| Arabian Nights | |
| Director: | Pier Paolo Pasolini |
| Producer: | Alberto Grimaldi |
| Music: | Ennio Morricone |
| Cinematography: | Giuseppe Ruzzolini |
| Distributor: | United Artists |
| Language: | Italian, Arabic |
Arabian Nights is a 1974 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini. Its original Italian title is Italian: Il fiore delle mille e una notte, which means The Flower of the One Thousand and One Nights.
The film is an adaptation of the ancient Arabic anthology One Thousand and One Nights, also known as the Arabian Nights. It is the last of Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life", which began with The Decameron and continued with The Canterbury Tales. The lead was played by young Franco Merli who was discovered for this film by Pasolini. The film is an adaptation of several stories within the original collection but they are presented out of order and without the Scheherazade, Dunyazad and King Shahriyar frame story.
The film contains abundant nudity, sex and slapstick humor. It preserves the eroticism and the story within a story structure of Arabian Nights and has been called "perhaps the best and certainly the most intelligent" of Arabian Nights film adaptations.[1]
With this film, Pasolini intended to make a film of Arabian Nights based on his 'memory of it as a boy'. In preparation for the film, Pasolini re-read the 1001 Nights with a more critical lens and chose only the stories that he felt were the most 'beautiful'.[2]
The main story concerns an innocent young man, Nur-e-Din (Franco Merli), who comes to fall in love with a beautiful slave girl, Zumurrud (Ines Pellegrini), who selected him as her master. After a foolish error of his causes her to be abducted, he travels in search of her. Meanwhile, Zumurrud manages to escape and, disguised as a man, comes to a far-away kingdom where she becomes king. Various other travellers recount their own tragic and romantic experiences, including a young man who becomes enraptured by a mysterious woman on his wedding day, and the prince Shazaman (Alberto Argentino), who wants to free a woman from a demon (Franco Citti) and for whom two women sacrifice their lives. Interwoven are Nur-e-Din's continuing search for Zumurrud and his (mostly erotic) adventures. In the end, he arrives at the far-away kingdom and is reunited with Zumurrud.
The film comprises 16 scenes:[3]
Truth lies not in one dream, but in many dreams. - verse from the 1001 Nights and opening title
Pasolini originally wanted to use more native actors from Iran and other shooting locations in some of the roles but he had to settle for Italian actors and actresses as the Muslim governments did not permit nudity for their citizens.[4] Many of the roles are still played by non-professional native actors, though usually the ones that don't involve nudity. This leads to some odd casting choices such as the Yunan story where Prince Yunan is played by an Italian (Salvatore Sapienza) while his father is clearly played by an East Asian (most likely native Nepalese).
Around this time, Ninetto Davoli, who was bisexual and involved with Pier Paolo Pasolini, left him to marry a woman. Pasolini references this by having his story be the one about the man who is instructed on how to woo a woman by a girl who happens to be his fiancé and who dies of a broken heart. Davoli was married in 1973 and this film can be read as Pasolini's farewell to him. This was the first film where Pasolini had Davoli naked with his penis exposed, and interestingly, his story in the film ends with him being castrated by his former lover. It is no coincidence that Aziz is a very insensitive character.
In typical Pasolini fashion, there is also some gender bending casting. Zummurrud's bride is played by the thirteen year son of an Iranian hotel owner who lived near Imam mosque.[5]
Filming took place in Iran, north and south Yemen, the deserts of Eritrea and Ethiopia, and Nepal.[6] [7] Sium's story that Zummurrud reads about was filmed in Ethiopia with uncredited native actors. Some of the interior scenes were shot at a studio in Cristaldi in Rome.In part of the love scene between the girl prisoner of the demon and Prince Shahzaman, Barbara Grandi, who was thirteen during filming, was replaced by an older body double.[8]
The market scene at the very beginning of the film was filmed in a town in Yemen named Taiz. The home of Nur-ed-Din, the place where the European man abducts Zummurrud from, is in Zabid.[9] Pasolini had lived there for some time.[10] The desert city that Zummurrud rides to disguised as Wardan was shot at Sana'a. The story of Aziz and Aziza was also filmed here.
Princess Dunya's palace is the Dar al-Hajar palace in Yemen. The deleted scenes of Dunya battling her father were filmed in a desert near the location.
The feast of the three sisters and Nur-ed-Din was shot in Shibam.
After being attacked in the desert, Prince Shahzmah is being taken into a house in Seiyun.
At least five monumental buildings of Iran have been used for the film. The Jameh Mosque and the Shah Mosque, both in Esfahan were used as parts of 'King' Zumurud's palace. The Shah Mosque is the place of the wedding feast, where Zummurrud takes revenge on her former captors and where she sees Nur-ed-Din eating at the end of the film. Two real palaces provided parts of the palace as well. The balcony of Ālī Qāpū Palace in Esfahan can be seen as a stage for the wedding celebrations and the throne room of Chehel Sotoun became the King's bedroom. However the entrance to the palace was filmed at the old city walls of Sana'a in Yemen.
The Music Hall of Ālī Qāpū doubled as the underground chamber where Prince Shahzmah finds a girl who is held prisoner by a demon. Chehel Sotoun provided another underground room. Here Yunan finds a fourteen-year-old boy who is hiding from the man who would kill him on his next birthday.
The Murcheh Khvort Citadel is the place where Nur-ed-Din was hoisted up in a basket by three women.
Shooting was complicated in Isfahan: military guards threw Pasolini and the crew out because they brought donkeys onto the premises of the Shah Mosque and Pasolini had women singing for the scene; this was explicitly prohibited and cost the production a few days delay.[11]
The adventures of Yunan begin and end in Nepal. Yunan can be seen playing hide and seek with his friends in and around the Jaisi Deval Temple in Kathmandu[12] and running to his father's palace on Durbar Square in Kathmandu to tell him he wants to go to the sea. He finds his father in the sunken bath of Sundhari Chowk in Patan.[13] After his return home from his adventures he says farewell to his royal life on Bhelukhel Square in Bhaktapur.[14]
Prince Shahzmah ends up in Nepal as well. When the King first hears of the monkey sage, he is in the courtyard of Kumari Bahal in Kathmandu. He gives orders to receive the animal with all honours and so a procession is organised to bring him to the palace. The parade passes Saraswati Hiti in Patan, the Ashok Binayak Temple on Durbar Square in Kathmandu, among other places, and ends at the golden gate of Durbar Square in Bhaktapur. In the courtyard of Pujari Math, Dattatreya Square in Bhaktapur, Shahzmah becomes a man again. He too goes off to become a mendicant.
Most of the score was composed by Ennio Morricone and intentionally keeps away from traditional music unlike the first two films of the Trilogy of Life. The music is symphonic. This was to separate it from reality and give it more of a dream-like quality. The Andante of Mozart's String Quartet No.15 is also used in the film. This was to contrast the poverty depicted on the screen with the richness of Mozart's music.[15]
The original script written by Pasolini is very different from what appears in the final film. The set up and flashbacks are much different and more stories from the book are added.[16] In the original script, the film is divided into three parts, the first half, the Intermezzo and the second half. Each part was to have a different frame story which would segue into even more stories in a more conventional framework than the continuous, rhapsodic and fluid form of the final script. In the original prologue of the film, the story opens in Cairo with four boys masturbating to different stories they envision in their heads. These daydreams are based on various stories from the original source material including the erotic poetry of Abu Nuwas, the story of Queen Zobeida and King Harún, the tale of Hasan and Sitt the Beautiful and the stories of Dunya and Tagi and Aziz and Aziza. The stories of the two dervishes were to go in between the last scene. These stories are left out of the final film except for the ones with the Dunya frame narrative. These stories (Dunya and Tagi, Aziz and Aziza, Yunan and Shahziman) are in the final film though much later and in different context.
In the intermezzo, four people of different faiths each believe they have killed a hunchback and tell the Sultan stories to calm his anger. The Christian matchmaker, Muslim chef, Jewish doctor and Chinese tailor each tell their story and avoid the death sentence. The next part was to have Pasolini appearing as himself to the young boys. He kisses each boy, giving them a fragment of the story of Nur-ed-Din and Zummurrud each time. This entire section of the script was left out of the final film.The most famous shot of the film, where Aziz shoots an arrow laden with a dildo into the vagina of Budur is not in this script. Most of the original script is redone with Nur-ed-Din and Zummurrud as the main narrative and some stories are inserted in different ways to reflect this. The final script does not follow a strict narrative structure but contains a rhapsodic form that moves from story to story.
The same as with The Canterbury Tales which also featured international actors, this movie was shot with silent Arriflex 35 mm cameras and was dubbed into Italian in post-production. Pasolini went to Salento, particularly the towns of Lecce and Calimera to find his voice actors because he believed the local dialect was "pure" and untainted by overuse in Italian comedies and because he saw similarities between Arabic and the Lecce accent.[17] [18]
The film was shot with Arriflex cameras. Pasolini refused to adopt one of the most conventional aspects of cinematography at that time, the Master shot. Pasolini never used a Master shot. The scenes are all constructed shot by shot. This guarantees there is no coming back to the story or the characters. It gives the film a free form aspect that anything can happen. The shots still remain perfectly calibrated despite this however. The protagonists are often framed frontally, reminiscent of portraits. He wanted his films to reflect the immediate needs that would be required for his visual storytelling.
Pasolini shot a couple scenes that were later discarded from the final film; these can be seen on the Criterion Collection DVD and Blu-ray release.[19] These scenes are silent with no spoken dialogue but with music overlaid. In the first scene, Nur-ed-Din gets drunk at a party and then returns home to hit his angry father. His mother helps him escape to a caravan where he is propositioned for intercourse. In the next scene, Dunya is caught with her lover who is to be executed by her father. She helps him to escape while dressed as a man. Her father follows in pursuit but she fights him off and kills him. Now in a tent while still disguised as a man, Dunya propositions her lover for anal intercourse; he replies timidly by stripping, only for Dunya to pull off her helmet and reveal it was only a joke.[20]
The reason for keeping these scenes out was probably two-fold, the runtime of the film was already too long but also the scenes depict some of the protagonists in a very unflattering light for a film that is intended as an erotic film with light adventure elements. Nur-ed-Din gets drunk and punches his father and then steals some of his money, and Dunya cuts her father's throat with a knife. The cross-dressing reveal of the Dunya story was also already used in the film for the story of Zummurrud and Nur-ed-Din.
Pasolini intended with his Trilogy of Life to portray folksy erotic tales from exotic locales. As with his previous two films, The Decameron (Italy) and The Canterbury Tales (Britain), Arabian Nights is an adaptation of several erotic tales from the near east. Pasolini was much more positive and optimistic with his Trilogy of Life than he was with his earlier films. He was notoriously adversarial and his films often touched on depressing themes. None of that is in this trilogy which stood as a new beginning. Of note is that this is the only film of the trilogy to not be overtly critical of religion. Whereas the previous two were highly critical of the church and clergy, Islam plays very little into this film (though in a deleted scene, Nur-ed-Din's father scolds him for drinking which is prohibited in the Koran). Allah's name is invoked twice in the entire film and none of the characters are seen going to mosque or performing any religious acts of any kind. The characters are very irreligious and the films emphasis on folk superstitions such as ifrits and magic lends emphasis to this. Whereas sexuality is a sin for the characters in the previous two films, no such stigma exists for the characters here.
Open sexuality is a very important topic in this film and this is displayed in the Sium story that Zummurrud tells near the beginning. The poet leaves a naked boy and girl alone to see which of the two is more smitten with the other. Both are taken with one another and there is no clear winner. This shows what follows in the film, that sexuality is for both genders and all orientations. Desire will be felt equally by both genders and without guilt.
Though earlier translators of the source material (notably Galland) had tried to tone it down, the physical and erotic essence of the stories is quite abundant in these tales. Love in the Nights is not a psychological passion as much as a physical attraction. This is noticeably displayed by Pasolini in his film.[21]
Homosexuality is also depicted in this film in a much more favorable light than in the previous two films. The poet Sium takes three boys to his tent early in the film and in the Muslim society which is very segregated by gender, homoeroticism thrives throughout. The poet Sium can even be seen as a stand-in for Pasolini himself, who frequently searched for young men along the Ostia in Rome. This is in much stark contrast to the previous film The Canterbury Tales, which included an elaborate scene of a homosexual being burned alive at the stake, while the clergy look on smiling.
The film relies much more heavily on flashbacks and stories within stories than the previous two stories. Whereas in the other films, Pasolini himself serves as the one to bind the stories all together (a disciple of Giotto and Geoffrey Chaucer respectively) there is no equivalent character here. Pasolini does not act in this film and the stories are tied together with the Nur-ed-Din frame story and with characters having flashbacks and reading stories to one another. The film's use of flashbacks was likely influenced by Wojciech Has's film The Saragossa Manuscript which at one point, has eight flashbacks-within-flashbacks.
The stories of the two painters both deal with fate and its fickle nature. The first painter's drunken foolishness causes the death of two women, the captive princess and the Asian king's daughter Abriza. This leads him to renounce the world and become a monk. The second painter loses his ship due to his own wish for a sea journey. He is told by the captive child underground that he is the one who will kill him but foolishly believes he can conquer fate and stays with him rather than leave. He ends up killing him in a way he could not anticipate. His story is about attempting to conquer fate. Rather than conquer it he ended up fulfilling it and for this renounced the world and became a painter.
The stories are all taken from the 1001 Nights and they stay largely true to the source material, though some of the context is changed and the endings of some stories changed around. The two dervishes who tell their story to the ladies of Baghdad are changed to holy monks who work as painters here. The second dervish's story also ends here with the girl dying as she transforms the dervish back while in the original, she has a battle with the ifrit. This was likely changed to put a quick end to the story and to save time and resources. The third dervish's story is also changed in some parts. He kills the child while sleepwalking here, instead of cutting a fruit. Also his father's ship comes to the island and saves him while in the original he goes to the Palace of the One Eyed Men and the Palace of the Forty Women. The porter's pool joke of Night 9 is also given to Nur-ed-Din. Abu Nuwas's story about hiring three men is also changed to a fictional poet from Ethiopia.
Most notably, the Scheherazade frame story is done away with. Pasolini wanted a different set up for this film without a character framing the tales, as he had already done previously in The Canterbury Tales where he played Chaucer.
Arabian Nights, and The Trilogy of Life in general, were wildly popular though Pasolini himself turned against the series after their release. In 1975, he wrote an article in the Corriere della Sera lambasting the films. He disliked how the films influenced a series of low quality pornographic films from the same source materials (The Decameron in particular was a rife source for Italian pornographic filmmakers after the success of Pasolini's film) and with what he saw as the commodification of sex. Pasolini responded to his disappointment with the commercial success of these films in his final film Salo.
In June 1974, the director received an obscenity complaint after a preview screening of the film was shown in Milan. Ironically, the funds for the preview were done with the aim of making a documentary in support of the city which would have been beneficial to the local government.[22] The complaint was officially filed two months later on August 5. The deputy prosecutor of Milan, Caizzi, dismissed it because he acknowledged the film's place as a work of art.
The film offers a polemic against the "neocapitalist petit bourgeois world" which Pasolini claimed to detest. The second level of his polemic was aimed at the leftists who criticized his Trilogy of Life for not "adhering to a specific political agenda right down to the letter". Pasolini felt isolated that so many of his leftist friends and colleagues did not see his Trilogy the way he had intended it to be seen. He felt they were overly critical of his films and missed the point of them.[23]
The film was entered into the 1974 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Grand Prix Spécial Prize.[24]