I was recently watching Federico Fellini's remarkable film, Satyricon,
based
on The old Latin text. Now, the film is originally in Italian, which I
speak poorly, but there is a rather bad English version that is available
on
DVD---The film is still wonderful, but the English is rather poor. You
must
understand that in this film the dialogue was originally in Italian with
bits and pices of Latin and German, neither subtitled nor translated in
the
original. I didn't notice the passage in the Itlalian, being toop busy
trying to make out the dialogue. In the English version the dialogue is
also hard to followk, but that is nature of the scrip. Somewhere in the
middle of the film, I think in the midst of a banquet scene someone call
out
something in Latin that sounds distinctly like "Malbor in pleno."
If there is a Latin speaker out there maybe he or she could consult
Petronius' original Satyricon for some such phrase. It might yield some
sense.
After all, three is something very Firesign-like about Fellini's
Satyricon.
much of which (though certainly not all of which) is intentionally
humerous
is a grim sort of way, the main difference being that the Fellini version
is
also filled with intense emotions. It may also be noted that while
Firesign
is quintessentially American there is nothing american about the film.
PS.
I wouldn't want to defend that remark too strenuously, but the only thing
in
the film that struck me as American was a somewhat gogo-like manner about
some of the dancing, but that was certainly the style in Italy if you look
at some of the other films, like la Dolce Vita........


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