The translation of fiction, unlike, for example, scientific or political material, is less associated with the need for precise wording. The absence of the need to comply with all authorial norms gives rise to the low formalization with which the translation of fiction realizes excellent creative freedom for the writer-translator. In other words, specific phrases, scenes, and even meanings in such editions depend heavily on the translator’s subjective perception and experience, so they can be seen either as distorted or as expanding the author’s artistic universe. The original book Arabian Nights, based on the folk tales of the inhabitants of medieval Arab countries, received its translations on behalf of Galland (in French) and Lane (in English) in the early 18th and mid-19th centuries, respectively (Kent). Remarkably, these translations are often subject to public criticism because the translators deliberately omitted particularly erotic scenes from Arabian tales and made the texts accessible to a younger audience, although the original reader of Arabian Nights, judging by the book’s content, was entirely more mature (Kent). The popularity of Arabian Nights could not help but affect cinema as well, and in 1974 an Italian filmmaker published a film of the same name (Pasolini). The remarkable thing about this film was that the director did not omit erotic scenes and crude moments from the film, resulting in a picture about seemingly children’s fairy tales that received an age rating of NC-17. This essay seeks to explore possible reasons why Pasolini decided to abandon the popular but inaccurate translations of Arabic fairy tales and instead focus on more erotic content and nudism.
One of the main reasons that shaped the filmmaker’s vision was a deliberate attempt not to orient the stories to a specific community, as Galland and Lane did for the French and Germans, but rather to explore the primitive world of the Third World (Kent). To put it another way, Pasolini’s motivation was to show the real, undistorted being of the ancient Arabs in the sense in it indeed existed centuries ago (MacCabe). In this being, there was no classical capitalist exchange of goods, but sex for services was widespread, as Pasolini shows us. An illustrative scene in this sense from the film is Aziz’s rendering of service on behalf of a stranger to tell him where Zumurrud is — the stranger names sex as the price for this service (Pasolini 01:13:42). A reference to research allows us to determine that the inhabitants of the East at that time were focused on sex and viewed the process with particular reverence, which is what the director sought to show (Koohshahee and Anushirvani 125). Similar scenes allow the viewer to get deeper into Arab culture and get it almost in its pristine form on the screen.
Among other things, a more accurate representation of Arab culture was possible by placing gender stereotypes within the framework of the time. It is for this reason that the women in Pasolini’s film are seen chiefly as objects of male lust rather than as individuals. This is particularly evident in the opening scenes of the film, in which the enslaved person Zumurrud is paraded before men, all of whom want to possess her (Pasolini 00:03:30). It is, however, a mistake to claim that Pasolini is showing strictly heterosexual love; on the contrary, the director remains uninhibited when showing sex or the implication of sex. Therefore, the director shows male and female nudity equally in the film. Furthermore, in one scene, the viewer observes Yunan bathing naked in a pool with a naked boy — this creates impressions of both homonormativity and pedophilia in relationships in ancient Arab countries before the advent of Islam (Pasolini 01:52:20). With such bold steps, Pasolini once again proves that he is objective in his demonstration of sex culture, without gender or age limits.
In his film, Pasolini also eschews the framed narrative of the classic protagonists of the original tales, the narrator Scheherazade and King Shahriar, and instead focuses on the story of the enslaved person Zumurrud and the young man Nur-e-Din. The deliberate omission of narration on behalf of Scheherazade was done to keep the viewer engaged in the existence of the Arab inhabitants since narration on behalf of Scheherazade, who wishes to delay her execution daily, would have constructed an understanding of the film as just another fairy tale. When Pasolini abandons Scheherazade, he expands the scope of the story and shows the film of Zumurrud and Nur-e-Din as part of a single story that can be more easily understood by the viewer. Another reason might be Pasolini’s deliberate refusal to depict death as a pressure experienced by Scheherazade. The absence of the context of imminent death creates a genuinely timeless Arabic tale that is not imprisoned by time and can be narrated forever.
Works Cited
Arabian Nights. Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, performance by Ninetto Davoli, Franco Citti, and Franco Merli, United Artists, 1974.
Kent. “The Arabian Nights in European Literature — An Anthology.” Encounters with the Orient.
Koohshahee, Roohollah Roozbeh, and Alireza Anushirvani. “Representation of the Orient in Pasolini’s Arabian Nights.” International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, vol. 58, 2015, pp. 123-129.
MacCabe, Colin. “Arabian Nights: Brave Old World.” The Criterion.