Pasolini, Maria Callas - Medea (1969) 03/12

[wren054]

one of the most beautiful films.

[096giovadale]

E' normale che questo film mi ha un po' turbato?

[mchicapp]

@096giovadale non l'ho ancora visto tutto, ma la medeab è una delle storie più terribili di tutta la mitologia greca. 'sta tipa aiuta un nemico del padre, ammazza il fratello, lo fa a pezzi e ne butta in mare un pezzo alla volta. poi ammazza i figli per fare un dispetto al suo amante nonché padre dei due ragazzini. certo la storia è un po' cruenta e doveva turbare. dovrebbe rappresentare il lato oscuro della femminilità. la femmina soggetto di desiderio era inaccettabile. oggetto sì. soggetto no

[096giovadale]

@mchicapp E' vero, ma guarda per esempio la scena in cui sacrificano l'uomo (è nella parte 2), queste musiche bizzarre, ossessive, questi uomini vestiti in modo stranissimo, tutto questo rito in cui fanno a pezzi l'uomo e sporcano le piante con il suo sangue...e le telecamere che inquadrano sempre persone che fissano il vuoto, o che fissano le piante, in silenzio...........a me ha turbato sopratutto quel pezzo.

[galehout]

@096giovadale fu un'aggiunta di Pasolini che trasse ispirazione dai riti di fertilità trattati dal grande Mircea Eliade, è il senso del Sacro che pervade tutto il mondo barbarico, ma equilibrato, di Medea prima dell'arrivo della civiltà. A 6:41 lei ascolta il canto delle donne e capisce che tutto questo verrà sconvolto

[096giovadale]

@galehout Ma a me sembra come che voglia dire qualcosa d'altro, che non viene espresso esplicitamente....le inquadrature degli uomini che fissano in silenzio, secondo me vuole come dare un messaggio che però invece di essere trattato a parole, viene semplicemente ridotto a questi sguardi persi. Non lo so,....sai, è Pasolini ;)

[galehout]

@096giovadale beh, però a forza di "mi sembra" credo si vada poco lontani... quello che ti ho detto, io l'ho LETTO, ed è quello che ha DETTO Pasolini stesso del suo film. E' un poeta che si mette a fare film, quindi credo che è obbligatorio conoscerlo prima come autore, sennò si prende una cosa per un'altra (succederebbe anche a me se parlassi senza averlo letto)

[096giovadale]

@galehout Si però lo sanno tutti che i suoi film possono avere MILLE significati, se lo conosci meglio di me dovresti saperlo

[academicusprecarius]

They had really weird rituals in ancient times (minoic cultures?) acc. to Pasolini :)

[angelforfreedom]

This music is TO DIE FOR!! Lovely! Sheer BEAUTY! Pasolini is a genius. :)

[dyingoddess]

This movie show perfectly how much problem pasolini got with his father, for the rest, it's just pure crap, euripide whould have puked actually.

Callas anyway looks great.

[GVCatullo]

@dyingoddess Pasolini took inspiration also from the opera by Cherubini and the version of Medea by the italian writer Corrado Alvaro.

[mysticalangels1]

Ancient Greece <3

[escarinae]

Greek has 50% vocabulary of non-Indo-European origin - where does the rest of the vocabulary come from? Word like narkissos, kiparissos? Ever heard of the Balkansprachbund? Ever heard of a proto-Greek substrate? Do learn more about neighboring cultures in order to understand yourself better. I cannot stop being amazed by the flat image of history or ethnicity you have.

[escarinae]

Do you for example know that Athens paid tribute to the Odryssian empire in 500 BC definitely, so I guess they were paying the people they digested? This is documented in inscriptions from Greek colonies in the Black Sea area, among other things. Where does Greek art derive its sources? Wasn't it a continuation of what they inherited from the Minoans? What is Greek mythology? Isn't it a concoction of myths they inherited from the various peoples in the Aegean? 

[Cuteo05]

Callas was a goddess in the body of a woman

[primohomme]

Pause at 07:45

Maria looks like a goddess waking up, as if her skin is made of porcelain and gold

What a creature, what a sublime artist.

[escarinae]

So now I had to hear the same lecture about the barbarians in the rest of the world and the great Euripides. I don't mind Euripides, but if you look around, you will find how much human creativity and genius there was in other parts of the world that you have never gotten to know. Your fixation on the Greeks is simply amazing.

[escarinae]

And if you have ever opened to read Aristoteles in original, you must have found out he thought about people in terms of masters and slaves, claiming that Greeks were born to be masters and barbarians were born to be slaves. Much of later European philosophy, including colonialism, has been based on junk like that. But we keep learning about the noble ancient Greeks without facing the facts about their ignorance concerning the rest of the world and its "dumping" under the concept "barbarians".

[PoseidonGRE]

@escarinae "ignorance of the noble Greeks for the rest of the world"?are you joking?You are talking about "slaves" in ancient Greece when slaves existed in USA and GB in 18th century?You are talking about the "Greek consept of "barbarians"" when a thousand years after the rest balcanians were still drinking their wine from the skull of their enemies and making necromancy from the open abdomen of their prisoners?typical hatred from a typical balcanian.Your comments in tube seep poison for Greeks

[escarinae]

@PoseidonGRE I can't stop being amazed to see how much chauvinism there is in the world. Actually, I don't mind the Greeks, but we do need to recognize the facts about this culture, just like we recognize the facts about any other. To me Aristoteles is no agreeable figure, after I have read him - in original. Have you? It does not matter "when" slavery existed. What matters is that it did exist.

[PoseidonGRE]

@escarinae trying to insult me judging me for my english??you think that makes you right?Have you ever read anything else than Harrison and Ariastoteles.Does ancient Greek philosophy and historiography ends with Aristoteles and Harrison?Try Plato,try Epicurus,try just Alexander the Great!What where the parents names of Medea?Eaitis (Αιήτης) and Oceanis (Ωκεανίδα)...do they sound Scythian or Caucasian or anythng else to you except Greek?Greeks wheren't a single race as anthropological findings

[escarinae]

And Alexander the Great was Greek? Huh, my, oh, my! He actually conquered the Greeks, just as he conquered many other peoples. His empire used Greek as an official language, just as Persians used Aramaic for a while, which did not make them in any way turn into Semites. You know, the only thing that kind of sooths me is that you sound just like nationalists in any other culture. Boring, ignorant, irrational.

[escarinae]

@PoseidonGRE However, I am afraid that you are not worth any of my attention any further. I dislike nationalists.

[PoseidonGRE]

@escarinae yours "muzzled" the strange?Your insulting comments prove your lAck of arguments.When you will manage to rebuff your Balkan (in our case Bulgarian) complex you will find the truth.Until then you BIG classical archaelogist (!) learn that Alexander was Greek.

greetings :-)

[escarinae]

@PoseidonGRE Actually, you are the one writing insults instead of providing arguments. It is so obvious, I did not have to say it. If you dislike Bulgarians or other Balkan people, I guess this is your problem, not mine.

[escarinae]

@PoseidonGRE As to my comment concerning the ancient Greeks' ignorance of the rest of the world - I did not think this up, this is a scientific fact. Ancient Greek historians like Thukydides do write off everyone non-Greek, including the Persians, as barbarians, at the same time we have no reason to believe that Greeks actually knew the culture, the art and the literature of Persians which, at that time, was very developed. I think you simply need to read Thukydides...

[PoseidonGRE]

@escarinae from J.L.Angel,C.S.Coon,P.Boev(!),H­.Schmidt,A.Poulianos,Th.Pitsio­s and many others proved it again and again.Thracians and Minoans,Lycians and Phrygians and many others were "digested" by the Greeks, in a grade that we dont know if the term "Greek",from a point and on,was a racial ,or a cultural term.Does that bother you ? Why our neighbors constantly try to prove how smaller (to their opinion) were ancient Greeks in race and culture?Does it bother you that my ancestors digested when

[escarinae]

@PoseidonGRE The only reason I kept writing to you is that people like you keep setting the tone of international politics, they lead people into wars based on their irrational convictions. You do need to learn respect to your neighbors and in the very first place, you need to learn something more about them. Learn a foreign language. Learn a Balkan language. It might be enlightening. No more form me today.

[Fierylunar]

@escarinae Stop being a whining baby. Youtube has enough of those. Also, the amount of faulty "facts" you use is staggeringly high. Stop pretending to know everything about ancient Greece and its society, and read some non-disputed carefully researched scientific studies instead of the cr*p you seem to have taken for fact on face value without considering alternative theories.

[escarinae]

@PoseidonGRE I also think you need to read some research on the subject. Try "Greeks and Barbarians" ed. by Thomas Harrison (2002). Well, I must check whether he has anything to do with the Balkans to be a poisonous "balcanian". And btw., you say "Balkan", not Balcanian, and whatever you say, as an ethnonym you write it in capital letters. And also btw., Greece is in the Balkans - at least geographically, even if not in the minds of many Greeks.

[escarinae]

@ididete Because I was shocked by the apotheosis you wrote on the Greeks (in the usual style "Greeks vs. barbarians"), I would suggest you read something else than popular books on "Greek" mythology or ancient Greek culture for that matter. Try Harrison's "Greeks and barbarians" for example.

[escarinae]

@ididete Your inability to accept other people's opinion and the reduction of your comments to personal remarks and attacks is indicative of low analytical skills and lack of emotional maturity.

[escarinae]

@ididete The other things is, although I am a scientist, I have done classical singing and I am a huge Callas fan. But I respect her as an actor and singer in opera. I dislike her in this movie, just as I dislike the movie itself. If you claim to be able to write anything more than third rate college papers then you must have understood that 1. other people have the right to their own opinion; 2. even if Pasolini is considered a genius, people are still free to dislike his work.

[escarinae]

@ididete I have always been amazed as to how people can make themselves ridiculous by making comments about others without knowing them. I say this concerning your comment about me having written nothing more but a third rate college paper. I am sure you would be embarrassed if you could find out something more about me.

[CorinaTag]

Well, Well, certainly, I am not convinced the film (perhaps because I have internalized the Greek world), but Maria Callas is simply amazing

[1Ajius]

Iason, Jason is not a Greek name, It is most probably Pelasgian.

[mephystofeles]

Esta horrible el filme, la musica es una historia muy mal realizada y con tanto potencial, y con la gran María Callas! que desperdicio!

[escarinae]

@ididete Could Jason have been Greek at a time where there were no Greeks in the Aegean (a historical fact)? Euripides was Greek, which does not make the legend Greek. Most of the "Greek" legends are inherited from people who inhabited the Aegean before them. I am repeating only trivial scientific facts here. Just read a bit more on the subject.

[Alexplus20]

Wheres the porn? Just clicked on this after seeing a bit of Salo and I have to say I am very disapointed!

[escarinae]

Oh, and for all people unknowing and for misinformed classical archaeologists and philologists: The time of the Minotaur=Aegean Bronze Age, Early and Middle Minoan period. NO Greeks in the Aegean and Definitely NONE of them in Colchis!

[escarinae]

I don't mind artists and their anachronisms, but when the "art" they produce is so misinformative as to bring about comments about the "typically ancient Greek features" of Maria Callas in the role of Medea (!?), all I feel like saying is open an atlas and see where ancient Colchis was! Start from there.

[escarinae]

As to the "Skythian" culture, since when are classical archaeologists specialists on the Skythians? To the best of my knowledge, they can only measure the noses of their Greek and Roman portraits - in total misunderstanding of the "barbarian" world around.

[escarinae]

Hey people, including classical archaeologists, when will you stop calling the myths referring to the time of Medea "Greek"? Medea was a contemporary of Minotaurus, what Greeks were there to find at this time in the Aegean??? So why does the story need to reflect anything that is Greek?

[RomneyGack]

I appreciate that this movie (a) has a definite minimalist quality and (b) that PP got out of the studio and dared to shoot at some "unique" locations. This is one original film.

[cibernete1974]

@escarinae

To a classical philologist like me this film has some reason to be like this, altough it is willingly full of anachronisms. It represents an attempt to give form on the set to the mix of indo-europaean and prae-indoeuropaean, greek and scythic traditions in the myth. It is also influenced by the neo-Frazerian perspective that pervaded the italian nythic realism since the works of the poet C. Pavese. This neo-Frazerian perspective is assumed by Pasolini.

[SandrineSoprano]

Love this film very much... There should be more in the genre.

[agg2mx1]

Pasolini siempre andaba bien pasolini.

[robertcouturier]

The music is from Bulgaria, "le Mystere des voix Bulgares", actually eerie and beautiful. Callas is so appropriate for the role,

[MastersoftheOpera]

Although this is a good film, I think it's beneath Callas. There is an opera version of Media by Cherubini which Callas sang with great success. They could have just made a film version of that opera - or Tosca or Norma which were Callas' greatest success. Instead they cast her in what looks like a late 60's art house movie where she has no speaking lines - and doesn't sing opera. In '69, her singing voice was still in good shape

[nandesneto]

Maria said the word in english and then was dubbed ?? I wanted to hear her real voice !!!!

[galehout]

@nandesneto This is the version with her real voice! In english

[galehout]

@galehout

[galehout]

@galehout Sorry, this is the italian version dubbed by herself. Another italian version exist, dubbed by Rita Savagnone

[Eirene001]

Again, Tibetan chants and trumpets...very fashionable in the late 60's, early 70's, when Tibetan culture was discovered by a large western public..

[vandrops]

GOOD NEWS dear Callas fans!!!! Striker capitulates! The automated production of feces is over. He's a nervous wreck because the great Filaredo gang has destroyed the white knight on his black donkey. Striker, you are alone in a hopeless plight!Go home and lick your wounds!!! Hoohooohaahaahhhaaa..... what a wonderful world...!!! Striker is only a picture of misery.....LOL

[Ramanujan88]

why do the vessels hang on trees?

[kalindoscopy]

why do stars hang in the sky?!

[Ramanujan88]

well, technically, stars don't hang in the sky. But for the vessels, I'm serious...are they a symbol, do they catch something from branches? I know the vessel is a big symbol for Medea, but I was just wondering why they were on the trees.

[Shanniquitie]

if you're going to get technical about hanging stars, don't bother watching these sorts of films. isn't there a biology lab you should be dusting? :P

[Ramanujan88]

as much as i love dust, I really wasn't trying to be technical or even a wiseass or anything like that, i was just kidding with the last commentor. And I was seriously asking about the vessels. Why do you have to be mean about it. Love this film - it's amazing, hard and spiritual, and it's so full of gesture, so it makes you wonder about what you see rather than what you hear. If no one can think of an answer, then ignore my annoying questions, but don't talk just to talk.

[Shanniquitie]

i was just being silly, no offense intended. regarding your question i have no answer (is there one? pasolini has mixed so many cultures and spiritiualities together, it could come from anywhere). take care!

[Ramanujan88]

I'm sorry I responded like that to you. But what you just gave me now was a great answer! Pasolini does have so much mixed in here, you're right. Vessels have just as many possibilites as bigger questions like why did Medea go with Jason or why did she kill her kids...that's part of what makes the story - especially Pasolini's version - great! You take care too! Thanks.

[Shanniquitie]

yes, this is why we should be eternally grateful to the classical cultures... not only did they help create our own, but have left us a wealth of literature and drama and art/architecture (and music!) which continues to inform us to this day. aren't humans brilliant? hehe

[ellocojordidevinaros]

is this maria callas es ella maria callas sei chesta donna maria calas

cete famme ce la gran callas

please tell me

[Ramanujan88]

what are they doing after the sandstorm. Who are the meeting with? Are they trading something? Sorry, I'm not sure. Is that from the Argo legend?

[Gaedha]

the bulgarian song at 5.36 is "Разболяла се Драгана" (Dragana Fell Sick"). the lyrics:

Dragano!

Razboliala se /i/ Dragana

na vruh, na Stara planina.

Dek tam Dragana lejala

stoudena voda techala

[ilco91]

I cannot find this song! why? I think it's about les mystere des voix bulgares... but I have so difficult to find just it

[narnari1973]

Medea was not greek. She was georgian. greeks steal the golden fleece and Medea from kolxida same georgia.

[galehout]

@narnari1973 This is very true, and is too often forgotten: Medea is NOT Greek, she is a barbaric sorceress. It's very important both for the tragedy of Euripides and for the interpretation of Pasolini

[oPeRa1923]

okay, im not sure what happened here...

what is the scene about the Medea walking on fire...?

[jem2017]

She is undergoing a ritual purification before walking up to the temple where the golden fleece is (see the next video in this sequence).

[boredwell]

Ah, aside from the homoerotic element and Pasolini's obvious formative apprenticeship with Fellini, Callas is spectacularly grandiose givng us a contemporary interpretation of the too often maligned Medea. In this, her only film role, Maria is breathtakingly phenomenal.

[cupcaketopper]

How much do you love your thesaurus?

[CONTESTAR]

Pasolini succeeded presenting us with a work of art, almost like a painting by Goya or Francis Bacon.

However, the minor commercial success led Callas to refuse to do a film with Visconti.

She thought that it was a failure, since she had managed to reach the masses with the elitistic Art of Opera, and only reached the intellectuals with Cinema, the Art of the masses!!

She would have been marvelous in a film where she would be allowed to act a "real" non mythological character.

What a loss!!

[ahalyabs]

The Music inthe background looks like Tibatan music.

[claudialab]

this movie is not suppose to be like "Troy" or "The gladiator"

[lostris01]

I'd definitely have done Callas also - gorgeous.

[claudialab]

totally agree with lostris01

[lostris01]

No offense and not being big headed but after you study the literature and culture of the ancient world for so long, particularly Greece, then you get this. It's not supposed to be a blockbuster - it's flavour is that of ancient tragedy. Our rules of entertainment don't apply. I couldn't have cast a better Medea myself. The raw eerieness of the music and the landscape is excellent also. The Greek fear of the barbaric and uncivilised is emphasised perfectly.

[escarinae]

@lostris01 I see you have "studied" in detail if you have not figured out that at the time of Medea there were no Greeks in Hellas and the Aegean... Greeks preserved these myths, but they are not "theirs" and they are not "about them". They inherited most of them from neighboring peoples and the ones they conquered.

[escarinae]

@lostris01 To a classical archaeologist like me this movie is a torture to see. So much misinformation, so many anachronisms, so much ignorance about the ancient world combined with so much pompousness. But also the impossible mixing of modern cultures - Bulgarian folk songs sung in a Slavic language, Tibetan chants at bloody scenes, Japanese music. Tasteless, tasteless, tasteless. And false.

[peachfuzz1204]

@escarinae I am no expert. Only interested in Ancient world religion and ritual. Will you please suggest, other movies that are more TRUE in form please? I'm tired of reading text, and watching the typical Greek and Roman pantheon glamourized hollywood styles. Send me to a dipiction that you consider done in Good Taste. Thanks in advance.

[LohengrinT]

@escarinae

then you should watch Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss where a prehistorical figure (Ariadne) co-exists with the 18th century characters of Comedia dell Arte of the 18th century - or you should just understand that Anachronism is an element used in Greek Tragedy ever since it's very birth.

This is Art, it is not a documentary 

[madococo]

@lostris01 I cannot say better.

[lapoireUS]

Mmmmmmmm... k, this is weird. Starting at 9.10 there's Tibetan Buddhist music. In a movie about Medea. What the heck.

I'm pretty surprised la Callas was involved in this movie. To me, that's the only good thing about the movie : she is in it !

[mydogalice]

OK, this is the worst movie ever, but at least we get to see Callas.

[kafkakinder]

I´am a huge fan of Pasolini´s work, but this film is not good, in fact it is kind of boring.

[yumlemonjuice]

i think the musical track put with it is awful...terrible..in fact the music is part of what made this film a commercial failure because it was so bizarre.

[mebrowneyedgirl]

i watched this film a year ago and now i am convinced that not only was she an amazing opera singer, but also a very expressing actress.. the italian language gives a tone of mystery to this classical masterpiece.. it was a great production..

ps i am so proud knowing that she was greek. everybody loves her in greece!!

[canaus289]

why do you like so much the Pasolini Medea?

[AlexiouValenti]

Because callas is medea!

[morleigh13]

Certainly looked liked it.