Hedonism and Its Presentation in “La Grande Bouffe”

Abstract

In this article, the messages of Marco Ferreri, one of the genuine directors of European cinema, in the grotesque comedy style of La Grande Bouffe (The Big Feast, 1973), which is about four middle-aged hedonist men who know no limits in consumption, were examined in the context of philosophical criticism. In the film, in which the lack of boundaries in greed, decay and collapse at the class level is embodied with black humor in the context of radical hedonism criticism, an ethical understanding of pleasure-oriented human understanding is also implied by depicting the extremes of insatiability and consumption. The aim of this article is to show that a remarkable critique of a certain human understanding and lifestyle is made through the characters of the radical hedonist bourgeois male friends group that the film La Grande Bouffe focuses on. In this direction, La Grande Bouffe is examined through the concept of hedonism by making a descriptive film analysis with a qualitative approach.