“And now, friend-reader, you must prepare your heart and your mind for the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began…Fancy, now, that all pleasure-taking either sanctioned by good manners or enjoyed by that fool you speak of incessantly, of whom you know nothing and whom you call Nature; fancy, I say, that all these modes of taking pleasure will be expressly excluded from this anthology, or that whenever peradventure you do indeed encounter them here, they will always be accompanied by some crime or colored by some infamy…Many of the extravagances you are about to see illustrated will doubless displease you, yes, I am will aware of it, but there are amongst them a few that will warm you to the point of costing you some fuck, and that, reader is all we ask of you…Rather, it is up to you to take what you please and leave the rest alone…”
(“The One Hundred & Twenty Days of Sodom” – The Marquis de Sade. Arrow Books, 1990, p253-254)
We become willing if not active participants in the atrocities that are about to be enacted within the walls of the Château de Silling. We have been warned both of their nature and that they may awaken something dark within us, yet, we continue to read. It is my opinion that Pasolini does the same in Salo. Everyone watching the film knows what is lurking around the corner (this is made all the more clear after the Duke reads the statutes from the balcony) yet we continue to watch. I believe Pasolini was critiquing the viewer/consumer – sex and art in cinema have become a throw-away commodity, something to merely pass the time. We are unthinking, dumbed down by modern culture. If we were truly aware what was happening around us we would have left the theatre, we wouldn’t even have been there in the first place!
I know this is a very black and white, or easy theory about the film, I am almost washing Pasolini’s hands of any moral trangressions on his part; if he was criticising us for watching why are we not criticising him for making? I believe it is a film that HAD to have been made, an essential film and asks so many questions and answers so little. I cannot say I fully understand Pasolini’s intentions behind making Salo but I’m glad he did, I think it’s beautifully shot – the grand interiors of the chateau and the wide shots make the film all the more carnivorous and claustophobic. Most of the sex within the film we don’t actually see, our imaginations run riot. It is a movie that hold a mirror up to its audience and I think it is this fact scares people.
I watched this film a few months ago and what nonsense! Has anyone else seen it? For those of you who are unware of it (how lucky you are) then I will give a brief synopsis…a man falls in love with his pig, fathers some sort of child like creatures with it, he kills the ‘children’, the pig then kills itself and then the man kills himself. The film is notorious because it contains what seems like actual bestiality. Now, you would think that it would be shocking and sick but it’s actually quite boring and I didn’t really see the point in the whole thing. It wasn’t saying anything intellectual or philosophical to my knowledge and as experimental films go it was very experimental. Was just wondering if anyone else had any thoughts on it.
GARAGE DISCUSSION GROUP #1 (MAY 2009)--- Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom about 3 years ago
“And now, friend-reader, you must prepare your heart and your mind for the most impure tale that has ever been told since our world began…Fancy, now, that all pleasure-taking either sanctioned by good manners or enjoyed by that fool you speak of incessantly, of whom you know nothing and whom you call Nature; fancy, I say, that all these modes of taking pleasure will be expressly excluded from this anthology, or that whenever peradventure you do indeed encounter them here, they will always be accompanied by some crime or colored by some infamy…Many of the extravagances you are about to see illustrated will doubless displease you, yes, I am will aware of it, but there are amongst them a few that will warm you to the point of costing you some fuck, and that, reader is all we ask of you…Rather, it is up to you to take what you please and leave the rest alone…”
(“The One Hundred & Twenty Days of Sodom” – The Marquis de Sade. Arrow Books, 1990, p253-254)
We become willing if not active participants in the atrocities that are about to be enacted within the walls of the Château de Silling. We have been warned both of their nature and that they may awaken something dark within us, yet, we continue to read. It is my opinion that Pasolini does the same in Salo. Everyone watching the film knows what is lurking around the corner (this is made all the more clear after the Duke reads the statutes from the balcony) yet we continue to watch. I believe Pasolini was critiquing the viewer/consumer – sex and art in cinema have become a throw-away commodity, something to merely pass the time. We are unthinking, dumbed down by modern culture. If we were truly aware what was happening around us we would have left the theatre, we wouldn’t even have been there in the first place!
I know this is a very black and white, or easy theory about the film, I am almost washing Pasolini’s hands of any moral trangressions on his part; if he was criticising us for watching why are we not criticising him for making? I believe it is a film that HAD to have been made, an essential film and asks so many questions and answers so little. I cannot say I fully understand Pasolini’s intentions behind making Salo but I’m glad he did, I think it’s beautifully shot – the grand interiors of the chateau and the wide shots make the film all the more carnivorous and claustophobic. Most of the sex within the film we don’t actually see, our imaginations run riot. It is a movie that hold a mirror up to its audience and I think it is this fact scares people.
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GARAGE DISCUSSION GROUP #1 (MAY 2009)--- Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom about 3 years ago
Great insight Justin!
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Vase de Noces, or, The Wedding Trough. about 3 years ago
I watched this film a few months ago and what nonsense! Has anyone else seen it? For those of you who are unware of it (how lucky you are) then I will give a brief synopsis…a man falls in love with his pig, fathers some sort of child like creatures with it, he kills the ‘children’, the pig then kills itself and then the man kills himself. The film is notorious because it contains what seems like actual bestiality. Now, you would think that it would be shocking and sick but it’s actually quite boring and I didn’t really see the point in the whole thing. It wasn’t saying anything intellectual or philosophical to my knowledge and as experimental films go it was very experimental. Was just wondering if anyone else had any thoughts on it.
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Our favourite paintings: the great Auteur Gallery about 3 years ago
Friedrich – “The Abby in the Oakwood”
Magritte – “L’Empire des Lumières”
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What are your "Guilty Pleasure" films? about 3 years ago
Clueless and The Catholic Boys
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Best movie with a train in it ? about 3 years ago
“Brief Encounter”, easliy.
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What Is The Worst Movie Made in the Past 20 Years? (THERE ARE RULES TO FOLLOW!) about 2 years ago
The Passion of the Christ.
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