The Decameron With and Without a Frame

In Pasolini’s filmed version of The Decameron, he inexplicably leaves off Boccaccio’s frame story of a group of seven women and three men who retire to an estate in the country to avoid the plague that is ravaging Florence. There they tell each other stories to entertain, to cheer, and to instruct each other. Pasolini instead jumps right into a story, plays it out, then moves to another without explanation. He tells some interesting stories (and some of them are very sexy), but the film left me wondering why? What’s the point?

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