbale to steal her away when she was learning about the Christian God and doing such great things as sending the Devil to Hell.