If you found that by the end of nearly two hours of The Decameron you'd had enough medieval bawdiness for quite some time, then be warned: miss out on The Canterbury Tales. It's not just that Pasolini's latest feature … is concerned with roughly the same themes and similar characters, but it lacks any indication of his very considerable talent. (p. 46)

Pasolini would seem to have selected the tales he uses … with a view merely to creating as bawdy a picture as possible of the chosen period. His underlying theme of the rise and development of the middle class might have been far more acceptable had it not necessitated such tampering with Chaucer's poetry. Apart from this concentration upon a particular social stratum, there is little unity and the links between tales are extremely weak….

The Canterbury Tales is lengthy and tedious…. [One] feels cheated when such an exercise...