Hmm. OK. I’m going to get to watching Porcile as soon as I can. For now, chained to the cinematheque.
…good article
I’m most likely going to wait to watch Salo until the new Criterion comes out – mainly so I can watch the supplemental documentaries afterwards( I can’t wait to get Catherine Breillat’s take on the film). I am strangely looking forward to it – despite the content. And of
course Salo was one of Fassbinder’s favorite films, which has been my main motivation to see it for some time (although I’ve obviously not been successful).
Speaking of Fassbinder and Pasolini, I’ve been searching through the incredible Rosenbaum archives on his new site and found a piece he wrote in 1995 where he mentions the two -
“Pasolini and Fassbinder were both maverick leftists who often alienated other leftists as well as everyone on the right, and both had a taste for rough trade, but in terms of their generations (Pasolini was born in 1922, Fassbinder in 1946) and cultural reference points they were radically different. The only reason to compare them now is to note how much their reputations and visibility have changed here over the last two decades. In 1995 Fassbinder is much less a household name in the United States than either Jean-Luc Godard or Andy Warhol, the two artists he was most often compared to when he was alive, whereas Pasolini has much more currency. For one thing, nearly all of Pasolini’s features are available on video, and nearly all in their original screen formats–a fact that separates him from Fellini, Antonioni, and Rossellini. (All that’s missing of his filmography in this country are most of the shorts, many of them major efforts.)”
13 years later it seems much has changed, for a variety of reasons, regarding Pasolini’s “currency” and the currency of Fassbinder and the other directors mentioned.
In the meantime I’ll give Porcile a watch.
Bfi is about to rerelease salo too: http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews38/salo_details.htm
Not a theoretical insight, but most certainly a Salò related story. The thing I remember most about seeing the film was that afterwards I went to a cafe with a friend to talk (as you do), he ordered some chocolate cake (I think you can see where this is going) and mid way through he was talking to me and had some chocolate cake in his teeth, I freaked out and couldn’t stop laughing at him! He was pretty traumatized and refuses to eat chocolate cake to this day … at least in front of me anyway. True story!
The impression I have from some people is that it’s passe and perhaps even plebian to dislike this movie but I really did. =( I can definitely appreciate it as a modern Sade interpretation and everything that PPP was going for but I think I must be more faint of heart than I anticipated. I tried! The eyeball thing at the end really creeped me out.
I read that what DeSade wrote was even more disturbing than Pasolini’s film. gotta get that novel.
The first time I saw Salo I was respectfully bewildered & transgressed. The second time I was lulled into a state of lethargy regarding the images (which began to retain their disquietude only in afterthoughts) while mentally condemning the powerful fascists.
For all its intent there is a certain prostelytization; whether this was unwanted by the filmmaker or not. I believe, (by accident or perhaps by cognitive genetics), that the on the first viewing I unknowingly took the stance of the oppressed; while the second time around I took the view of the oppressors.
An interesting film; but I felt in retrospect that the bulk of the storytelling segments weighdown the film in a way that does not work for me. Based on the passage, from the filmmakers’ viewpoint, I think his experiment works well as a ’mad dream [of] dissociation from crimes against humanity’. However, as a viewer, I think the film, as an reactionary experiment, may work only from the primary perspective of the oppressed. Otherwise it has the potential to corrupt the weak-willed to fetishize its malevolence.
“For all its intent there is a certain prostelytization; whether this was unwanted by the filmmaker or not. I believe, (by accident or perhaps by cognitive genetics), that the on the first viewing I unknowingly took the stance of the oppressed; while the second time around I took the view of the oppressors…”
Salo demands we know who Pasolini is, his life, his struggles -intensely, in order to get anything cogent out of it. The question (for me, anyway) is whether this kind of demand is reasonable for a filmmaker to expect of the audience -that we immerse ourselves in the explorations of one man’s innerspace, divorced from other (visceral) reality, and, in this case, the source material (although that is actually implied in the idea of an Auteur, period). I balk at it. I feel patronized by gestures that are supposed to shock, and genuinely disturbed by the cold detachment in their artistic execution. The overwhelming atmosphere feels like a falsehood, a device drawing attention to itself, lending everything an unreal, ‘begging to be deconstructed’ quality, and that also annoys me. There’s a selfish (desperate) ego stink to the film, a fascism lurking, a totalitarian demand. The film demands our absolute surrender to PPPs perspective before it will reward us with any tangible meaning —which is one of the primary ways fascism unfurls itself politically/socially in another context.
Salo? don’t know yet. Maybe a self-indulgent musing upon perversion and abstracted ideas of power/language/society in pursuit of a fundamental truth. Maybe not.
Big piece on Salo coming to the Notebook next week, stay tuned!
ha! I shall keep my eyes open.
Here it is! The Fearful Symmetry of Pier Palo Pasolin’s Salo
You know, I just heard Diamanda Galas speak about Pasolini. I’ll try and transcribe the words and post it here.
“At the very extreme of something, there is always a dead-end – straight lines don’t exist any more, only circles. In Sade, the dead-end is geographical; in Salò, historical. Both places are ones of death.
The terror of Salò is that it makes little attempt to humanise the victims. But that does not mean that these victims are not human or that Pasolini does not care for them. Pasolini’s rigor in sticking to examining the situation at hand is admirable: he avoids any unrealistic detours. These are victims. In these teenage faces, Pasolini has captured something we can see on teenage faces around us today, and something all too rarely seen on the screen: the human spirit flattened by the abuse of power. (Pasolini’s eye is actually very precise and rich. He casts like a magician. The four Masters in Salò have suitably vile faces.)
In the horrible world of Salò, there is no place for compassion. The Sadean philosophy inverts normal human values and exchanges. If a victim cries, that only feed’s the oppressor’s delight – there is no such thing as pity or sympathy in the Sadean world. A victim can only be a victim, nothing else.
“But Pasolini doesn’t follow Sade all the way – he subverts these power hierarchies. He even humanises one of the Masters, by making him fall in love with one of the soldiers. And then there are the other moments of genuine interaction between people: another soldier and a maid; two of the girl victims; and, of course, the two boy soldiers at the end. (A strange and touching conclusion to an ugly and difficult film.)
Sadism, of course, needs victims, it cannot actually kill them; but killing them, naturally, is what must happen. And a fresh batch gets brought in. And the numbers mount. Six million of those, three of those, etc. In the end, the circle of victims expands to include the oppressors – they may run and hide, to bunkers, to Salòs, but they cannot escape. They cannot live."
http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/4/salo.html
Pretty interesting stuff.
Wow. What theauteurs’ forum looked like a year ago.
Yeah.
Once upon a time.
Just watched Pasolini’s Edipo Re, but I am a little uncertain if I can stomach this film =[
Don’t sweat it…EDIPO RE is better anyways.
Salò ~ A Reactionary Review
Saw Salò for the 3rd time a couple weeks back.
My reactions have been as thus:
The 1st time i saw it, years ago on a dirty VHS, when i was too young to understand it, but was nerdily aware of its rarity & was readily willing to be shocked by something/anything, i was appalled during the Circle of Shit & sat in an uncomfortable cringe-bracing way throughout, until, i was offended, naturally, by the ending, though i was not sure why, i became completely physically relaxed by the final scenes, my body gave in. The tension released.
The 2nd time i saw it, a little over a year ago, late winter in my memory, i was ready for it, i was prepared. The 2nd go around i cringed much more during the binocular sequences & less during the banal misery of the rest of the film. I remember being more off-put by the surreality of the women telling the stories than i was the during the first viewing. Perplexed after it was over, I felt a little sorry that i had bothered watching it again. Yet also felt as if i had faced the beast & not let its initial shock scare me away into critical acts of dismissal & anger at its artistry, etc etc.
The 3rd & most recent viewing, my thoughts crescendoed into speechlessness as i sat stunned in suspended disbelief with a profound repulsion/attraction i came to what i understand to be an acceptance of death & a newfound awareness of the vile nature of man’s sadistic urges.
All in all, i believe i learned a lesson & am the better for it.
However, i do not forsee any need to ever see Salò again.
Thank you, & goodnight.
Dave McDougall
MAO, here you go:
http://chainedtothecinematheque.blogspot.com/2007/04/all-happy-endings-are.html
I don’t think it’s fully realized by any stretch, but… there it is.
AND – I still need to address Porcile to approach Pasolini’s representation of language/order/power/oppression, though I feel like I’d be much more cogent with a repeat viewing first…