FINITE PASSIONS
By David Barnes
1970David Barnes Read the scan at ETOL (PDF) →Read from the scan by machine and not corrected: headlines and words can be misread, and a caption or advert can run into the text. For anything you quote, read the scan.
Dolce Vita' ("The Sweet Life') which, among its other merits, exposed to view the decadence, spirtual corruption and private idiocy of the Italian aristocracycum-big bourgeoisie.
'La Dolce Vita' gave rise to bitter complaints even from some of the most distinguished prelates of the Vatican hierarchy.
In a sense 'Satyricon' does the same think for an earlier generation of rich Romans.
Being dead, they are unable to complain.
But here Fellini is not starting from scratch. 'Satyricon' is a 'free adaptation' of the fictional work of Petronius Arbiter, an official of the Roman Empire under Nero.
It describes the escapades of two disreputable young men, Encolpius and Ascyltus, and their boy-slave Giton.
Petronius' Satyricon is not a 'novel' as we would now understand it—it has no overall plot or theme, and the characters do not develop in any way.
PAGE FOUR Tuesday, September 29, 1970