Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma (Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom)
Original Italian release poster
Directed by	Pier Paolo Pasolini
Written by	Pier Paolo Pasolini Sergio Citti
Produced by	Alberto Grimaldi
Starring	Paolo Bonacelli Giorgio Cataldi Umberto Paolo Quintavalle Aldo Valletti Caterina Boratto Elsa De Giorgi Hélène Surgère Sonia Saviange Inès Pellegrini
Cinematography	Tonino Delli Colli
Edited by	Nino Bragli Tatiana Casini Morigi Enzo Ocone
Music by	Ennio Morricone
Production company	Les Productions Artistes Associés
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	22 November 1975 (1975-11-22) (Paris)
Running time	116 minutes
Countries	Italy France
Languages	Italian French German
Box office	SEK 1,786,578

Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Template:Lang-it), commonly referred to as simply Salò, is a 1975 Italian art film written and directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini, with uncredited writing contributions by Pupi Avati. It is based on the book The 120 Days of Sodom, by the Marquis de Sade. The story is in four segments, inspired by Dante's Inferno: the Anteinferno, the Circle of Manias, the Circle of Shit and the Circle of Blood. It was Pasolini's last film; he was murdered shortly before Salò was released.

Because of its scenes depicting intensely graphic violence, sadism and sexual depravity, the film was extremely controversial upon its release, and remains banned in several countries. The film is currently banned outright in Malaysia due to "repulsive, outrageous and abhorrent content" (extremely high impact violence, offensive depictions of cruelty and other content that is repelling and abhorrent). The film was then banned in Singapore due to its "extreme content that may cause controversy in Singapore". The film is banned outright in several other countries as well, including Sri Lanka, Iran, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

The film focuses on four wealthy, corrupted fascist libertines after the fall of Benito Mussolini's Italy in July 1943. The libertines kidnap eighteen teenage boys and girls and subject them to four months of extreme violence, sadism, and sexual and mental torture. The film is noted for exploring the themes of political corruption, abuse of power, sadism, perversion, sexuality and fascism.

Although it remains a controversial film, it has been praised by various film historians and critics, and, while not typically considered a horror film, Salò was named the 65th scariest film ever made by the Chicago Film Critics Association in 2006 and is the subject of an article in The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (1986).

Plot

The story is set in the Republic of Salò, the Fascist-occupied portion of Italy in 1944. Four wealthy men of power, the Duke (Duc de Blangis), the Bishop, the Magistrate (Curval), and the President (apparently Durcet), agree to marry each other's daughters as the first step in a debauched ritual. They recruit four young men (called guards) who would act as guards, and another four young men (called studs or cockmongers or 'fuckers') who are chosen because of their big penises. They then kidnap eighteen young men and women (nine of each sex), and take them to a palace near Salò. Accompanying them are four middle-aged prostitutes, also collaborators, whose function will be to recount erotically arousing stories for the men of power, who, in turn, will sadistically exploit their victims.

The story depicts some of the many days at the palace, during which the four men devise increasingly abhorrent tortures and humiliations for their own pleasure. In the Anteinferno segment, the captures of some victims by the collaborators are shown, and, later, the four lords examining them. The Circle of Manias presents some of the stories in the first part of Sade's book, told by Signora Vaccari (Hélène Surgère). The Magistrate urges her to tell them every last detail in her stories. During breakfast, the daughters are seen entering the dining hall naked to serve food. One of the studs (Efisio Etzi) trips a daughter and rapes her in front of the crowd. The four men of power, the whores, the guards and the other studs laugh at her cries of pain. The President is intrigued and moons several slaves before making the stud have anal sex with him as well. Two victims (Sergio Fascetti and Renata Moar) are forced to marry. The ceremony is interrupted for a short time when the Duke fondles several victims and whores. When the ceremony ends, the bride and groom are forced to fondle each other in front of the men, who quickly stop them when they attempt to have sex with each other by raping them, during which the Magistrate engages with the Duke in three-way intercourse by worshiping his buttocks before penetrating it with his penis. Another day begins with the victims being forced to act like dogs. The Magistrate tortures one of them (Susanna Radaelli) by tricking her into eating food containing nails. The next day, the Duke shares a passionate kiss with a boy (Gaspare di Jenno) who seems to be attracted to him, and himself begins another kiss. One girl (Graziella Aniceto) expresses her sadness over the situation.

In the Circle of Shit, the passions escalate in intensity from mainly non-penetrative sex to coprophagia. As Signora Maggi (Elsa De Giorgi) tells her story, the President notices an erection forming through the pants of one of the studs seated next to him. He reaches over and begins to fondle the stud's penis through his pants. Another stud takes a female victim's hand and forcibly masturbates himself with it. The story continues, and Renata cries when she hears how Maggi killed her mother. This proves to be a mistake as the Duke finds himself sexually excited at the sound of her cries and begins verbally abusing her. She begs him to stop, which is an even greater mistake as it enthralls him, making him more ruthless. The Duke orders the guards and studs to forcibly undress her. During this, she begs God for death, which puts her under punishment. The Duke punishes her by defecating in front of her and forcing her to eat his feces, making Gaspare rub his genitals as she does so. The situation is so much that it causes the President to exit to masturbate. Later, the other victims are presented a giant meal of human feces. Graziella again tells her friend that she does not think she can take much more. During a search for which victim has the most beautiful rear, Franco is picked, and is promised death in the future.

The Circle of Blood starts with a black mass-like wedding between the studs and the men of power. The men angrily order the children to laugh, but they are too grief-stricken to do so. The Pianist (Sonia Saviange) and Signora Catelli (Caterina Boratto) tell jokes to make the victims laugh. The wedding ceremony ensues with each men of power exchanging rings with the studs. After the wedding, the Bishop is sodomized by his stud. After, the stud refers to his huge penis as the Bishop's "friend" and will be available for his enjoyment in the future. The Bishop (Giorgio Cataldi) then leaves to examine the captives in their rooms, where they start systematically betraying each other: Claudio reveals that Graziella is hiding a photograph, Graziella reveals that Olga and Antiniska are having a secret sexual affair, and finally, a collaborator (Ezio Manni) and the black servant (Ines Pellegrini) are shot down after being found having sex. Toward the end, the remaining victims are called out for who will receive their punishment. Graziella is spared due to her betrayal of Eva, and Gaspare is spared due to his submissive relationship with the Duke. Those who were not spared are given a blue ribbon and are sentenced to a painful death. The victims huddle together and cry, pray and one in particular begins to react from the horrible meals he's been fed. They are then murdered through methods like scalping, branding, and having their tongues and eyes cut out, as each libertine takes his turn to watch as voyeur. The soldiers shake hands and bid farewell, and the Pianist commits suicide due to her grief.

The film's final shot is of two young soldiers, who had witnessed and collaborated in all of the prior atrocities, dancing a simple waltz together.

Cast

• Paolo Bonacelli as The Duke (Duke of Blangis); tall, strongly built, bearded, chauvinistic, and very sadistic; enjoys tormenting female victims with verbal abuse and degrading them, his favorite victims being Reneta and Faridah. Highly sexually potent. Shows loving feelings for the male victim Gaspare and allows him to live at the end.
• Giorgio Cataldi as The Bishop; extremely sadistic. Writes down several victim's names for punishment. May have a soft spot for Graziella.
• Umberto P. Quintavalle as The Magistrate; mustachioed sadomasochist; fit and balding; enjoys bullying the victims, yet shows joy from being sodomized. Very strict.
• Aldo Valletti as President Durcet; scrawny, weak and crude. He enjoys dark humor and painful penetration to himself and others. He is passionate about anal sex even when having sex with women and girls, refusing to have vaginal intercourse with them.
• Caterina Boratto as Signora Catelli, a prideful, cruel whore who jokes about horrible instances. Tells stories during the Circle of Blood
• Elsa De Giorgi as Signora Maggi, a coprophiliac who finds no shame in defecating in front of others. Committed matricide for a nobleman. Tells stories during the Circle of Shit.
• Hélène Surgère as Signora Vaccari; lively and polite, she was molested as a very young child, but enjoyed it. Tells stories during the Circle of Manias.
• Sonia Saviange as The Pianist; soft spoken, she plays continuously during the day, but is secretly very distressed at the actions being surrounded by her. Commits suicide during the final day.
• Ezio Manni as The Collaborator, a guard who falls in love with the Slave girl. He is aware of his fate when he is found out, and is shot to death while holding his fist in the air.
• Inès Pellegrini as The Slave Girl, a black slave in love with the Collaborator. Disobeyed orders by engaging in intercourse without the presence of the Masters. Is shot after the Collaborator.

Male victims

• Sergio Fascetti - Forced to marry, but kept from actual intercourse. He is then raped by the Duke.
• Bruno Musso - Outspoken. Shows a foul mouth even to the Men of Power. One of the Magistrate's favorite victims of bullying.
• Antonio Orlando - Killed by having his penis burned off.
• Claudio Cicchetti - Confesses to the Bishop about Graziella's photograph, leading to a chain of revealed secrets.
• Franco Merli - Prideful and youthful. Said to have the most beautiful buttocks. Nearly killed midway through the film, but spared on a promise of a worse future death. He is killed at the end by having his tongue cut off.
• Umberto Chessari - Refuses sex with a client, and is punished for it at the end.
• Lamberto Book - Tricked into his position with a promise of sex with an attractive girl. Bitter about the outcome.
• Gaspare di Jenno - A slightly masochistic homosexual and the Duke's favorite. He has sexual feelings for the Duke and is therefore the only victim who isn't tortured during his time at the palace. In the end, he is spared death for his good behavior.

Female victims

• Giuliana Melis - The Duke's daughter. Unlike the book, she is killed.
• Faridah Malik' - A common victim of both the Duke's sexism and the Magistrate's bullying.
• Graziella Aniceto - Finds her time at the Palace unbearable and is calmed by Dorit and Eva, the latter of which she betrays. She is left alive at the film's end along with Gaspare.
• Renata Moar - Forced into the palace just not long after witnessing the death of her mother. She is forced to marry Sergio, before being raped by the Magistrate. The Duke enjoys tormenting her and at one point forces her to consume his feces. She is killed due to her begging God for death, as religion is against the rules in the palace.
• Dorit Henke - Beautiful, and rebellious. Friends with Graziella
• Antiniska Nemour - In love with Eva.
• Benedetta Gaetani - Attempts to run away. As a result, she is quickly murdered.
• Olga Andreis - Soft spoken. In a lesbian relationship with Antiniska.

Production

Salò transposes the setting of the Marquis de Sade's book from 18th-century France to the last days of Benito Mussolini's regime in the Republic of Salò. Salò, a nickname for the Italian Social Republic (RSI) (because Mussolini ruled from this northern town rather than from Rome), which was a puppet state of Nazi Germany. The Nazis had used the opportunity to round up the many Jews living in that part of Italy and sent them off to extermination camps; heretofore, many Italian officials had refused to implement the "Final Solution."

Reception

Controversies

Salò has been banned in several countries, because of its graphic portrayals of rape, torture, and murder — mainly of people thought to be younger than eighteen years of age. The film remains banned in several countries to this day.

Salò was rejected by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) in January 1976. It was first screened at the Old Compton Street cinema club in Soho, London in 1977, in an uncut form and without certification from BBFC secretary James Ferman; the premises were raided by the Metropolitan Police after a few days. A cut version prepared under Ferman's supervision, again without formal certification, was subsequently screened under cinema club conditions for some years. In 2000, in an uncut form, the film was finally passed for theatrical and video distribution in the United Kingdom.

In 1994, an undercover policeman in Cincinnati, Ohio rented the film from a local gay bookstore, and then arrested the owners for "pandering". A large group of artists, including Martin Scorsese and Alec Baldwin, and scholars signed a legal brief arguing the film's artistic merit; the Court dismissed the case because the police violated the owners' Fourth Amendment rights, without reaching the question of whether the film was obscene.

It was banned in Australia in 1976, then made briefly legal in 1993, until its re-banning in 1998. Salò was resubmitted for classification in Australia in 2008, only to be rejected once again. The DVD print was apparently a modified version, causing outrage in the media over censorship and freedom of speech. In 2010, the film was submitted again, and passed once again with an R 18+ rating. According to the Australian Classification Board media release, the DVD was passed due to "the inclusion of 176 minutes of additional material which provided a context to the feature film." However the media release also stated that "The Classification Board wishes to emphasise that this film is classified R 18+ based on the fact that it contains additional material. Screening this film in a cinema without the additional material would constitute a breach of classification laws." The majority opinion of the board stated that the inclusion of additional material on the DVD "facilitates wider consideration of the context of the film which results in the impact being no more than high." This decision came under attack by Family Voice Australia (formerly the Festival of Light Australia), the Australian Christian Lobby and Liberal Party of Australia Senator Julian McGauran, who tried to have the lifted ban overturned, but the Board refused, stating "The film has aged plus there is bonus material that clearly shows it is fiction." The film was released on Blu-ray and DVD on September 8, 2010.

In New Zealand, the film was originally banned in 1976. The ban was upheld in 1993. In 1997, special permission was granted for the film to be screened uncut at a film festival. In 2001, the DVD was finally passed uncut with an 'R18' rating.

Documentaries about the film

An exhibition of photographs by Fabian Cevallos depicting scenes which were edited out of the film was displayed in 2005, in Rome. Italian filmmaker Giuseppe Bertolucci released a documentary in 2006, Pasolini prossimo nostro, based on an interview with Pasolini done on the set of Salò in 1975. The documentary also included photographs taken on the set of the film. The film is also the subject of a 2001 documentary written and directed by Mark Kermode.

Acclaim

The film is considered a masterpiece by some artists. Acclaimed director Michael Haneke named the film his fourth favorite film when he voted for the 2002 Sight and Sound poll; director Catherine Breillat and film critic Joel David also voted for the film. David Cross named it one of his favorite films. A 2000 poll of critics conducted by The Village Voice named it the 89th greatest film of the 20th century. In 2006, the Chicago Film Critics Association named Salò the 65th scariest film ever made. In 2010, the Toronto International Film Festival placed it at #47 on its list of The Essential 100 films.. Film director Tom Six has stated that Salò is the sickest film he has ever seen.

Versions

Several versions of the film exist. Salò originally ran 145 minutes, but director Pasolini himself removed 25 minutes for story pace. The longest available version is the DVD published by the British Film Institute (BFI), containing a short scene usually deleted from other prints, in which, during the first wedding, one of the masters quotes a Gottfried Benn poem. This version of the film is featured both on the original 2001 DVD release and the remastered 2008 DVD as well as Blu-ray. Since the remastered version was sourced from the original negative, which does not include the poetry reading, the additional footage was sourced from a 35 mm print of the film held by the BFI National Archive. A note in the DVD booklet explains that this leads to a slight shift in picture quality. Aside from the high-definition transfer, the 2008 BFI releases are identical - the apparent five-minute difference in running time is explained by the Blu-ray running at the theatrical speed of 24 frames per second, while the DVD has been transferred at the slightly faster PAL video rate of 25 frames per second.

In the U.S., Salò suffered intermittent legal troubles. The Criterion Collection laserdisc and DVD editions were released for North America; however, the DVD was quickly withdrawn because of licensing conflicts with Pasolini's estate. As a result, Criterion's 1998 DVD release of the film created much collector's interest. Moreover, its rarity inspired bootleg copies sold as original pressings. The quality of the genuine Salò DVD is inferior by contemporary standards; most notably, the image has a green tinge. Criterion has since reissued the film in a completely remastered two-disc edition, albeit with the same spine number (17) as the original pressing.

Besides the BFI edition with the often missing poetry-quotation scene, there exists a French DVD version, distributed by Gaumont Columbia Tristar Home Video, containing a transfer that is a restored, high-definition, colour-corrected version of the film (superior to the original Criterion and BFI editions), however, it has no English subtitles, as it is a French product for French cinephiles.

The Hawaii film company HK Flix released an NTSC-format of Salò through distributor Euro Cult in 2007. It reportedly contains the uncut Criterion Collection release — yet of better quality. The HK Flix edition is a version of the BFI's Salò DVD, complete with a factory imperfection at the film's 01:47:19 mark; however, its quality is unequal to that of the Gaumont DVD, and, still, it is missing a scene. The DVD cover is a sketch of Pasolini in sunglasses; Paolo Bonacelli's name is printed beside it. Moreover, despite accusations of boot-legging, Euro Cult asserts their legal entitlement to distribute the Salò DVD in the U.S.

In its online blog, On Five, the Criterion company said, in November 2006, that they re-acquired the distribution rights for Salò. In May 2008, Criterion released the cover art of the reissue DVD, slated for release in August 2008, comprising two discs: (I) the film (with an optional dubbed-English track) and (II) three documentaries and new interviews.

In August 2008, the BFI announced a new release of Salò on both high-definition Blu-ray and standard-definition DVD, claiming it to be "fully uncut and in its most complete version," and that "the film has been re-mastered from the original Italian restoration negatives" and would be accompanied by a second disc containing extensive additional features. The BFI re-issue does indeed contain the missing 25 second poem intact, but according to Criterion's website this sequence is not an official part of the film, because the footage is not present in the interpositive that the camera negative was struck from (which formed the basis of their transfer).

In December 2010, opiumdenpluto released "The Morning Julia Regiment - a score for 'Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom'" (ODP 022) by ambient/avant noise recording artist hiroshimabend (aka puppy38). The DVD version is a re-realization of the soundtrack and score for the film in that all dialogue and sound has been removed, replaced by the music of hiroshimabend. To make up for the lack of spoken dialogue, the subtitles have been mastered into the video. Several samples taken from the original soundtrack are left in their original place (albeit effect-laden) and the viewer, expecting not to hear anything that matches what is happening on the screen, gets a surprise in those moments. There has been no official release for this version (ODP 022V), with the exception of being available to rent at a few independent video stores. Opiumdenpluto has stated it is willing to provide copies for reviewing purposes only.

The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray on October 4, 2011.

External links

• Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma at IMDb
• Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom at the TCM Movie Database
• Salo (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) at Rotten Tomatoes
• Criterion Collection essay on Salò, by John Powers
• Rare OOP DVDs Guide to identify original Criterion DVD.
• DVDBeaver.com Version Comparison Features, image, and sound quality comparison of the different DVD releases.
• Projection Booth podcast Discussion of Pasolini and Salo.