Overview

Straub-Huillet’s first color film, adapts a lesser-known Corneille tragedy from 1664, which in turn was based on an episode of imperial court intrigue chronicled in Tacitus’s Histories. The costuming is classical, and the toga-clad, nonprofessional cast performs the drama’s original French text amid the ruins of Rome’s Palatine Hill while the noise of contemporary urban life hums in the background. Their lines are executed with a terrific flatness and frequently through heavy accents; the language in Othon becomes not merely an expression but a thing itself, an element whose plainness here alerts us to qualities of the work that might otherwise be subordinated.

Details

Cast

Adriano Aprà

Anne Brumagne

Ennio Lauricella

Olimpia Carlisi

Anthony Pensabene

Jean-Marie Straub

Jean-Claude Biette

Marilù Parolini

Eduardo de Gregorio

Sergio Rossi