Subversive Theatre I: A Review of The Devils and Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom
Welcome to the first installment of Subversive Theatre, a column that will explore the most censored, reviled, or just plain revolutionary films ever made. Not all the films will necessarily be works by underground filmmakers, however, as the two movies being reviewed in this piece show.
The Devils was filmed by famed director Ken Russell, stars Oliver Reed and Vanessa Redgrave, with distribution by Warner Bros. Hardly an indie film, but that hasn’t kept it from being heavily censored, banned and nearly forgotten. Warner Bros, for instance, has long been promising to release an uncut version on DVD, but still hasn’t. This is in contrast to the treatment Salo has received, having recently been released in a deluxe two-disc set.
The discrepancy likely has to do with subject matter. The Devils is a damning indictment against Christianity whereas Salo condemns, of all things, Italian fascism. Not that Salo hasn’t faced plenty of censorship since it was first released in 1976: it has been banned in numerous countries, and its director, Pier Paolo Pasolini, was murdered (whether because of the film or not is a matter of debate).
It would be a shame if Salo was the reason for Pasolini’s death because, while it’s a fairly good film, it’s not really worth killing anyone over.
Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom tells the story of Italian fascists who kidnap young men and women and then physically and sexually brutalize them for amusement. Supposedly, parallels are drawn between fascism and capitalism, but if so it’s a bit too subtle for me. What is shown is the way that any amount of power can lead to abuse of it, that those who seek power over others should never have power. The filmmaker also skillfully makes the viewer complicit through the use of sexual imagery and fetishistic eroticism at the beginning, only to lead up to coprophagia and the torture and murder of half the cast by the other half. Ostensibly based on the Marquis de Sade novel mentioned in the subtitle of the film, Salo was criticized upon release as being little more than an exercise in cruelty and aberrant sexuality, much as de Sade’s writing originally was. History has been kinder to the film, though, and it’s now regarded by critics as a masterpiece of cinematography. However, the major problem with the film still lingers: there’s a question of whether the principle actors and actresses were of age when the movie was made. Furthermore, by setting the action in Italy during the fascist dictatorship, the brutality is that much more difficult to view. A film about the Holocaust that revels in scenes of sexual violence would certainly be controversial, to say the least. Salo is too close to that for some viewers.
The Devils also takes as its setting one of the worst periods of mass murder in history, in this case the Inquisitions. Oliver Reed plays the part of Urbain Grandier, a priest who loves to fuck. I mean he really, really loves to fuck. Unbelievably, while this gets him into a little bit of hot water, it isn’t his ultimate downfall. No, a nun falls jealously in love with him and decides to accuse him of witchcraft. Of course, if he hadn’t decided to shack up with another nun, Sister Jeanne probably wouldn’t have taken revenge on him. And, of course, impregnating a relative of another priest didn’t win him any friends either. Nor does his refusal to allow a baron to tear down the city’s walls. In the end, both religious and political forces conspire against him in order to seize his property and burn him at the stake, even after the nuns, supposedly possessed by the devil, are demonstrated by the king himself to be faking. Its portrayal of corrupt clergy would have been enough to get the film banned in certain countries, but add to that the depiction of nuns engaged in a frenzied orgy with each other and a statue of Christ and it becomes easy to see why an uncut version of this film has yet to be released.
Of the two films, I found The Devils to be the more powerful, though both films offer very timely and timeless messages, warning against the abuse of power. What is so striking about The Devils is the parallels with our own times, the way that the religious right continues to carry on the proud tradition that led to things like the Inquisition, motivated more by greed and personal vendettas than by any sense of religious obligation.
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