Pasolini strips the play down to symbolic, almost abstract expressions of scenes and ideas, like the cinema equivalent of hieroglyphics. The setting and backstory pours out in a long opening monologue delivered by a centaur (Laurent Terzieff) to the infant Jason, who he raises to manhood (played by the handsome but inert Giuseppe Gentile) over the course of the complicated family history lesson, and himself transforms from centaur to human man. Jason doesn't even notice, perhaps too distracted by his foster father's claim that: "In fact, there is no god." Quite a statement for an ancient thinker, and one that I suspect is more Pasolini than Euripides.
With that, Pasolini cuts from the lush setting of this idyllic existence to the barren white desert hills of a primitive society where the priestess and sorceress Medea observes (and, at times, participates in) the brutal religious rites and human sacrifices of this sun-worshipping culture to their elemental god. Her expression is hard, betraying no emotion, but Callas' mighty presence gives her a sense of power over this society, even if that position demands that she, too participate in punishing rituals. This is the barbaric culture that worships the Golden Fleece, which Jason has been sent to retrieve by his uncle the King (Massimo Girotti), and she betrays her people and her pagan faith to follow Jason back to his home in Greece, where he bears his children but is never completely accepted into his society. The once powerful sorceress has lost her power in this alien world but is still feared by the King. When Jason abandons her for marriage to the King's daughter and breaks his oath to look after her when she is banished by the King, her fury reignites her power and spurs her on to take terrible revenge. For Pasolini, it's less a human tragedy of promise and betrayal than a statement of cultures in collision, of power and sexual politics. Tellingly for a director struggling between Catholic upbringing and Marxist atheism, it is also the surge that recharges her waning powers and reconnects her with the gods she left behind to take her vengeance.
Pasolini shot the film in Turkey, Syrian, Tuscany and ruins throughout Italy and the locations are often stunning, from the white hills and caves of Medea's primitive village (where the rulers and religious figures wear elaborate tribal masks and outfits for the rituals) to the vast ancient buildings and monuments of Jason's kingdom. But for all the primal imagery of these characters in lands as time, this isn't acted so much as it is performed like a ritualized Passion Play for the pre-Christian pagan world. When Medea is betrayed by Jason in a manner made more callous by Gentile's slack performance, Callas communicates her fury solely through the stillness of her body language and her burning eyes. Callas is the only performer to rouses any conviction in her delivery, which she accomplishes solely through her physical performance (her voice is dubbed by an Italian voice actress), though Massimo Girotti, as the aging King, reveals his waning power and his fear of Medea in one beautiful scene. While it seems contradictory to cast the acclaimed opera diva in a role where her own voice is never heard, Callas' physical presence alone provides Medea with a stature and a strength missing from the rest of the players, even if she's more symbol than personality. Pasolini keeps psychological motivation and emotion out of the film, which makes the story even harder to follow. What prompts Medea to steal the golden fleece from her own temple, mount it on the back of her cart to attract the attention of Jason and then hack her brother to pieces so she can run off with the Argonauts is left to our imagination. It is simply another ritual enacted.
Knowing the myth helps follow the film. Pasolini jumps over explanatory scenes and leaps forward days or years in a cut without comment, simply landing in the aftermath of events and catching us up with illustration (oh look, she has two sons now!) and exposition (which is how we learn that Jason has all but abandoned her to marry into power). The words, more often than not delivered as if the actor is cold reading the directions to a new appliance, intrude upon the silence of the film, and the indifferent attention that Pasolini pays to the post-dubbing only increases the disconnection.
It's less an interpretation of a classic play than a commentary upon it, a deconstruction that reaches for elemental imagery to explore power and politics (both social and sexual) but never quite makes the material come to life. Pasolini keeps the personal drama abstract to focus on the ideas, the primal myth as a struggle between faith and atheism, the primitive (where power is brutally wielded over the populace in the name of pagan beliefs) and the modern (where power is wielded with duplicity under the guise of justice). The ideas behind the production are more interesting than the finished film, which can be maddening and abstract. Pasolini seems to be trying to continue the experiments in expression of Oedipus Rex, but his intellectual deconstruction of the primal theater leaves both unfulfilled.
In Italian with English subtitles. The film is mastered from a restoration undertaken by a group of European archives but the digital master exhibits a softness most apparent in the title sequence, which appears a touch fuzzy. The film proper looks better, still a touch soft but with good definition and vivid color (accentuated by the stark style of filmmaking), and it is clean and undamaged. It's a significant improvement over the earlier edition from Vanguard.
The DVD and Blu-ray editions also include the 1987 documentary Callas made for the BBC by Tony Palmer, a director with a great interest in and dedication to making films about music and the arts. The program is in standard definition on the Blu-ray and is presented in a squeezed version that needs to be expanded manually (at least on my player) to fill the screen. Also features the original trailer, a dynamic piece created from stills and graphic effects that is more dramatic than the film itself.
For more information about Medea, visit Entertainment One.
by Sean Axmaker
