Oedipus Rex

Synopsis

Sophocles meets Freud in Pasolini’s astonishing reading of the Oedipus myth. Franco Citti plays Pasolini-as-Oedipus in an ‘ethnographic’ telling of the ancient tale of a man fated to solve the riddle of the sphinx, kill his own father and marry his own mother. The approach is anything but purist (Moroccan locations, a world music score), while an autobiographical prologue and epilogue bring it all back home to the author.

Director Biography

Pier Paolo Pasolini, (born March 5, 1922, Bologna, Italy—died Nov. 2, 1975, Ostia, near Rome), Italian motion-picture director, poet, and novelist, noted for his socially critical, stylistically unorthodox films. The son of an Italian army officer, Pasolini was educated in schools of the various cities of northern Italy where his father was successively posted. He attended the University of Bologna, studying art history and literature.