Oedipus Rex

Shot in the red deserts of Morocco, Pasolini's first color feature is a relatively straightforward--albeit self-consciously Freudian--rendition of Sophocles' tragedy. Slow-moving, sensual, and often gorgeous to behold, it is unusually frank in its treatment of the incestuous relationship between Oedipus (Franco Citti) and mother Jocasta (Silvano Mangano). According to Pasolini, OEDIPUS REX was intended "to confront both the problem of psychoanalysis and the problem of myth. But instead of projecting the myth onto psychoanalysis, I re-projected psychoanalysis on the myth." A jarring transition to 1967 Bologna, with Oedipus (Franco Citti) appearing in a T-shirt and j...