The late Pier Paolo Pasolini's "Notes for an African Orestes" documents on film his 1970 location hunting and local casting tour of Tanzania and Uganda for a never-realized feature adaptation of the Greek tragedy "The Oresteia". Home-film quality of the footage suggests a written essay would have sufficed, but resulting pic will interest film historians and find usage in college film courses.
Pasolini shoots many close shots of African faces staring curiously at his roving camera. His commentary is voiced-over on the soundtrack in dubbed, unaccented English, while African students he questions in a classroom setting respond in unfortunately untranslated Italian and French. The filmmaker also interjects Biafran war newsreels to show inspiration for planned flashbacks of the Trojan War.
The concept is to set "The Oresteia" in Africa circa 1960, when many colonies were following Ghana's lead in achieving independence. Pasolini saw the play's transformation of the Furies into the Eumenidies paralleling Africa moving from tribalism to democracy. He hoped to portray the Furies in non-human guises, shown in a montage of bizarre trees and also in the sad image of a wounded lioness in the film. The modern cities of Kampala and Dar es Salaam would serve in composite as old Athens. Recalling the simplicity of his "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (for which Pasolini also shot and released a location-hunting documentary film), he presents on film an actual run-through for a scene in "Black Orestes", using a non-pro as Orestes visiting his father's grave. Unfortunately, this footage is flat and unpromising.
The oddest notion here is Pasolini's concept of using Black Americans to sing an operatic libretto in the film (hoped by the filmmaker to build upon what he hoped to be Afro-Americans' potential natural leadership for the Third World). In a recording studio, Gato Barbieri's trio plus two U. S. vocalists record music for a scene involving Cassandra at the beginning of the tragedy. Tenor saxophonist Barbieri's music here is highly derivative (recalling the John Coltrane work of the mid-'60s) and an embarrassing, out-of-it performance by vocalist Yvonne Murray is dubiously preserved on film for posterity. Considering the impressive vocals/jazz of Afro-Americans such as Archie Shepp around this time, Pasolini's choice of Rome-based South American Barbieri is one of expediency. The resulting single music track is played repetitiously as backing throughout the film, alternating with a Russian (equal time?) chorus.
My review was written in January 1981 after a screening at NY's Thalia theater.
Pasolini shoots many close shots of African faces staring curiously at his roving camera. His commentary is voiced-over on the soundtrack in dubbed, unaccented English, while African students he questions in a classroom setting respond in unfortunately untranslated Italian and French. The filmmaker also interjects Biafran war newsreels to show inspiration for planned flashbacks of the Trojan War.
The concept is to set "The Oresteia" in Africa circa 1960, when many colonies were following Ghana's lead in achieving independence. Pasolini saw the play's transformation of the Furies into the Eumenidies paralleling Africa moving from tribalism to democracy. He hoped to portray the Furies in non-human guises, shown in a montage of bizarre trees and also in the sad image of a wounded lioness in the film. The modern cities of Kampala and Dar es Salaam would serve in composite as old Athens. Recalling the simplicity of his "The Gospel According to St. Matthew" (for which Pasolini also shot and released a location-hunting documentary film), he presents on film an actual run-through for a scene in "Black Orestes", using a non-pro as Orestes visiting his father's grave. Unfortunately, this footage is flat and unpromising.
The oddest notion here is Pasolini's concept of using Black Americans to sing an operatic libretto in the film (hoped by the filmmaker to build upon what he hoped to be Afro-Americans' potential natural leadership for the Third World). In a recording studio, Gato Barbieri's trio plus two U. S. vocalists record music for a scene involving Cassandra at the beginning of the tragedy. Tenor saxophonist Barbieri's music here is highly derivative (recalling the John Coltrane work of the mid-'60s) and an embarrassing, out-of-it performance by vocalist Yvonne Murray is dubiously preserved on film for posterity. Considering the impressive vocals/jazz of Afro-Americans such as Archie Shepp around this time, Pasolini's choice of Rome-based South American Barbieri is one of expediency. The resulting single music track is played repetitiously as backing throughout the film, alternating with a Russian (equal time?) chorus.
My review was written in January 1981 after a screening at NY's Thalia theater.