Fellini Satyricon

Director: Federico Fellini

1969 / 130min / 35mm

The surviving fragments of Gaius Petronius’s 1st century AD satire were adapted by Fellini into this appropriately disjointed, disorienting travelogue through an ancient Rome, extravagantly and outlandishly imagined—with significant inspiration drawn from the contemporary counterculture—on the vast soundstages of Cinecittà. Consumed by desire for young androgyne Gitone (Max Born), Encolpio (Martin Potter) is tossed about on the turbulent surface of a destabilized Roman society defined by wanton cruelty, garish display, pansexual licentiousness, unchecked gluttony, and general hedonism. A heaping helping of cinematic panem et circenses from the maestro, drawing provocative parallels between the Empire in decadent decline and contemporary consumerist Europe.