Decameron Nights

Hugo Fregonese: Decameron Nights (GB 1954) avec Joan Fontaine.

Pages galantes de Boccace / Decameronen lemmenöitä / Lustans lön.
Hugo Fregonese / Grande-Bretagne / 1954 / 84 min / DCP / VOSTF
Avec Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Godfrey Tearle, Joan Collins.
La Cinémathèque française : Rétrospective Hugo Fregonese
Digital reproduction from a 35 mm print in the Martin Scorsese collection at George Eastman Museum.
E-sous-titres français.
Salle Georges Franju, vendredi 7 avril 2023, 17h00 18h25
Au XIVe siècle, l'écrivain Giovanni Boccaccio est à la recherche de son grand amour, la veuve Fiametta. Il est invité dans la demeure de la comtesse de Florence, où réside Fiametta, et invente pour la séduire des histoires délicieusement immorales.

AA: Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan, the stars of Letter from an Unknown Woman, are reunited in an omnibus film inspired by the life and stories of Giovanni Boccaccio. There is a framing story about Boccaccio (Jourdan) courting the recently widowed Fiametta (Fontaine) and three stories, all about virtue in marriage. Beautifully shot in Spain and Florence, the fairy-tale ambience and the evocation of the period are enchanting. As usual (even in the Pasolini Il Decameron), mostly the frivolous surface of Boccaccio is rendered, and the poetry and the gravity in the shadow of death is ignored. Like in Mark of the Renegade, Hugo Fregonese expands his scope, but does not have quite the talent required for such un jeu d'esprit. A valuable digital reproduction of Martin Scorsese's Technicolor print, in general conveying a lush sense of colour essential for the cinematographer Guy Green's vision. It is illuminating to observe the soft and blurry image, not always in good definition, issues inherent in Technicolor.