In the early 1970s, the great Italian poet, philosopher, and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini (SALR, OR THE 120 DAYS OF SODOM) brought to the screen a trio of masterpieces of premodern world literature - Giovanni Boccaccio's THE DECAMERON, Geoffrey Chaucer's THE CANTERBURY TALES, and THE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS (often known as THE ARABIAN NIGHTS) - and in doing so created his most uninhibited and extravagant work, which he titled his TRILOGY OF LIFE.