THe Fassy indeed becomes almost unwatchable, even while you have to see the rest of the narrative remaining! In a sense Fassy lets you off the hook and "shows" the rest of his tale in some "acceptable" form.
Fassbinder's strategy with this scene is particularly pointed (or sadistic) for international audiences, since the accompanying dialogue contains so much important exposition - and so you have to watch the screen to read the subtitles.
Re. Salo - I've looked at the features on the disc, but probably won't feel the need to watch the film again for some considerable time. It's a film I dislike but respect. I feel that Pasolini goes downhill drastically with the Trilogy of Life (though The Arabian Nights is a very interesting film), but his is a body of work that never loses its fascination for me, however uneven its individual manifestations might be. Thus Salo and its role in that body of work is unignorable, even if it's a film that for me is much more rewarding to ponder than to watch.
The biggest shock for me with the glimpses of the new transfer on the Criterion disc is how much my previous response to the film was tuned into the shockingly awful quality of the print (probably that notorious British one MichaelB refers to), which gave it the patina of an unpleasant found object visibly corroding and disintegrating under the awful weight of its own images. The pristine, pretty shots of the restoration are a world away from my prior subjective experience of the film, and I'm not sure how I should go about re-losing my virginity.
I remember a scene where one of the 4 men claims that because of their beliefs they are the true anarchists. Could that explain the absence of any truly liberating anarchy in the movie? They have co-opted and consumed even that?
OK, I now have all three recent releases of Salò physically to hand (Criterion, BFI SD, BFI Blu-ray), so here's a hopefully definitive account of their similarities, differences and other issues. Note that a few things have changed since the BFI's original press release went out, such as the addition of the Walking With Pasolini documentary and, sadly, the Blu-ray being locked to a contractually-enforced Region B. In fact, all discs are locked to their respective regions.
The BFI Blu-ray and DVD editions are essentially identical - the only difference being that the main feature and the Coil extra are in high definition on the Blu-ray. (The second disc of the Blu-ray edition is the same SD-DVD that forms disc two of the SD edition). So when I refer to "both editions", I mean the BFI and the Criterion, not either one of the BFIs.
Transfer Quality: Unsurprisingly, the BFI Blu-ray is the winner for sheer volume of picture information - I toggled between it and the Criterion, and the Blu-ray disc resolved appreciably more detail. That said, the Blu-ray also reveals noticeably more picture grain - those who've been protesting the use of DNR on other HD transfers will have nothing to complain about here!
As for a straight comparison between the Criterion and BFI SD, it's swings and roundabouts: both are excellent. The colours of the Criterion are a tad warmer, while the BFI picture is slightly sharper (probably a side-effect of the higher PAL resolution), and it also has a tiny bit more picture information all around the frame - presumably the advantage of being sourced straight from the original negative (Criterion's came from a 35mm interpositive). That said, none of this is significant, and both pictures are framed at 1.85:1 and anamorphically enhanced. The condition of the prints is generally very good if not quite pristine (both were digitally cleaned), and both transfers are light years ahead of their predecessors.
The most significant difference between the transfers is that the BFI edition includes the short scene in which a poem is read by the Duke after the "wedding". Since this footage no longer appears in the original negative, it had to be interpolated from a 35mm release print, so there's a marked change in contrast (there's a technical note in the booklet explaining this) - but it was either that or not feature the scene at all.
The sound is fine across the board - original mono in all cases, and there's nothing to choose between the transfers. The subtitles are by different hands, but ring true in both cases. Both editions have an English (or, more literally, American)-language option, though the BFI disc is the only one that features the original English titles if you select it.
Extras: Both the Criterion and BFI editions feature the (surprisingly explicit) original trailer (albeit in different languages: the Criterion features the English dub and onscreen titles, while the BFI opts for the original Italian - the BFI has also sourced a markedly better print) and Mark Kermode's Film Four documentary Fade To Black. But it should be noted that there's considerable overlap between the other documentaries, which draw heavily on Gideon Bachmann's 16mm behind-the-scenes footage.
Criterion disc exclusives consist of two documentaries and two interviews. Salò Yesterday and Today intercuts interviews with Pasolini, filmmaker Jean-Claude Biette and Pasolini's long-term muse Ninetto Davoli. The End of Salò is a 40-minute documentary about the film's production in general and the ending in particular - this covers a lot of similar ground to the BFI's Open Your Eyes!, but adds some fascinating material that's unique to the Criterion disc, including speculation on some alternative artistic choices that Pasolini nearly made. Finally, there are interviews with Salò's production designer Dante Ferretti (12 mins) and director Jean-Pierre Gorin (26 mins), the latter making a strong case for Salò as a major masterpiece.
The BFI exclusives start with Open Your Eyes! (21 mins), an assembly of Bachmann's footage presented with subtitles but no other contextual information. The transfer quality is appreciably higher here than elsewhere - it seems that the BFI had direct access to first-generation materials. Walking With Pasolini (21 mins) is an analysis of Salò as both film and cultural phenomenon by Neil Bartlett, David Forgacs and Noam Chomsky, and also includes archive BBC footage of Pasolini and the BBFC's James Ferman. Running nearly an hour, Philo Bregstein's Whoever Says The Truth Shall Die is substantial enough in its own right to get a separate US DVD release (on Facets) - it's a look at Pasolini's career and reputation, including several samples of his poetry, and pays particular attention both to the circumstances of his murder and the various conspiracy theories that it engendered. The two other video extras both take their name from the suburb of Rome where Pasolini was killed - Ostia (25 mins) is a short dramatisation of Pasolini's last days, starring Derek Jarman (director Julian Cole also contributes an optional commentary), while Ostia - The Death of Pasolini (6 mins) is a recent visualisation of the Coil song that was originally featured on the 1987 album 'Horse Rotorvator'.
Booklets: Criterion's has 82 pages, the BFI's 46. Both booklets feature Gideon Bachmann's detailed on-set diary (originally printed in Sight & Sound, Winter 1975-76). Each booklet also features cast and credits, acknowledgements, notes on the transfer, and numerous stills (many in colour).
Exclusive to the Criterion are analytical essays by Catherine Breillat, Neil Bartlett, Naomi Greene, Sam Rohdie, Roberto Chiesi and Gary Indiana, offering six different perspectives on the film.
Exclusive to the BFI are an introductory essay by Sam Rohdie (a different piece to the one in the Criterion booklet), Gilbert Adair's original 1979 Monthly Film Bulletin review, a substantial section on the film's censorship in the UK, including the onscreen text of the prologue and epilogue that accompanied the so-called "club cut", and a lengthy (six page) letter from the BBFC's James Ferman to the Director of Public Prosecutions setting out the case for the film's defence. The lyrics to Coil's 'Ostia - The Death of Pasolini' are accompanied by a reminiscence by their co-author Peter Christopherson. And finally, there's a Pasolini biography by Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, taken from the Oxford History of World Cinema.
Conclusion: So which is better? It really depends on what you're after - the Criterion has more close analysis of the actual film, but the BFI covers a wider contextual range, with more material on the rest of Pasolini's career and the political ramifications of his murder, plus of course the two Derek Jarman/Coil pieces and a lot of material on its UK censorship history - and of course the main feature is presented in a slightly longer cut.
So I'd say the BFI is ahead on points - but it's ultimately very much a matter of taste. Either way, these are fine editions, and clearly definitive on their respective sides of the Atlantic.
Thanks Michael for the comparison! Perhaps you should re-post it in the BFI "Salo" thread as well?
Good to hear that both editions are great in any case. The slightly colder colours of the BFI seem appropriate for the film...
Many thanks for your insightful comparisons, MichaelB! It seems it is best to go with the Blu-Ray if you are in region B land. Better picture and the poem. I wonder if Criterion does a Blu-Ray version of their own if it will top it? Or if they will add the poem as a standalone extra like they have put up on their website.
I am getting so antsy with so many great classic Blu-Rays coming out soon in other regions! Would love it if Criterion stepped up its production...
I was in a B&M store today checking out the Criterion section, and I finally had a chance to look over the packaging for this reissue. I found it oddly amusing that the special edition sticker on this release says "explicit content" rather than "special edition." Is Tipper Gore working on Criterion's design team these days? What gives?
Tom Hagen wrote:I was in a B&M store today checking out the Criterion section, and I finally had a chance to look over the packaging for this reissue. I found it oddly amusing that the special edition sticker on this release says "explicit content" rather than "special edition." Is Tipper Gore working on Criterion's design team these days? What gives?
I think Criterion has done this before with releases like Sweet Movie, WR, and maybe Maitresse?
Anyway, from a marketing standpoint, it might not be a bad idea. Having worked in a video store, I can attest that foreign films with an 18+ sticker slapped on them always rented far more frequently. Putting one of those stickers on Fat Girl did wonders ...
karltmc wrote:Anyway, from a marketing standpoint, it might not be a bad idea. Having worked in a video store, I can attest that foreign films with an 18+ sticker slapped on them always rented far more frequently. Putting one of those stickers on Fat Girl did wonders ...
Or explicitly billing Belle de Jour as a soft-porn film on a 1992 theatrical reissue in London.
The film broke the house record at both its venues, so it obviously worked - purists might shudder at the poster, but it didn't exactly put them off going to see a long-unavailable masterpiece, and it clearly enticed plenty of other people.
I always read interpretations about the Circle of Shit section being about consumerism, and some even suggest that's the main theme of the film. That's a common interpretation that seems to pop up in every other review/discussion of the film.
So my question is: where does this notion come from? Is it based on something Pasolini explicitly stated? Suggested? Noted from early reviews? Modern essays?
It seems to be common consensus, but I admit I didn't really get that out of it, even looking for it for having read about that symbolism prior, so I'd like to know where this interpretation derives from and why it has assumed such a popular way of looking at the film?
there was a documentary a few years called...mmm, the death of passolini, maybe? would have been interesting as an extra on this set unless it's already been released?
JK wrote:So my question is: where does this notion come from? Is it based on something Pasolini explicitly stated? Suggested? Noted from early reviews? Modern essays?
It's something Pasolini specifically stated.
More specifically, he said it was (I don't, specifically, recall the specifics here) a commentary on processed foods.
I don't fully understand the reasoning myself (and/or refuse to believe such a crude & simplistic analogy was intended by someone as complex as Pasolini)
Tonally, the "Circle of S___" sequence has always struck me as the 'odd one out' in Salo. The other scenes manage to pace themselves just right to stay consistantly horrific, but the excrement eating, after one genuinely disturbing scene, just continues and continues, moving well into the realm of pure surrealism.
As for the processed food, I don't know specifically what the situation was in Italy at that time, but I do recall reading in an article on the use of offal in haute cuisine, that in Italy it's long been regarded, somewhat affectionately, as 'peasant food' (something comparable to, say, potatoes in Ireland) Offal being almost a part of the Italian culinary culture.
As for myself, I lean towards interpreting the Circle of S___ as representing an assault on a specific type of dignity. The early scenes of rape & sexual coercion representing an assault on the victims' morality, the latter scenes representing a very literal physical assault on what makes them physically human. The intermediary scenes represent a sort of dignity harder to find words for, not quite the same as moral structure and physical structure but still a very fundamental 'structure' of some kind.
skeets kelly wrote:there was a documentary a few years called...mmm, the death of passolini, maybe? would have been interesting as an extra on this set unless it's already been released?
The most in-depth documentary about Pasolini's death that I'm aware of is Philo Bregstein's Whoever Says The Truth Shall Die - which is an extra on the BFI release of Salò.
It's also been released separately in the US by Facets (here's Glenn Erickson's DVD Savant review) - which probably explains why Criterion didn't include it.
JK wrote:So my question is: where does this notion come from? Is it based on something Pasolini explicitly stated? Suggested? Noted from early reviews? Modern essays?
It's something Pasolini specifically stated.
More specifically, he said it was (I don't, specifically, recall the specifics here) a commentary on processed foods.
As for the processed food, I don't know specifically what the situation was in Italy at that time, but I do recall reading in an article on the use of offal in haute cuisine, that in Italy it's long been regarded, somewhat affectionately, as 'peasant food' (something comparable to, say, potatoes in Ireland) Offal being almost a part of the Italian culinary culture.
Do you happen to know exactly what he stated?
I had to look up offal on Wikipedia, because I'd never heard of it. I do find this rather interesting:
Wikipedia wrote:Depending on the cultural context, offal may be considered as waste material that is thrown away, or as delicacies that command a high price.
skeets kelly wrote:there was a documentary a few years called...mmm, the death of passolini, maybe? would have been interesting as an extra on this set unless it's already been released?
The most in-depth documentary about Pasolini's death that I'm aware of is Philo Bregstein's Whoever Says The Truth Shall Die - which is an extra on the BFI release of Salò.
It's also been released separately in the US by Facets (here's Glenn Erickson's DVD Savant review) - which probably explains why Criterion didn't include it.
nope. i think the one i'm thinking about is called "who killed pasolini?" from 1995. here's the imdb listing: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114096/
although...it's been years since i've seen it and i swear it was more of a straight-up documentary. the other one that facets released...doesn't seem long enough.
That's definitely not a documentary: it's more like a (dare I say it?) JFK-style docudrama about Pasolini's killing and its aftermath, directed by Marco Tullio Giordana, who later made the 6-hour epic The Best of Youth.
MichaelB wrote:Ah - what threw me was you describing it as a documentary, but it's actually a 100-minute dramatic feature.
Which presumably explains why it's not a DVD extra.
I indeed wondered why this never showed up on any of the Pasolini discs.... I also always thought it was a documentary but never bothered to investigate any further. Is it worth seeing, then? A feature on Pasolini sounds definitely intriguing, but then I've never heard anything good about "JFK"...
MichaelB wrote:Ah - what threw me was you describing it as a documentary, but it's actually a 100-minute dramatic feature.
Which presumably explains why it's not a DVD extra.
I indeed wondered why this never showed up on any of the Pasolini discs.... I also always thought it was a documentary but never bothered to investigate any further. Is it worth seeing, then? A feature on Pasolini sounds definitely intriguing, but then I've never heard anything good about "JFK"...
Well unfortunately, for all the videos from the Critic on YouTube, they don't have the JFK "director's cut" parody that's just Costner going "Back... and to the left" for a minute straight.
For anyone interested, here is John Waters' take on Salo, originally published in the Guilty Pleasures section of Film Comment, August '83. The following is from a revised version printed in Crackpot:
Salo (1975). Pasolini's last film before his rather legendary, if not Hollywood Babylon-y, death. Salo is a film people wouldn't expect me to feel guilty about liking. After all, it features shit eating, eyeball gouging, scalping, and female impersonations - subjects I've used in my own films and enjoyed in others: in short, the staples of modern entertainment. But I think Salo is anything but exploitation. Gulp, here's that word again, rearing its ugly head---ART.
Salo is a beautiful film with a very moral message: There is such a thing as being too powerful or too kinky, and it can produce nothing but despair. Italian youth (many with pimples-Pasolini's favorite) are kidnapped, tortured, humiliated, sexually abused, and finally murdered by a group of Fascists. It's a harrowing film that features the most incredibly handsome sets and some of the best sound effects in screen history, especially the unnerving roar of bomber planes in the distance accentuating the horror taking place in the isolated villa. The villains in the film are even scarier than the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
The ending of Salo actually made me misty-eyed, something that almost never happens unless its from laughing. After all the victims and torturers are dead from rape, suicide, or murder, two Fascist guards are left to themselves. Looking somehow still innocent, but terminally bored, one asks the other to dance, and the film ends with the bewildered soldiers optimistically dancing in a clumsy fox-trot. The Catholic Church ought to make Pasolini's birthday a Holy Day of Obligation.
davidhare wrote:Your comments on Wolf Creek are interesting _ I haven't seen it but in the wake of older Oz exploitation like the Brian Trenchard-Smith shockers (like Turkey Shoot, which is hilarious in its own way) I doubted there was any space for subtlety in OZ-genre films.
And getting back to Salo, surely Shock Records will lodge an appeal with the Review Board? This film has become such a litmus test for the anti-intellectualism of Oz Public Life.
Have you written a letter, yet, telling the OFLC what you think of their decision? (Politely)
That's actually something I'd recommend to any Australian. It was a close vote of 7 to 6, and these censorship boards tend to base their decisions on a surprisingly small number of complaints. Maybe we can even start a petition?
I was serious about that "write to the OFLC" thing, that applies, to some extent, to any Australian interested in film. But, especially to David, who I seem to recall prattling on extensively about wanting to 'warn the world' about were it's heading, etc.*
Anyway, my point is, (and sorry to bring up an old thread, I only just became interested in the 'unbanning' of Salo again) I'll see if I can find the relevent contact details, etc. and post them here later today (if nobody else posts them first )
I've singled out David, specifically, to at least be counted on to write a letter, since, on this forum, he has so far limited himself to expressing his views by either telling people things they already agree with, or insulting the things most sacred to anyone who disagrees with him, neither of which are actually going to accomplish anything. But, if David wants to tear himself away from that for a minute, and actually make some small change to the world... this would be an opportunity to jump at.
*you know, I only just realised how much his rants make him sound like a member of the infamous Westboro Baptist 'church' Opposite views, but exactly the same mentality
)