There are only two reasons for taking a myth and re-working it. Either because a variation on it will communicate a new depth of understanding about that particular myth … or simply because myths are 'true'. They tend to be true in a way that we still do not understand. They work! But Pasolini seems to have done neither with [Oedipus Rex]—except to take the story and set it in Arabia and drag his hero through a series of parodies of Japanese samurai movies. This is Accatone telling a camp joke to the blokes back at the ghetto, about how the other half lives … (pp. 39-40)

Pasolini missed a chance that could have led to a whole new interpretation of the myth. Sophocles never explains why poor old Laius had to get killed by his son; it was not merely for being jealous of his arrival and taking...