June 2009
Beginning with SALÒ and followed by the 'Trilogy of Life' collection comprising ARABIAN NIGHTS, THE CANTERBURY TALES and THE DECAMERON, the BFI has rounded off their recent BluRay offerings with the British classics THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER, SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING and THE BED SITTING ROOM.
Much work has been put into the restoration of these films, making for a collection of impressive BluRay releases. New HD feature masters are available for all titles.
THE DECAMERON (1971) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
This is based on the novel 'Decamerone' by Giovanni Boccaccio. Colourful, entertaining and highly erotic, the film tells ten tales of sex and death involving lusty nuns and priests, cuckolded husbands, murdered lovers and grave-robbers.
THE CANTERBURY TALES (1972) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Based on the medieval narrative poem by Geoffrey Chaucer, this covers eight of the twenty-four tales of unbridled fornication. With a comically blasphemous visit to Hell in the closing five minutes, this proved to be one of Pasolini’s bawdiest and most controversial films.
ARABIAN NIGHTS (1974) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
This is based on the ancient Arabic anthology 'The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.' Two years in the making and with the locations of Yemen, Ethiopia, Iran and Nepal forming an exotic backdrop, the film presents tales of love and lovemaking in all its myriad forms.
SALÒ, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM (1975) dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s last and most controversial film has been censored and banned, and has provoked outrage around the world. Even today its extreme imagery retains the power to shock. Based on the novel by the Marquis de Sade, and transposed to the northern Italian town of Salò, the film presents an allegory of the Fascist abuse of power in Mussolini’s Italy.
SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING (1960) dir. Karel Reisz
Adapted from the novel by Alan Sillitoe, this film is set in the industrial streets and factories of Nottingham. A young, handsome, working-class hero spends his days at the factory bench, his evenings in the local pubs, and his nights in the arms of another man’s wife. Featuring a superb jazz score by Johnny Danworth, this is a vibrant and modern British classic of gritty realism which puts a face to a generation of anti-authoritarian and unashamedly amoral youths.
THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE RUNNER (1962) dir. Tony Richardson
Also from an Alan Sillitoe book, and again set in Nottingham. This film examines a teenager with a bent for petty crime. Caught robbing a bakery, he is confined to a school for delinquent youths where he discovers his talent for long-distance running. When given the chance to redeem himself during an important cross-country meet, tensions build and he stops running short of the finish line to defy the authority of his Establishment captors.
THE BED SITTING ROOM (1969) dir. Richard Lester
Based on the highly-regarded play by Spike Milligan and John Antrobus and set in post-nuclear holocaust England, this vividly-imagined and darkly satirical film boasts great performances by the cream of 60s British comedy including Rita Tushingham, Ralph Richardson, Peter Cook, Harry Secombe, Dudley Moore, Spike Milligan, Michael Horden, Roy Kinnear, Arthur Lowe, Dandy Nichols and Marty Feldman. As a bizarre cast of characters struggle on with their lives against a surrealistic backdrop of broken crockery, old boots and endless piles of ash, the fallout from a 'nuclear misunderstanding' is having some odd effects on the survivors who are prone to the occasional mutation to parrot, cupboard and even a bed sitting room.
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