The Canterbury Tales

I racconti di Canterbury

1972 · Pier Paolo Pasolini

Pier Paolo Pasolini adapts eight of Chaucer's tales, framed by pilgrims gathering at the Tabard Inn and traveling toward Canterbury, with Pasolini himself playing Chaucer. The vignettes range from the Merchant's Tale, in which an old blind husband is deceived by his young wife, to the Friar's Tale, expanded into a brutal account of a man burned alive for sodomy, to the slapstick Cook's Tale built around comic actor Ninetto Davoli. Loosely strung together rather than following Chaucer's pilgrim-narrator framing, the film mixes bawdy comedy with sudden cruelty to capture the earthiness of the original poem.

Director

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Studio

Les Productions Artistes Associés, Produzioni Europee Associate

Starring

Hugh Griffith, Laura Betti, Ninetto Davoli, Franco Citti, Josephine Chaplin