(Off-film.) Anyone else ever imagined invitations in local newspapers to Oedipus Parties? Where horrid little boys in cots, cry and look longingly-up at out-of-reach mothers who flirt with gorgeous talented husbands and pay not a jot of attention to these Freudian symptoms? Just me then.
Covering the eyes - the leitmotif. Within Pasolini's Oedipus Rex 'covering the eyes' and 'biting the back of the hand' are noticeable parts of the body-language of Oedipus, but to a lesser extent they come into Jocasta's mannerisms also. Does 'covering the eyes' represent the futile attempt by Oedipus to avoid the destiny that has been foretold him? Or does it represent his attempt to 'not see' in himself a desire to 'sleep' with his mother and to kill his father? Sophocles or Freud?
It is foretold him that he will kill his father and bed his mother: by covering his eyes after the Oracle at Delphi has given him his destiny, and by covering his eyes and turning on the spot when faced with any crossroads on his journey, does he hope to foil a destiny?
Or is he blocking out (unconscious) desires? Oedipus the infant covers his eyes after his father tells him: "You are here to ( - ) rob me of all I possess." "You have already robbed me of her love." The infant Oedipus on the balcony covers his eyes when he sees the love between his mother and father dancing in the room opposite. And the infant, when his father seizes his feet, covers his eyes and tellingly calls out 'Mama'. When Tiresias, the blind man who literally sees far less than Oedipus, claims that he has 'truth on his side', in addition to the plain truth of who exactly did what to whom does he perhaps also mean the truth of awareness, the truth that Oedipus must 'know' his perhaps shameful wants, must not be in denial, before he can govern his actions? Before the curtain comes down on Pasolini's Oedipus Rex'perhaps Oedipus, blind now and wandering, has finally faced and accepted his nature? Throughout his story Oedipus has been surrounded by people who dance and sing (happy fools?) and they are there at his ending also. And they perhaps do not have a murky unconscious to deal with. He is not like them. At the end he is not happy like them. He has perhaps faced 'the truth' and it is not a comfortable place for him - nevertheless it is after all the truth? A man not bouncing with laughter and song, yet a man who now knows himself but who is sadly as yet still anxious?
Biting the back of the hand - the leitmotif. Oedipus frequently (and Jocasta at one moment) bite the back of the hand. It is Oedipus' right hand. His sword hand. Certainly I like to think that this gesture is linked throughout Pasolini's Oedipus Rex to the killing of Oedipus' father. That the gesture is either a premonition of the deed or, after the confrontation at the crossroads, a flicking memory of the deed. Oedipus bites his hand after his wife tells him of the prophecy that was told to her first husband whom Oedipus has already killed; she herself bites her own hand after Tiresias tells Oedipus that it was in fact his father whom he killed at that crossroads; and nicely, Oedipus at the end of the film finishes playing the flute in the industrial zone, and bites his hand there - a memory of that killing? I like to think that this gesture is linked to the sword-hand - but lets be honest I'm sure Pasolini had no such intention.
The confrontation-on-the-road sequence in Pasolini's Oedipus Rex is remarkable isn't it? Surely it's remarkable because it presents with surprising realism, the ludicrousness and the 'dirt' of some men who will fight? An intimate fight between two men sometimes becomes disgusting, doesn't it, because it becomes ludicrous - two people take time out to pant and to catch breath, all the while holding the gaze, the better to be able to later stick metal into one another. It is almost ridiculous. (Off film - does such a finely realistic scene trigger memories of other ugly confrontations: the sometimes-mentioned killing of a German soldier during World War 2 by the future owner (now deceased) of a leading UK national newspaper, a then athletic man who ran down a fleeing group of Germans one of whom was fat and the first to get out of breath, a German who at the last just turned round and cried waiting for the bayonet to be thrust into his belly? Stuff too rarely put on film.)
(If you haven't seen it.) Pier Paolo Pasolini's Oedipus Rex is an Italian film (1967) in three parts (central part set in ancient times and two short 'bookends' set in modern times) telling the Oedipus story and (probably) trying to mix the Sophocles with the Freud.
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