Trilogy of Life — The Criterion Collection (3-Disc Blu-ray)

Scene Setting

EXT. MEDIEVAL VILLAGE — LATE AFTERNOON.

A priest looks suspicious. A young couple disappears behind a curtain. Somewhere, Chaucer is taking notes. Pier Paolo Pasolini's Trilogy of Life has arrived, and respectable society has several complaints.

Product Description

Three films. Several centuries of human misbehavior. Very little shame.

Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini turns medieval literature into a gloriously indecent cinematic affair with Trilogy of Life, a three-film collection featuring The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972), and Arabian Nights (1974).

Drawing from the works of Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and The Thousand and One Nights, Pasolini assembles a procession of lustful peasants, corrupt clergymen, mischievous lovers, and people making exceptionally poor decisions in the name of pleasure.

Beneath the nudity, irreverent comedy, and religious provocation lies a pointed critique of consumer culture and sexual hypocrisy. Production design by Dante Ferretti and music by Ennio Morricone give these unruly stories a remarkable visual and musical character.

Presented by The Criterion Collection in a three-disc Blu-ray box set, Trilogy of Life includes digital restorations of all three films, documentaries, interviews, deleted scenes, and essays examining Pasolini's provocative vision of humanity.

Not recommended for the easily scandalized. Particularly those with a fondness for medieval clergy.

Films Included

• The Decameron (1971): Boccaccio's fourteenth-century tales become a disorderly collection of sexual escapades, grave robbers, mischievous nuns, and religious satire.

• The Canterbury Tales (1972): Eight stories from Geoffrey Chaucer's literary classic, featuring lust, deception, and a particularly unpleasant vision of hell.

• Arabian Nights (1974): An erotic interpretation of The Thousand and One Nights, following a young man's search for his beloved through stories of desire, adventure, and human folly.

Product Highlights & Technical Notes

• Director: Pier Paolo Pasolini

• Collection: The Criterion Collection, spine #631

• Format: Blu-ray box set

• Discs: 3

• Films: The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, Arabian Nights

• Restoration: New digital restorations of all three films

• Audio: Uncompressed monaural soundtracks

• Subtitles: New English subtitle translations

• Additional audio: Pasolini-approved English-dubbed track for The Canterbury Tales

• Cover artwork: Rodrigo Corral

Special Features

• Visual essays by film scholars Patrick Rumble and Tony Rayns

• Interviews with production designer Dante Ferretti, composer Ennio Morricone, and film scholar Sam Rohdie

• Introduction to Arabian Nights by Pier Paolo Pasolini

• The Lost Body of Alibech (2005), a documentary examining a lost sequence from The Decameron

• The Secret Humiliation of Chaucer (2006), a documentary about The Canterbury Tales

• Via Pasolini (2005), featuring archival footage of the filmmaker

• Pasolini and the Form of the City (1974), a documentary by Pasolini and Paolo Brunatto

• Deleted scenes from Arabian Nights

• Film trailers

• Essays by critic Colin MacCabe, Pasolini's 1975 statement Trilogy of Life Rejected, excerpts from his Berlin Film Festival press conference, and a report from the set of Arabian Nights by Gideon Bachmann