Pier Paolo Pasolini Collection, Vol. 1 (Oedipus Rex / Porcile / Love Meetings)

Customer Reviews:

Great is all you have to say!!!.......2007-03-13

This is one of Piers best work! I imagined it the same way it was wonderful and the changes from Morocco to Italy were seemless I really enjoyed the scene in Corinth because thats supposed to be how it really looks in Morocco!!! Two thumbs up Pier!!! Great work

A master filmmaker gets a bland treatment.......2003-05-22

I've reviewed each of the titles in this box set separately (although Oedipus Rex won't come up if you search by Pasolini, as it's attributed to Philip Saville, who also directed a version of the Sophocles play in 1967), so I won't go into specifics here, but I would like to make some general statements about this box set. Pasolini is an intriguing figure, both as a filmmaker and as a person. His films are a strange mix of politics, social criticism, neo-classicism, and deeply personal insight.

Unfortunately, Waterbearer hasn't done these films justice. The transfers on the discs are very washed-out, they're poorly matted, and the film is pitted and scratched. The audio on the discs is hissy and the levels are set too high - there is quite a bit of distortion on some of the music. The subtitles are burned in (not optional) and are white. On this makes for extremely difficult reading, as the film itself is black and white. Some of the subtitles on are also impossible to read, as some of the characters are wearing white costumes.

I would be willing to chalk all of these problems up to the age of the films if it weren't for one thing. Waterbearer's earlier, now out-of-print issues of Pasolini's Trilogy of Life films (Decameron, Canterbury Tales, and Arabian Nights) all suffered from muddy transfers and poor audio, yet MGM's recent reissue of The Decameron features a beautiful anamorphic transfer (incidentally, Waterbearer's edition of Spirits of the Dead also featured a cruddy transfer, which has fortunately been superseded by HVE's beautiful edition). It is possible to restore these films, and there is certainly interest in them, but unfortunately it looks like we're going to have to suffer with these mediocre transfers until someone with enough clout figures this out.

My other complaints are fairly minor. The box itself is merely a flimsy paper slipcase, and each of the discs features the same documentary as a special feature. While the documentary is interesting and worth watching, I don't understand the logic of putting it on all three discs. Also, the price that Waterbearer has put on this set, especially considering the mediocre-at-best quality of the transfers, is puzzling if not downright insulting. However, for Pasolini enthusiasts, it's all we've got for now.

Waterbearer will be releasing Volume 2 this summer, and it will include a re-issue of The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Accatotone, and The Hawks and the Sparrows. Hopefully, those transfers will be worthy of such an innovative filmmaker.

A master filmmaker gets a bland treatment.......2003-05-22

Three intriguing Pasolini films.......2003-05-15

This three-film box set provides a very good introduction to Pasolini. It includes the rare early documentary LOVE MEETINGS (1964); one of his best and most representative films, OEDIPUS REX (1967); and the deeply strange but unforgettable PORCILE (1969). Although I have written about these DVDs individually elsewhere at Amazon.com, let me briefly introduce them here. LOVE MEETINGS (COMIZI D'AMORE, literally "debates about love") is Pasolini's cinema verite investigation of sexual attitudes among a broad spectrum of Italians, from liberal students to soccer stars to traditional villagers, from all parts of the country. It also provides a fascinating, albeit indirect, portrait of Pasolini himself, as this extraordinary filmmaker, poet, novelist, and theoretician reveals much about his own attitudes towards sex and the Italian people. OEDIPUS REX is his opulent and riveting adaptation of the ancient myth; simultaneously, it is a provocative reflection of the filmmaker himself (Pasolini sets the prologue in Fascist Italy, depicting his own father and mother as Oedipus' parents). PORCILE (aka PIGSTY), filmed with serene beauty and underlying horror, is one of Pasolini's most hauntingly original works. It interweaves two seemingly disconnected tales, that of a young man forced into a life of cannibalism in a dreamlike medieval Wasteland, and that of the enigmatic son of an ex-Nazi industrialist in modern Germany. Both men become sacrificial victims of their different societies. Each of the three discs includes the same excellent half-hour 1970 documentary on Pasolini, but no other features. The Pasolini Foundation in Rome, which controls the rights to all three films, insisted that the U.S. distributor release the DVDs without any chapters (i.e., each is in one continuous track), to encourage people to watch each picture in its entirety. Still, it is a privilege to have these three extraordinary films on DVD, and I look forward to the Pasolini Collection, Volume 2.

Average customer rating:

This Is As It Should Be
Great film, terrible DVD
Very Poor Quality from Wellspring
Interesting mix of themes
Awful transfer of a strange film

Porcile
Starring: Pierre Clémenti , Jean-Pierre Léaud , Alberto Lionello , Ugo Tognazzi , and Anne Wiazemsky
Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini
Manufacturer: Water Bearer Films, Inc
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00008DDUG
Release Date: 2003-03-14

Customer Reviews:

This Is As It Should Be.......2006-09-25

I've heard people complain that Water Bearer Films re-editted the sequences, etc. among other things, but this film is as it should be since it's a direct archival copy. I really love the disjointed segues when the reel is being cut and switched. The best result of this technique is when Franco Citti's character is throwing himself on the naked girl and it abruptly cuts to Herr Klotz playing the harp in that beautiful villa. Pure surrealism (and probably dadaism). The cutting back and forth between time and setting gets freakier as the film progresses. Again, this is how Pasolini intended it to be. It's very dream-like since sometimes the disparate stories almost merge in your line of vision. The roughness of this film only adds to the charm. I actually like that there are no chapter selections and it is just one long chapter: It maintains that feeling of being a film or a singular piece of art. Everything on DVD now a days is spliced up into an easily consumable platter of consumer product. Porcile is a work against mundane conveniences and luxuries. OINK! Besides, Pasolini's work always feels like some ritual is falling into place. Would you really like to treat a ritual in the same way you treat Bad Boys II or Jersey Girl? I think not.

This is as close as Pasolini gets to Bunuel.

Great film, terrible DVD.......2005-03-11

Like most Pasolini films, this is a beautiful film.

Unfortunately, like most of Water Bearer's Pasolini releases, this is by far one of the worst looking and sounding DVDs I have ever seen.

The sound is hissy and scratchy, like a destroyed vinyl record.

The color is weak and pale.

The picture itself is scratchy, dirty and shaky: a thick, distracting layer of crud over the picture surface.

Worst of all, the subtitles are terrible: hard to read, and irremovable from the screen.

There are also no chapters on this disc: the whole film is one long chapter.

I honestly don't know why Water Bearer even bothered to license the Pasolini films because it seems they did absolutely NOTHING to prepare them for proper release. It's sad and completely disrespectful to the work. Hopefully, sometime in the future Criterion or a similar company will acquire these films and do a nice job presenting them. The 2004 Criterion version of Momma Roma is absolutely wonderful.

Very Poor Quality from Wellspring.......2005-01-02

I will not comment on the film as others here have covered it sufficiently. I am concerned with the DVD transfer issued by WaterBearer Video. I purchased both Passolini box sets and was very disappointed with the quality of the video. The transfer of Porcile was the worst.
The source print was so covered with dirt that it often appears to be raining in this beautiful film. The DVD contains artifacts from the end of each film reel. I have never seen anything like this in a DVD release.
But the worst oversight is the fact that two of the film reels are out of order! This film is confusing enough without this problem. Don't waste your money on this.

Interesting mix of themes.......2005-01-01

If you are looking for a strange film to watch, you cannot go wrong with Porcile, one of Pasolini's most interesting efforts as a film maker. The theme is a twisted look at fascism through two dominant stories - that of a mountain cannibal and his trials - and that of a wealthy beorgois ex-nazi family.

Though this film is a very startling metaphor of humanity and its reasons for downfall (like Salo) it is not the smoothest of Pasolini's films - it certainly lacks the cohesive structure of 'the trilogy of life' while it embraces an equally complicated subtext. Therefor, it is an extremely difficult film to judge or review. I certainly enjoyed watching it - in what was not the best transfer possible, to say the least.

I recommend this one - but I would like to recommend Pasolini's finer works first like 'Oedipus Rex, the 'Decameron', 'Salo, 'Accatone', and of course 'Mamma Roma'.

Awful transfer of a strange film.......2003-05-19

Pasolini's Porcile is a strange double-tale of cannibalism, self-sacrifice, Nazis, and (for lack of a better term) swine-affinity.

I'm very happy to own this film on DVD, but I wish the disc was better. The transfer is downright awful: the colors shift, it's poorly matted, the image bounces up and down (more than just Pasolini's handheld shots), the sound is awful and hissy, and the entire film is scratched - in fact, it looks to have been sourced from either a workprint or an original print (it features strange calibration frames between each reel, and the reels themselves are separated by several seconds of black space).

I would recommend this to die-hard Pasolini enthusiasts, as it's probably the only Region 1 edition we'll ever see. Just don't expect a great transfer. Hopefully, Waterbearer will address some of these problems for their Volume 2 box set.

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