Salo

BFI Film Classics

by Gary Indiana

Salò or The Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom (Salò o Le centoventi giornate di Sodoma, 1975) is one of the most controversial and scandalous films ever made. It was Pier Paolo Pasolini's last film; he was murdered shortly after completing it. An adaptation of Sade's vicious masterpiece, but relocated to Fascist-ruled Italy, Salò is an unflinching, violent portrayal of sexual cruelty which many find too disturbing to watch.
But insightful artworks are often disturbing. Beneath the extreme, taboo-breaking surface of Salò, Gary Indiana argues, is a deeply penetrating account of human behavior that resonates not only as an account of fascism but as a picture of the corporate, morally compromised world we live in today.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Essays

96 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2000

About the author

Gary Hoisington, known as Gary Indiana, was an American writer, actor, artist, and cultural critic. He served as the art critic for the Village Voice weekly newspaper from 1985 to 1988. Indiana is best known for his classic American true-crime trilogy, Resentment, Three Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story, and Depraved Indifference, chronicling the less permanent state of "depraved indifference" that characterized American life at the millennium's end. In the introduction to the recently re-published edition of Three Month Fever, critic Christopher Glazek has coined the phrase 'deflationary realism' to describe Indiana's writing, in contrast to the magical realism or hysterical realism of other contemporary writing.

Reviews

[Brian O'Connell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The other reviewer complains of what he views as Indiana’s apparent disdain for or ambivalence toward Pasolini, but speaking as a devotee of the filmmaker (and of Salò in particular—it’s my favorite film), I understood it more as healthy skepticism. There are a few strongly argued passages about the dubious legendry that’s accrued around the director following his death, as well as some raised eyebrows at the more ersatz elements of Pasolini’s individualistic philosophies, but these never read as dismissals, and they’re always mixed with a good deal of admiration. This brief text actually contains quite a number of penetrating insights into Salò’s style, context, strategy, metaphor, etc., very well articulated and oddly highly accessible, despite the extreme difficulty of the film and Indiana’s occasional crankiness. It works very well as a sort of viewer’s guide to the film and its background, at least until, in the back end, it more or less lapses into simply summarizing the events of the film with little analysis to bolster it, albeit written in a sharply literary style. Imperfect, then, and there are obviously deeper and more specific examinations of this film in print. But as an extremely readable, personal, funny, and intelligent overview of one of cinema’s most notorious masterpieces, it’s a satisfying little text.

[Ronan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good summary of the events in and surrounding the film. It gives some good basic analysis, though I was hoping that element would be more in depth. It is saved by Gary Indiana being a good writer who even when just summarising scenes manages to keep the text engaging.

[Zach Werbalowsky · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have only seen Salo once, I am not an avid Pasolini fan, I have read a Pasolini book and found it... alright? But I am a huge Gary Indiana fan (probably why this is so highly rated). I found the book illuminating as well as funny. Not falling into the shlock of "Wow this movie is so crazy". The first reviewer describes what he imagines is Indiana's disdain for the movie and Pasolini, but why would I read a long term review of something that would only sing its praises? Is Salo a movie worthy of praise(not that it isn't good)? I have Samuel Delany's Hogg and you can appreciate the book and find it wild and interesting but approaching it from an attitude of "I love it" strikes me as odd. The movie seems necessary, that it has to exist because someone would have had to make it at some point. But like Indiana says about other movies existing that are more horrific, more fucked up, more visually disgusting. This holds up. Cause the cruelty becomes banal and very little pleasure is derived from the cruelty at times, cause the powerful and spoiled always need crazier and crazier games to seek a high that even in the cruelty, boredom sprouts.

[Ygraine]

"the only protagonists with whom we might ‘identify’ are monstrosities, and the only ‘look’ that approximates that of the viewer is the occasional, inexpressive gaze of a child-victim caught in unexpected close-up. while the victims are utterly expendable, the outrages perpetrated on them are pedagogical. they will ‘learn’ abjection from their captors, who initiate them into the process of their own annihilation. however, it is also implied that ordinary fascism has already trained them in passivity and infantile obedience to authority. we view the film while imagining the victims’ state of mind, at the same time we are denied access to it. we see that the libertines will do nothing that corresponds to any normative code of behaviour; that everything will end in massacre; that the narrative is a self-consuming artifact that begins at zero and ends at zero. we anticipate its cruelties, in a sense look forward to them, as to the satisfactory completion of a necessary rite. salò engages voyeurism rather than empathy, and attempts to turn voyeurism back on itself with various distancing devices."

"conversation among the libertines is always highly stylised and theatrical, and at bottom rather meaninglessly allusive, designed to strike certain notes for the audience: blood, dirty sex, their shared satisfaction in the unfolding of their plans. pasolini notes somewhere that the destiny of the four, not depicted in the film, is to be murdered once they reach salò (they are, apparently, some miles away from mussolini’s micro-republic), and one has the impression that for them that, too, will be just another ontological thrill, albeit the final one. it’s never suggested that these men would not meet their fate at least as gamely as their victims seem to, because they’re all part of the same organism, equally drained of sartrean free will by the insane logic of their own fantasies."

[Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's very funny how I stumbled onto this book. I bought a tee-shirt with Gary Indiana on it from the Paris review with the quote, "So you moved to New York to become a writer." And then I bought 3 of his books, To whom it may concern, Resentment and this. Pasolini is one of my favorite poets/directors and it was cool to learn new things about Salò. And it was also pretty neat to see him quote other books that I have read, including The passion of Pier Paolo Pasolini by Sam Rohdie.

Film Lincoln Center is currently showing Never Look Away: Serge Daney's Radical 1970s films and this film was on the list. It was great to finish this the day of the viewing and by the time I was done with this, the book was falling apart and ended up being super sticky. Kinda mirroring the aftermath on what took place in the movie. By the last couple pages, pages from the book were falling out as I turned to the next, I couldn't stop laughing.

Anyhoo this was a fun and informative read, If you are a fan of Gary or Pasolini, you should give this one a try.

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 4 out of 5]

ol gary finds a way to throw in his favorite word desuetude a coupla times as well as other grand words that sound funny coming from someone i know is more interested in or hailing from the muck and morass of subculture, ol gary once again proving to be someone who can look evil and ugly in the eye and make damn incisive and often funny takeaways. our doomed culture's finest critic.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gary Indiana perfectly captures an appreciative ambivalence towards Pasolini that I feel like I often share. Hell, this book is a perfect document in expressing ambivalence towards *any* auteur or artistic genius. The second half is more of a straight plot description, but even that is worthwhile reading for Indiana's acerbic prose.

[Holly Raymond · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure why BFI chose Gary Indiana to write this little book-- he doesn't seem particularly fond of the movie, and his attitude towards Pasolini seems close to bemused irritation. Look, I'll be honest, I've never seen Salo and I possibly never will. I'm not even sure why I read this. I like Gary Indiana and I feel bad giving him two stars for anything. I need to go lie down and think about what I've done.