The Canterbury Tales

Original title: I racconti di Canterbury

1972
NC-17
1h 51m

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

8.5K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,837

129

Farce Period Drama Comedy Drama History

Pasolini's artistic, sometimes violent, always vividly cinematic retelling of some of Chaucer's most erotic tales.Pasolini's artistic, sometimes violent, always vividly cinematic retelling of some of Chaucer's most erotic tales.Pasolini's artistic, sometimes violent, always vividly cinematic retelling of some of Chaucer's most erotic tales.

Director
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
Writers
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Geoffrey Chaucer
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.3/10

8.5K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

3,837

129

Director
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
Writers
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Geoffrey Chaucer
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win total

Trivia
Remarkably, this is the only major cinematic take on Geoffrey Chaucer's classic tales.

Goofs
Some of the women have tan-lines from bikinis.

Quotes
The Wife from Bath: There's nowhere in the Gospels that says we ought to stay virgins. Anyway, tell me, what were the genital organs made for at the creation? Not to lie dormant I suppose. And nobody's going to tell me they were just put there to piss through. Mark you, I use it for that as well. And every man must serve his wife in wedlock...

Alternate versions
The original UK cinema version was cut by the BBFC with edits to anal sex shots, a man being whipped, and Rufus urinating on the crowd during the 'Pardoner's Tale' segment for an 'X' certificate. The cuts were fully restored in 2001 and the certificate downgraded to a '15'.

Connections
Featured in Playboy: The Story of X (1998)

Soundtracks
The Old Piper
written by Carl Hardebeck in 1912
performed by Frank McPeake
Played over the opening credits and sung frequently by Perkin the Reveler in the Cook's Tale

User reviews49

Review

Featured review

7/10

Pasolini dared to show the medieval era as extremely dirty, indecent, vulgar

This is the second in Pasolini's series of setting classic bawdy tales to film In this case, he selected eight of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, including the infamous miller's tale and the incident with the red hot poker kiss

The tales revolve around a group of pilgrims who are journeying to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket of Canterbury The trip is so boring that they begin telling each other stories that soon get obscene, gory and very sexy Pasolini adds another motif to his visualization by placing Chaucer himself into the movie, periodically cutting to him writing at his desk...

Pasolini inserts pleasure and amusement at social customs, especially marriage Some of the stories are funny, others are deadly serious The scene where a young man is burned for making love to another of his own sex, for example, is chilling...

In fact, Pasolini's using non professional actors, is more in keeping with the tone of the original than the usual romanticized versions...