17 Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom

[Tribe]

Ah, I think he's talking about a regular DVD (from an HD transfer), not an HD disc.

Yeah, I think we're still several years away from Criterion going HD.

Tribe

[Cinesimilitude]

Ah, I think he's talking about a regular DVD (from an HD transfer), not an HD disc.

Yeah, I think we're still several years away from Criterion going HD.

I think criterion will go HD by Summer 08 at the latest. That's my bet and I'm sticking to it. I can't wait to see what kind of extras they put on this set. Maybe we'll get the whole trilogy, the other two belonged to image at some point, no?

[zedz]

I can't wait to see what kind of extras they put on this set. Maybe we'll get the whole trilogy, the other two belonged to image at some point, no?

Although Salo is sometimes considered a poisonous abreaction to the Trilogy of Life, it's not formally a part of it. The Trilogy is the three episodic adaptations of classic story cycles (The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales and The Arabian Nights). Apart from the last of these, there must be a good half-dozen Pasolini's I'd rather see Criterion tackle.

I must say, the specific linking of Salo to those films has never seemed particularly persuasive to me. Pasolini was a very distinctive filmmaker, so there are plenty of shared points of reference between any of his works, but the one that seems closest to Salo is probably Pigsty. The Trilogy has often seemed to me like a commercially-driven distraction from the main thrust of his work (to which Salo was a howling, enraged return).

[Cinesimilitude]

Although Salo is sometimes considered a poisonous abreaction to the Trilogy of Life, it's not formally a part of it.

Ah, silly me. I didn't know Decameron was in the trilogy and Salo wasn't. Either way, I'm just glad I get to buy this for less than 500$ at some point next year.

[Matt]

At last, I can finally feel relieved of the guilt of having sold my copy a few years ago for enough money to pay my rent for a month. I also sold the laserdisc (for which I paid $10) a few more years ago for a nice chunk of change.

[editman]

At last! Ideally Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom (at least in abridged form - I doubt it's feasible to give away a 800-page book with the DVD) should come as a paperback with the new release, silimar to The Man Who Fell To Earth and Ugetsu. It would be interesting to see how the film differs from the text.

Also would be nice to have a featurette with official words from Criterion finally touching on the mystery behind the expiring of the licence, and the 'phenomenon' of the original DVD release being the 'most valuable DVD in the world' for almost a decade - if there's a title that's worthy to break the fourth wall this one is.

[Barmy]

How could anyone possibly abridge the Marquis de Sade?

[solaris72]

At last! Ideally Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom (at least in abridged form - I doubt it's feasible to give away a 800-page book with the DVD)

120 Days of Sodom is not 800 pages long, that's the length of the volume of collected works that includes Sodom. I don't remember offhand how long the novel itself is, but I'm fairly certain it's short enough that it could be included. The only trouble is, I don't think there's currently an in-print edition of just Sodom.

[Highway 61]

Predictable question here: what exactly are the merits of the Marquis de Sade's work? He was nothing more than an amoral hedonist, no? Although I've never seen Pasolini's film, I am aware of his intentions, so please don't take my inquiry as a dismisal of his film; I'm just curious about the source material.

[Cinesimilitude]

Predictable question here: what exactly are the merits of the Marquis de Sade's work? He was nothing more than an amoral hedonist, no? Although I've never seen Pasolini's film, I am aware of his intentions, so please don't take my inquiry as a dismisal of his film; I'm just curious about the source material.

I haven't read his work, but having seen "Quills", His work was probably more important in the way it was received as opposed to how it was written. I doubt he was the first man to put ink to paper and describe his sexual thoughts at length, but he was imprisoned and had to sneak his writings out of his confines, making it far more inflammatory.

[MichaelB]

120 Days of Sodom is not 800 pages long, that's the length of the volume of collected works that includes Sodom. I don't remember offhand how long the novel itself is, but I'm fairly certain it's short enough that it could be included. The only trouble is, I don't think there's currently an in-print edition of just Sodom.

Also, is there a public-domain translation, or would Criterion have to license one (or pay for a new one)? The original text is long out of copyright, of course, but English versions may not be.

Incidentally, this is the onscreen bibliography:

Roland Barthes: 'Sade, Fourier, Loyola' (Editions du Seuil)
Maurice Blanchot: "Lautréamont et Sade' (Editions de Minuit; in Italy Dedalo Libri)
Simone de Beauvoir: 'Faut-il brûler Sade' (Editions Gaimard)
Pierre Klossowski: 'Sade mon prochain, le philosophe scélérat' (Editions du Seuil; in Italy SugarCo Edizioni)
Philippe Sollers: 'L'écriture et l'experience des limites' (Editions du Seuil)

Are these all book-length?

[Barmy]

"120 Days" is, I believe, de Sade's longest novel, and is at least several hundred pages. It's very repetitious. I would be surprised if many people could actually get through it, but it is fun to skim (it has little narrative drive so it's very skimmable). Also, although I read it 15 years ago or so, I'm not sure reading it would add much to an understanding of Salo. It might be better to read the books in Salo's bibliography.

[miless]

Predictable question here: what exactly are the merits of the Marquis de Sade's work? He was nothing more than an amoral hedonist, no? Although I've never seen Pasolini's film, I am aware of his intentions, so please don't take my inquiry as a dismisal of his film; I'm just curious about the source material.

he also stated that he did not act upon many of his impulses, but the very fact that he had them meant that someone out there had those impulses too, and that they might not have the dicipline to control their urges... I believe that he also used writing as the main escape for his desires. He did act upon many of them, but his worst ones (like those depicted in 120 days of Sodom) were never enacted upon by the man.

also: Sodom was Bunuel's favorite book, and he was thrilled when he met the Noailles, who were not only patrons for the Surrealists, but were direct decendants of Sade (and apparently he was given a very old pressing of sodom from them)... they later funded L'Age d'Or which has a scene depicting the 120 Days of Sodom as if lead by Jesus. oh, those crazy surrealists!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Depending on who you ask, Sade is either a great libertarian hero or an over-rated hack. I know that Camille Paglia takes him seriously and Angela Carter has a book on him where she posits him as a satirist on par with Swift. He's valorized as a free thinker who stuck it to the establishment, but I find his writing egotistical and shallow. I'll take Celine or Crumb anyday (of course, some find them shallow and egotistical).

I'm a big fan of Carter and Paglia, don't get me wrong, but I find most love of Sade to be faddish. The Surrealists had a good take on why Sade was important to them, but I don't share it. I'm a little more skeptical about Sade and Roger Shattuck's take on him is more where I'm at. I'll watch the movie, of course.

[MichaelB]

Talking of Surrealist filmmakers, Jan Svankmajer has drawn on de Sade several times - he's namechecked in the credits of Conspirators of Pleasure and his work was one of the major inspirations (along with Edgar Allen Poe) behind Lunacy.

[Barmy]

And then of course...

[jbeall]

and for those of you who can stomach two of the more pretentious and abstruse philosophers of the twentieth century, Adorno and Horkheimer have a long excursus on Sade in Dialectic of Enlightenment.

FWIW, I think their reading is wrong, just because these two "Marxist" philosophers haven't really bothered to read their Marx.

[denti alligator]

FWIW, I think their reading is wrong, just because these two "Marxist" philosophers haven't really bothered to read their Marx.

I consider this trolling. Anyone with me?

[tryavna]

FWIW, I think their reading is wrong, just because these two "Marxist" philosophers haven't really bothered to read their Marx.

I consider this trolling. Anyone with me?

I don't know about trolling, but it's certainly misinformed.

In fact, Adorno and Horkheimer knew their Marx quite well but were part of a much wider movement during the first half of the 20th century to reevaluate Marx and figure out what he got wrong. Others include Gramsci, Benjamin, Althusser, etc. In particular, Adorno, Horkheimer, and the rest of the Frankfurt School's major project was to align Marx with Freud -- a rather odd goal if you think about it. But that helps to explain why they'd find Sade an interesting person/phenomenon to write about.

[jbeall]

In fact, Adorno and Horkheimer knew their Marx quite well but were part of a much wider movement during the first half of the 20th century to reevaluate Marx and figure out what he got wrong. Others include Gramsci, Benjamin, Althusser, etc. In particular, Adorno, Horkheimer, and the rest of the Frankfurt School's major project was to align Marx with Freud -- a rather odd goal if you think about it. But that helps to explain why they'd find Sade an interesting person/phenomenon to write about.

And I stand by my claim that Adorno and Horkheimer were just wrong (quite often in that book, I might add). Adorno and Horkheimer argue that fascism is the end result of the dialectic of enlightenment, showing how, for example, Odysseus is a actually a 'modern' man, as is Sade. But that's not Marx! Marx was no vulgar materialist, and certainly he never said that progress was just some continuous process where the crossbow necessarily leads (as A and H claim) to the gas chamber.

Marx is one of the two liberals (Robespierre is the other) who has a theory of the counterrevolution; it's in his Class Struggles in France 1848-1850 and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Fascism is what happens when:
a) modern classes don't realize what they're up against and don't take the threat seriously enough, and
b) irrational, pre-modern elements seize political power as a reaction against modernity and the Enlightenment, and NOT the end result of the dialectic of Enlightenment. The problem lies in the fact that the irrational forces of fascism have the weapons of modernity at their disposal, even though modernity is precisely what they're rejecting.

Now, Marx wasn't right 100% of the time, and deserves to be and is being reevaluated. In particular, I like Gramsci, Althusser and Jameson's critiques/clarifications. But Adorno, and Horkheimer to a lesser degree, don't do so well with the historical stuff because they're elitist intellectuals of the academy. Is it trolling to call it like I see it? It would hardly be trolling to say that Adorno was completely wrong about jazz.

[Tribe]

Ah, now I see what Denti was warning us about.

Tribe

[denti alligator]

a) A&H weren't trying to re-hash Marx; they were doing something different (see tryavna's post)

b) No one said A&H were infallible

c) Taking (a) and (b) into consideration, it's still simply wrong to say that A&H didn't know their Marx. In fact, it's preposterous. They may not have spouted orthodox Marxism (thank god!), but that doesn't make their brand of Marxist-tinged social criticism a sign of watered-down or misunderstood Marx.

Ok, so I took the bait. But that's it! Now where's this re-issue. I'm psyched to try this film out again and see if a second viewing changes my luke-warm first reception.

[tryavna]

it's still simply wrong to say that A&H didn't know their Marx. In fact, it's preposterous. They may not have spouted orthodox Marxism (thank god!), but that doesn't make their brand of Marxist-tinged social criticism a sign of watered-down or misunderstood Marx.

Yes, this was my point. Just because one disagrees with the thread of Marxism that the Frankfurt School pursued doesn't mean that it's not Marxist. Dialectic of Enlightenment is one of the most influential Marxist texts of the 20th century, heavily influencing Jameson (among others) -- and Jameson himself hardly qualifies as an "orthodox" Marxist any more.

But Adorno, and Horkheimer to a lesser degree, don't do so well with the historical stuff because they're elitist intellectuals of the academy. Is it trolling to call it like I see it? It would hardly be trolling to say that Adorno was completely wrong about jazz.

I can appreciate this point of view. Adorno is one of those theorists/critics that one either likes or hates. (Often, it depends on which of his works you read first and whether or not you agree with the principles of "negative dialectics.") I happen to like him, despite his apparent elitism. And although I strongly disagree with his opinions on jazz, he wrote some of the finest, most insightful criticism on both Beethoven and Schoenberg. Not to mention his input into the Frankfurt School's study of the "authoritarian personality" -- perhaps the F.S.'s single most important contribution.

[porcupine2]

Other people to write interestingly about De Sade are Deleuze, whose main argument is in his essay Coldness and Cruelty, and Simone de Beauvoir, whose essay reprinted in the Arrow edition of 120 Days is substantial and v. interesting.

Page length: In that edition, which is actually an anthology of work, 120 days itself runs from page 183 to 679.

[denti alligator]

I was expecting the reissue of this much sooner. Since when has a release taken more than 6 months to appear after an official announcement?