Satyricon

Federico Fellini's Satyricon follows two young Romans, Encolpio and Ascilto, whose rivalry over the boy Gitone ends when Gitone chooses Ascilto. An earthquake interrupts Encolpio's plan to kill himself, and he drifts through a Rome ruled by Nero, moving from one strange encounter to the next. The film draws on Petronius's ancient novel, presenting an empire in moral decline, where wealth, appetite and spectacle shape daily life. Fellini and Bernardino Zapponi wrote the screenplay, and the director's fourteenth feature, made between Toby Dammit and The Clowns, departs from conventional historical reconstruction in favour of a fantastical, fragmentary vision. Martin Potter and Hiram Keller lead a credited cast of thirty, with Max Born as Gitone, Salvo Randone as Eumolpo, Mario Romagnoli as Trimalcione and Magali Noël as Fortunata. Alberto Grimaldi produced for PEA on a budget of three million dollars. On IMDb the film holds 6.8 out of 10 from nearly seventeen thousand votes, and on TMDB 6.7 out of 10 from several hundred, while a critics' rating stands at 6.8 from thirty-four reviews, placing professional and audience responses closely together.