What is a "love myth"?
The title of the film, if translated literally, would be "Satilicon of Fellini". The two Latin names spelled together are always confusing. So before that, it is necessary to introduce what "Satilikon" is sacred.
To put it simply, Satyricon is a novel from the Roman Empire. But don't think that ancient novels and contemporary novels are the same thing. In that era of distinct class barriers, there was no mass in the modern sense. Therefore, the modern style of novels targeting the general public, with generally popular content and compact and interesting narratives, disappeared at that time.
Take an example and you'll understand.
The author of "Satilicon", Petronius, was a favorite of the famous Roman tyrant Nero. In other words, this is the celebrity next to the emperor, a first-class noble.
Aristocrats also write novels? That's right. To be precise, the so-called "Roman novels" at that time were written by nobles for nobles to read. Ordinary people wanted to appreciate the elegance, but they were afraid that it would be difficult to reach the sky. What's more, the majority of the population are slaves without freedom and education. Don't forget, it was an era when there was no printing and the literacy rate was nowhere near as high.
The original "Satilikon" was written in Latin and consists of 20 volumes, of which only the 15th, 16th, and possibly part of the 14th volume survives. As can be seen from the title, this book is half erotic (Satyr, the companion of the god of wine in ancient Greek mythology, half-human half-sheep monster, known for lust), half satire (Satire, Latin satura). The combination of the two forms a bizarre wandering story, so some people call it the originator of the "tramp novel". Of course, the concept of literary history, we do not need to dwell too much. Just need to know that with the help of the protagonist's wandering (fleeing) clues, the author presents us with a large-scale picture of ancient Roman customs that is shy and salty.
If you have seen the movie, you should already understand how big this "scale" is. There is no doubt that the novel can only be better than it is.
After all, the novels of that year were "Fengya" treasures only for the appreciation of a few people, and naturally there was no need to care about the moral rules of the common people. And no matter how deviant the film is, most of it still has to be tested by the public.
Since the novel came out, the circulation situation is not very good. Considering the harsh cultural atmosphere of the Middle Ages, this seems easy to understand. This is also why, the original works that are seen today are only fragments and fragments. After the Renaissance, the book was gradually translated into modern languages. But due to weathering, translation has also become a process of editing. Fortunately, in the 19th century, the book met its greatest confidant of all time, Wilde. The otherworldly gay literary giant, with rejuvenating hands, re-translated the book, which also laid the foundation for the book's contemporary appearance.
All right. The introduction to the history ends here. Now we have to go back to the original question and explain why the movie is translated as "love myth". In fact, this is first from the name of the only Chinese translation of the novel, the Taiwanese scholar Chen Cangduo. The movie is just an extension of the title. Due to the tonality of Taiwanese Mandarin, the words myth and "myth" are often used interchangeably. If "love myth" sounds confusing, it can be translated as "love myth", which is probably easy to understand:
Facing the caprices of desire, love becomes a troubling thing. Just as the protagonist's chaotic and staggering love encounters, betrayal and jealousy are commonplace, but even so, people still rejoice and worship them like gods.
To the skeptics, all this sensuality is but a myth; to the madman, this myth is everything to them.
The movie is about, and can't get rid of this theme - after all, this is Fellini who dreams of "big breasts and fat buttocks".
The Ins and Outs of "Satilikon"
Let’s talk about the original story first.
At the beginning, the protagonist Encolpius (Encolpius) and the host Agamemnon, who appeared in the first-person perspective, gave a long speech on the debate style "the world is getting worse". After that, Enke went out, but could not find his way home, so he began a series of absurd journeys. On the way, he was introduced to a romantic place by a pimp, and he met his friend Asciltus, only to know that Asciltus took possession of his prostitute Giton while he was away, and became jealous. Quarrel.
By this time, the sexual relationship and partnership between the three had surfaced, and it can be said that at the beginning, it gave the Gong Gong Gong Gongs of Wei Dao a slap in the face.
The next scene is also a farce. The three of them went to visit the samurai Rikgos who had raised Ahitos. Through Rickggs, the three meet the wealthy ship owner Lichas and his mistress Tryphaena. At this time, a series of chaotic N-angle relationships were staged. Enke first developed a short-lived passion with Trifina, and then Trifina moved away and fell in love with the more beautiful Gidon. Out of jealousy for his mistress, Lichas began to pester Enke again. Encoyne was reluctant to part with Trifina, so he went to Lichas's house with Gidon. Unexpectedly, at Lichas's house, Enke fell in love with Lichas's wife Doris again. When the romance is revealed, Trifina becomes jealous and stabs the basket to Lichas. Enke and Gidon were chased by their angry masters, escaped from the mansion, and took a sheep.
Seeing this, you may have been dizzy. Indeed, the plot of this Shakespearean secular farce also set the tone for a series of chaotic erotic entanglements that followed.
The three meet at Rikergos and then flee. There is no shortage of adventure stories on the way. Later, by accident, Enko broke into the temple of Priapus, the god of phallus, and disturbed Kotila, who was praying in secret. (Quartilla). This rash move can lead to a catastrophe, and a series of later "love" failures all originated from here.
The next scene is the highlight of the whole story, Trimalchio's dinner party. The three escaped all the way and joined Agamemnon at the dinner party. The author described the whole banquet tirelessly and luxuriously. Each dish served was a dramatic display of wealth and generosity between master and servant. The owner is also quite elegant, and throughout the process, he cites scriptures and classics, but "every time he opens his mouth, there are many mistakes, and he wears the crown." He is clearly a nouveau riche, but he wants to be elegant, even pretending to know Greek.
I read these stories frequently in Homer's works as a child. In fact, I saw Sybil hanging from a bottle in Kumai with my own eyes, and the boys asked her, "Sybyl, what do you want?" She replied, "I want to die." They were all in Greek .
【"Σίβυλλα, τί θέλεις" (What do you want?)
"άποθανειν θέλω." (I would that I were dead.)]
After leaving the banquet, the three returned to their residence, and Enke and Ahitos decided to part ways due to their erotic disputes with Gidon. The two let Gidon decide who to go with. Enke was full of confidence, but unexpectedly Gidon chose the latter, which made him extremely frustrated and disheartened. He wandered alone to the gallery and met Eumolphus, a poor poet. After the two chatted, the two came to the public bath again and found Gidon. Gidon expressed his remorse through tears, and Enke forgave him. But unfortunately, Omorpus also began to favor Gidon. At this point, a new trio and the endless triangle relationship began to continue.
In order to avoid Ahitos' pursuit, the poet proposes to go to sea on a ship bound for Africa. Enke and Gidon agreed. After I didn't want to get on the ship, I found out that the owner of the ship was the enemy Lichas. After some clumsy cover-up, the trick is used to gang up, which leads to a war of words. Seeing that a reconciliation was about to be reached, Lichas was blown to the bottom of the sea by a storm. The trio survived only to find they had drifted to the beach in Croton.
At the end of the book, it is the three people's cheating experience in Croto. It is said that the people here are fierce and stubborn, and the three of them have a plan to make Omorpus fake a rich man with tens of millions of land, and coax the local people to curry favor. Enko was also spotted by a beautiful woman, Circe (the name of the daughter of Zeus in Odyssey mythology). She sent the maid Chrissy to invite Enke to have a relationship with Enke, but bad luck came, and Enke was cursed by the god of the phallus and was sluggish. He went around asking God to ask witches, but to no avail. In the end, it was the virgin who was worshipped by the flatterer that he regained his prowess. After the recovery, Enke became cautious and worried that the scam would be discovered. At this time, Omorpus came up with an ingenious "will execution plan":
All who receive my inheritance, except my freedmen, in order to integrate the mentioned property, must meet one condition, that is, they must cut my body into pieces and eat it on the spot in front of the family .
Still, this embarrassing plan failed to stop the crowd's greed. The proud Omorpus did not expect that the deception was quickly exposed. He was killed in a "Marhillian" fashion, while Enko and Gidon escaped with the help of the maid Chrissy.
The story ends here.
Fellini's Myths and Dreams
The reason why it takes so long to tell the novel is that it is absolutely impossible for the audience to know what the story is about purely based on the film. Director Fellini's unrestrained adaptation once again disrupted the originally rambling plot, making the entire film almost fragmented.
For example, the plot of Enko and Ahitos breaking up was originally in the middle, and the movie mentioned the beginning;
The plot of the gallery meeting with the poet Omorpus was originally after the banquet, and the movie was placed before the banquet, and Omorpus led Enke to the banquet instead;
The plot of Lichas originally ran through the whole book before and after, and the movie became an episode in the second half, while Lichas's death changed from a shipwreck to a disaster (he was beheaded in the movie, probably because the original work was too pornographic and not violent enough , so deliberately add a little blood).
And so on, to name a few.
More importantly, the film does not consider the usual beginnings and turns in the narrative process. If you use Bazin's words, it completely abandons the "drama" (popular narrative), and completely becomes a stage transition-style shot switching— - One second he was in front of the grave, the next second he entered the room for a feast - such a change in rhythm must be seen by everyone, let alone finding clues to the whole story.
So what is Fellini trying to say?
The adaptation of "Satilikon" is neither a faithful depiction of realism nor a bold subversion like an avant-garde drama. Rather than an adaptation, it is better to say that the author wants to use this story material from ancient Rome to pour his heart out. Rather, the reason why Fellini chose to shoot "Satilicon" is precisely because the book tells about his own dreams and desires. Like Wilde, like Eliot (the preface to The Waste Land is from Sybil's answer).
Like all books and people who choose each other.
In Jung's psychoanalytic context, myth is collective dream-making. Therefore, in the elegant circle of ancient Rome, the desire narrative that did not adhere to the boundaries of men and women, and physical and mental boundaries, has become a bizarre "love myth" in the eyes of contemporary people from a joke at that time. And all kinds of weirdness—such as masculinity, extravagance, and corpse eating—for modern people who seem to be free but trapped in cages, they are mostly unconscious disturbances that are deviant but yearn for.
The Bible says that prophets were never welcome in their homeland. After all, myths can only travel through a thousand years before they meet their dream interpreters - Fellini was born at the right time. Like Patronius, he was also "a true celebrity." The fantasy of "big breasts and fat hips" always haunts his dreams. As the creative experience grows, all kinds of fantasies break into the camera more recklessly, creating a "Fellini universe" full of women of all colors.
In this way, "Myth of Love" can be said to be a complete release of Fellini after taking off from the old world of neorealism.
A large number of nudity, sex scenes, unabashed homosexuality, male and female infatuation, and all-round eroticism and sexual intercourse presented in the long, medium and short shots all make this film jaw-dropping. If you don't explain it in detail, you always think that you are seeing a well-known banned film.
In terms of the set, it is full of defamiliarization effects from the very beginning. It clearly tells the story of ancient Rome, but no matter how you look at it, it is full of modern dance beauty. Straight and blunt lines divide most of the background space, from the wine pool and meat forest to the gallery street, exuding an extremely unreal fantasy atmosphere. (Remember that Fellini himself once said that this film is not a historical film, but a "science fiction film". But I think a more appropriate expression may be "historical fantasy film")
In addition, Fellini seems to deliberately create a stage effect that is different from the film, always letting the backs of the characters occupy the foreground, and then moving forward slowly, the audience is like watching the play in the pool seat, and it is also like being blocked by someone. Coupled with extremely unreal footage, I always seemed to think I was watching a rather obscure and modern experimental drama.
This absurd and alienated sense of modern drama is at the same time reinforced by the fragmentation and fragmentation of the narrative. From one scene to another, the switch between direct narration and paraphrase is often only between one shot, and there is no scheduling at all, just like the "hard turn" of the stage. If the dialogue in the fixed scene is a little long and jerky, and it is not intelligible, then the connection between the scenes is completely incoherent, completely losing the logical connection necessary for dramatic narrative, and degenerating into scattered dreams.” Island".
"Those gaps, the gaps between chapters and chapters...these fragments fascinate me." - Fellini
In the transition from island to island without warning, the anxiety of the audience gradually accumulates and cannot be released. After all, they can only see the protagonist being thrown into a situation where he cannot escape again and again, desperately looking for an exit - the existence of Anxiety (existential anxieties) is indeed the universal spiritual core of modern drama, and probably also the author's. Under Fellini's unrestrained yet estranged images, the original novel's escape from the pursuit of reality, trapped by lust, has become an endless exile in a dream constructed by lust.
The ancient erotic history has finally transformed into a footnote to the spiritual predicament of modern people.
From the image back to literature. Although the order of the narrative has been completely disrupted and rearranged, the key dialogue in the different scenes remains fairly consistent with the novel. For example, in the gallery, the poet's lament at the absence of the true Greek spirit, the co-acting of the master in the banquet, the servant trick of serving a big roast pig, the dialogue between the trio who parted ways due to love, and so on. The director may only have picked up three or two favorite words to assist the rich and colorful image narrative. For the viewer, this is the "eye" for understanding the film. If it weren't for the help of these golden sentences, the whole dream would be more complicated and confusing, not like a myth but more like an oracle.
In terms of plot, the adaptation of the film reflects the ambition of a contemporary film master. On the basis of the original plot, Fellini incorporated richer personal dreams and even historical anecdotes. If the first half of the film still basically follows the plot of the novel, then the narrative of the film begins to enter the "Fellini orbit" starting from the death of Lichas' ship. As mentioned earlier, the original shipwreck turned into a military disaster here. The so-called military disaster is a group of soldiers who mutinied on the coast to kill the tyrant. The tyrant knew that he had nowhere to go, and committed suicide with his sword. Readers familiar with Roman history must have known that this tyrant who committed suicide was the famous Nero.
At the end of Nero's life, all the rebels and relatives left, and he was declared "the enemy of the people", and everyone got it and executed him. Nero fled, desperate, and learned in the village that the soldiers who were pursuing him had cut off his escape route. In desperation, Nero committed suicide by stabbing a dagger into his throat.
Why insert the picture of Nero committing suicide here? Not urgent. Let's look at the next scene. A couple is saying goodbye to their children and servants, smiling and happy. However, after everyone left, the man immediately went to the yard, cut his wrists with a knife, and died calmly while talking to his wife. When a man dies, his wife also commits suicide.
This picture is nothing but the last scene of the life of Petronius, the author of "Satilikon". This "Fengya Consultant" who was favored by Nero, although he was proud for a while, finally got rid of the scales and was bestowed to death by the moody emperor. History records that he freed all the slaves before his death, and then cut off the artery while still talking to his family calmly, not forgetting to maintain his elegance. It is undoubtedly a bold attempt to integrate the author's fate into the novel. On the narrative level, the death of the tyrant and the author is not only a tribute to the original author, but also a farewell to the "love myth" in the ancient sense.
Since then, Fellini has taken a sharp turn and completely entered the dream world dominated by himself. It can also be seen from the plot arrangement that follows, whether it is the burglary of the duo, having fun with the black beauty they found, public sex in the desert carriage, stealing the half-human and half-god onmyoji, being arrested and having sex with the bull's head People fighting, being surrounded by indigenous people and having sex in public, etc., are almost all ingenious and real secondary creations of the director. (In fact, it also includes the collapse of the first half of the SM Theater and the high-rise red light district)
At the end of the film, the protagonist was cured of the inability to move, and excitedly galloped on the ground, only to see that his friend Ahitos had died and fell into the grass. The body of youth is still beautiful, but it can only be given to "fish and beasts". The protagonist cried bitterly.
The protagonist then travels and sees Omorpus, the poor poet who cheated in a foreign land, also dead. The corpse lay on the high platform in the wild. People mentioned the strange will he made, and after a commotion, everyone rushed to this strange "coffin - dining table" without hesitation, and began to dismember. The onlookers laughed and watched this feast of devoured human flesh. The protagonist left the place of right and wrong, boarded the ship with others, and sailed to the unknown distance.
Such an ending is no longer the cliché narrative that escaped in the original work, but has become a nested dream closed loop. The camera is zoomed out, and the protagonist becomes the image in the mural (fragment); and who tells the mural (fragment) is another myth/myth that is difficult to escape.
Film narrative, after all, is still image interpretation. Fellini's reconstruction of the "myth of love" has finally created a grand image carnival and visual maze, and what we vaguely point to is this desire, A modern nightmare woven by mind and body.
PS: Finally, a passage from Fellini is attached to end this fantastic modern myth:
Looking at the world Patronius painted, it's hard not to think how similar it is to the time we live in. The characters of Patronius, like people today, are prey to existential anxiety. Trimalchio reminds me of Onassis: a gloomy, stagnant Onassis with eyes as hard as a mummy. Other characters remind me of hippies. "(Constantini, Conversations with Fellini) - Fellini
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