The Now Forgotten Psychedelic Psychotronic FELLINI SATYRICON
Psycho as in horror, tronic as in electronic or science fiction. A whole lot of people in 1970 saw this tripping. Take a walk down the primrose path of perversity!
I first saw FELLINI SATYRICON at a midnight Show at the Playboy movie theater in Chicago. Everyone in the theater was high on something, yet they were dead silent during the film. Afterwards the lobby and outside groups were talking about the film. ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW would come along later and completely wipe out every other film we loved to see at Midnight- THE MALTESE FALCON, YOU CAN’T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN, EL TOPO, GIMMIE SHELTER, all these and more stopped being shown.
Giovanni Grazzini argued that "Fellini's Rome bears absolutely no relationship to the Rome we learned about in school books. It is a place outside historical time, an area of the unconscious in which the episodes related by Petronius are relived among the ghosts of Fellini ... His Satyricon is a journey through a fairytale for adults. It is evident that Fellini, finding in these ancient personages the projection of his own human and artistic doubts, is led to wonder if the universal and eternal condition of man is actually summed up in the frenzied realization of the transience of life which passes like a shadow. These ancient Romans who spend their days in revelry, ravaged by debauchery, are really an unhappy race searching desperately to exorcise their fear of death".
Here’s the movie, you have to click on watch on YouTube:
For Vincent Canby of The New York Times, Satyricon was "the quintessential Fellini film ... a travelogue through an unknown galaxy." Roger Ebert of The Chicago-Sun Times originally stated the film was a masterpiece, and he ranked the film 10th in his 10 Best Films of 1969 list. He later explained he was unsure the film was in fact a masterpiece, but nonetheless gave the film a high retrospective rating in 2001. He wrote: "It is so much more ambitious and audacious than most of what we see today that simply as a reckless gesture, it shames these timid times."
I saw SATYRICON many times, once without any substances, booze, you know, 70’s stuff. I was happy to know the film was gorgeous and open to many interpretations.
Fellini Satyricon (1969) - Making Of:
Fellini had his 3rd Academy Award nomination with Fellini Satyricon. The reason his name was in the title Fellini's project saw competition from another film titled Satyricon, released the same year. Producer Alfredo Bini had registered the Satyricon title in 1962. When Fellini and his producer Alberto Grimaldi started work on their film, Bini contracted Gian Luigi Polidoro to direct his own version. Grimaldi sued Bini to halt the competing film, but lost; as a result, Fellini's picture was titled Fellini Satyricon to distinguish it.
The music:
Everything about the film makes it a true immersive experience. Enjoy! here’s a documentary on Fellini.
Behind the paywall: Il Bidone (1955) aka THE SWINDLER Early Fellini thriller!
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Global Psychotronic Film Society to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.