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‘Varius multiplex multiformis’: Impressions of Federico Fellini's Satyricon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Cécile Ladjali

Extract

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Fellini attempted to be painter, poet and musician in making Satyricon, a ‘free adaptation of Petronius's classic’, as the subtitle indicates. The film can be divided into three parts. The central section of the triptych is devoted to a hermaphrodite character. This figure, borrowed from Ovid, is the incandescent heart of the film, in which very many types of the dual and ambiguity are required to embody all the varieties of love and death. Hermaphroditus sums up the poetic, plastic and philosophical intentions carried by these figures. He also draws the shadow of their strange silhouette towards a proto-Christian horizon, which the film's three-part construction sets out to reveal.

Type
Comment
Information
Diogenes , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , November 2005 , pp. 174 - 182
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2005

References

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