Oedipus Rex
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s powerfully iconoclastic take on Sophocles’s tragedy blends eras and cultures to create a searing exploration of fate, free will, and the things we fear most in ourselves. Shot amid the stark, elemental landscapes of the Moroccan desert, and set in an indefinable ancient past, this bold reimagining casts the filmmaker’s frequent collaborator Franco Citti as the eponymous foundling, whose willful blindness to his own nature unleashes a cataclysmic reckoning. With a prologue and epilogue set in twentieth-century Italy, Pasolini connects the story to his own upbringing, daring to bare his soul on-screen.
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Cast
- Franco Citti
- Oedipus
- Silvana Mangano
- Queen Jocasta
- Laura Betti
- Jocasta’s maid
- Alida Valli
- Queen Merope
- Julian Beck
- Tiresias
- Carmelo Bene
- Creon
- Ninetto Davoli
- Angelo
- Luciano Bartoli
- King Laius
- Ahmed Belhachmi
- Polybus
- Francesco Leonetti
- Servant of Laius
- Giandomenico Davoli
- Shepherd of polybus
- Ivan Scratuglia
- Priest
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- High priest
Credits
- Director
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Written by
- Pier Paolo Pasolini
- Based on the play by
- Sophocles
- Produced by
- Alfredo Bini
- Cinematography
- Giuseppe Ruzzolini
- Edited by
- Nino Baragli
- Production design
- Luigi Scaccianoce
- Production design
- Dante Ferretti
- Set decoration
- Andrea Fantacci
- Costume design
- Danilo Donati
- Sound
- Carlo Tarchi