Abstract
In his study "A Revaluation of Pasolini's Salò" A. Robert Lauer argues that in his last film, Salò o Le centoventi giornate di Sodoma, Pasolini deals specifically with Fascism as substance and system, as well as -- structurally and intentionally -- with the Sadeanism of Les 120 Journées de Sodome. Morever, as a self-consuming artifact, in Salò Pasolini condemns simultaneously the excesses and failures of the postmodern state and advances the concept of a new peratology based on a greater sense of personal and historical responsibility. To demonstrate his points, Lauer refers to four cinematographic techniques that Pasolini uses in this film, all of which serve to enclose the characters in ever more confining spaces. This claustrophobic effect connects the viewer with the final enclosure of the Socialist Republic of Salò and with Sade's concept of the solitaire. The viewer is likewise engulfed in the final cinematic angle, which reverses the perspective of the gazer and its victim, making one into a kinophiliac of sorts, no different indeed from the notables of the film Salò.
Recommended Citation
Lauer, A. Robert.
"A Revaluation of Pasolini's Salò."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
4.1
(2002):
<https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.1141>
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