The Decameron · reception & legacy
1971 · Pier Paolo Pasolini
How The Decameron has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A scandal and a smash at once — it won the Silver Bear at Berlin in 1971 and became a huge box-office hit in Italy while drawing obscenity complaints; today it's cherished as the joyful opening of Pasolini's 'Trilogy of Life,' the sunlit counterpoint people reach for before the darkness of Salò.
What's debated
The evergreen debate: Pasolini himself publicly repudiated the Trilogy of Life in 1975, so fans keep arguing whether you can love this film's earthy exuberance against its own maker's disavowal.
Its footprint
Its success spawned an entire Italian exploitation subgenre — the 'decamerotici,' dozens of cheap medieval sex-comedy knockoffs that flooded cinemas in the early '70s — a rare case of one art film accidentally birthing a whole genre.
Where it stands
Firmly canon as the first panel of the Trilogy of Life — the approachable, grinning gateway into Pasolini for many Letterboxd users.