Medea (1969)

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Pier Paolo Pasolini

Writers:

Euripides (play)
Pier Paolo Pasolini (writer)

Release Date:

17 July 1970 (Japan)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

To win the kingdom his uncle took from his father, Jason must steal the golden fleece from the land of barbarians...

Plot Keywords:

King | Human Sacrifice | Ancient Greece | Centaur | Sex

Cast

Maria Callas	...	Medea
Massimo Girotti	...	King Kresus / Creonte
Laurent Terzieff	...	Centaur
Giuseppe Gentile	...	Jason
Margareth Clémenti	...	Glauce (as Margareth Clementi)
Paul Jabara	...	Pelias
Gerard Weiss	...	Second centaur
Sergio Tramonti	...	Apsirto, Medea's brother
Luigi Barbini	...	Argonaut
Gian Paolo Durgar		(as Gianpaolo Duregon)
Luigi Masironi
Michelangelo Masironi
Gianni Bradizi
Franco Jacobbi
Annamaria Chio	...	Wet-nurse (as Anna Maria Chio)

Also Known As:

Medée (France)
Medea (USA)
Visioni della Medea (Italy) (working title)

Runtime:

118 min | Spain:107 min

Country:

Italy | France | West Germany

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Belgium:KNT | Spain:13 | Australia:M | Spain:T (DVD re-rating) | Argentina:16 | Finland:K-12 | UK:PG (video rating) (1990) | UK:AA (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Turkey

Company:

San Marco

Trivia:

Final part of Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Mythical Cyce" also including Edipo re (1967/I), Teorema (1968) and Porcile (1969).

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When Jason speaks to the two centaurs, there is a mismatch in their shadows in the middle of the screen, indicating that the image is a composite.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Wie de Waarheid Zegt Moet Dood (1981)

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" describes Medea

"Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned" describes Medea, whose hubris and amour fou for the bold and beautiful Jason leads to her downfall. Revered as a goddess by her own people, she betrays her own divinity and her race when she aids him to steal the sacred fleece, killing her own god-brother by decapitation during their escape. After bearing two sons to Jason in Greece, Medea is still not accepted and fails to adjust to Greek culture. The affection of acclaimed hero Jason strays and his ambition culminates in a betrothal to King Kreon's daughter. But when Medea learns of this betrayal and negation of her love and sacrifice her fury knows no bounds. She summons up the dark forces within her (she is a barbarian sorceress after all) for vengeance against those who have wronged her by killing Jason's sons, welcoming him with a false semblance of conciliation and acceptance while serving his dead sons to him for dinner. She sends two magnificent marriage cloaks to the king and his daughter who, when they don them, burst into flames. She then departs in rage leaving Jason to live with the results of the infamy he caused her enact through destroying her life. Maria Callas, in her only film, shows the famous range and subtlety she enjoyed as an opera star. Her fierce control and rage are memorable. Although this was a low budget film, it is extremely evocative and leaves lasting impressions. The sequence in the beginning when Jason was being tutored by the centaur Chiron about his destiny was very effective, and marked the innovative trick-photographic technique of melding man to horse to make it look very real and convincing. The primitive settings and human sacrifice of Medea's people helped to establish her dark, powerful and exotic barbarian character. English subtitles helped make up for the unfortunate dubbing. A strange and powerful version which holds it own against other interpretations.