The Most Controversial Movie Ever Made Got Its Director Murdered

Pier Paolo Pasolini is the mind behind the most controversial movie ever made: Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom. He is far from being one of my favorite directors, but there are few I respect more than him. Here is an artist with the courage to relentlessly stand up to corruption. An artist with ironclad beliefs, principles and values that he would die for, and he did. Admiration.

Resources used in the making of this video:

Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom.

Music used in this video:
I) "Shapes of Shadows" - Franz Gordon
II) "Togetherless" - Franz Gordon
III) "Feeding Pigeons" - Magnus Ludvigsson
IV) "Maybe in Spain" - Franz Gordon
V) "Painted Memories" - Franz Gordon
VI) "Raincoat Waltz" - Franz Gordon
VII) "Eyes Forever Closed" - Kikorou

Chapters:
The Death of Pasolini - 0:00
The Man Behind The Camera - 4:07
Whodunnit? - 8:39
The Truth According To Salo - 15:14
Come and See and Learn - 22:00

[sizzis]

There are actually a number of theories surrounding the murder of Pier Paolo Pasolini and the real motives behind it, here in Italy. I think a more plausible one has to do with "Petrolio", a novel which Pasolini was in the middle of writing at the time, and which was never completed due to his death, in addition to having many pages of the original manuscript reported missing. The novel was intended to deal with the theme of Italy's major petroleum company, ENI, at the time shaken by various mysterious events (to name one: the then-president of the company, Enrico Mattei, dying in an airplane incident which lots of people now believe to have been an assassination), and probably he started poking into matters that bothered someone.

[WishAAAProductions]

Casting Willem Dafoe as him was just perfection

[duetforherbivores]

Another film that has its director killed was the box-office hit, The Gentle Art of Japanese Extortion. The director Juzo Itami was held at gunpoint and made to fake a s*icide letter and then to jump to his death because he had embarrassed the Yakuza in his film. It was years until the murderers confessed, though very few people believed Itami ended his life because of an alleged affair, which already aroused a lot of suspicion. I'd like to see an analysis of that movie knowing what we know now.

[SavedAndConfused]

Personally i always thought the point of Salo was to turn it off. No joke, i think by the end the film argues that by sitting back and passively witnessing the events we are participating in the heinous acts

[BJones-ywdd]

This video finally explains for me the (yes, extremely) disturbing "art" film I watched with friends in college back around 1982. Certain scenes still haunt me to this day, though I'd forgotten the title long ago. Then this video came up on my YT feed and it struck a chord. Indeed it is the never-forgotten, freakish film I saw long ago; but now I finally have some societal/historic context for it. Thank you for making and sharing this video.

[juliocesarpereira]

Another film director assassinated was Theo van Gogh from the Neatherlands. He directed 'Submission: Part 1', a short-film written and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali writer and politican which criticised the treatment of women in Islam. Ayaan Hirsi Ali went into hiding and today lives in the United States at a secret location.

[michaeledwards]

can you imagine making a film like saló and then everyone thinks you tried to rape a teenager for the next 30 years but you are dead so you can’t defend yourself

[AAZEDLARC]

OK, I'm not kidding. My late friend, costume designer Theadora Van Runkle (Bonnie & Clyde, The Godfather 2, etc.) worked on a film with Pasolini and they got to be great friends (this was in the mid-seventies.) When she returned home to Los Angeles, she wrote him a few letters, but he didn't respond - she was sort of hurt but film sets can be like that. It wasn't until years later that she found out he'd been killed :( I don't know if she ever talked about it with anyone else ://

[Takeshi]

Me, seeing the title: "This is going to be about Salo, isn't it?

Video: *Rome*

Me: "Yup, it's Salo."

[techtoth]

Pasolini wrote about and denounced the corruption of uncontrolled industrial society; the terrible danger of making education a joke, creating a sheep population. The horror of corruption amongst every layer of society. All the disasters in industrial life he foresaw, came to be. We all owe heroes like him a great debt, for trying to open up our eyes, and fight big economic powers and their inhuman greed that kills bodies and souls without the slightest hesitation. Consumerism unfortunately has won, and we can see that in front of our eyes every single day. Thanks, Pier Paolo, for your courage, for your life. Thanks for the video. Always be very aware of the lies servant state powers throw at you.

[enricogori]

As an Italian Pasolini connoisseur, I highly congratulate you on your analysis. Most videos treat the movie as an extreme horror movie in the likes of Cannibal Holocaust, A Serbian Film, Martyrs, I am the Devil...you name it. No: it's worse than any and all of them. It's purposedly horrible due to all you explained in the video about Pasolini's pessimistic view of capitalist industrial society. It should be noted that, albeit a Communist, he didn't like the Eastern Bloc any better (though he did often go to 1960s-1970s Romania for rejuvenating therapies). Indeed he harbored a passionate hatred for fascists, and for that he was indeed constantly harassed by the Italian Social Movement militants (the ISM (MSI) was a neofascist party founded by former fascists. Its adherents carried out the infamous 1969, 1974, 1980 terrorist bombings). When Pasolini was murdered, as Pino Pelosi recounted in his book, which sadly never gained much popularity here, though interesting books were written afterwards (the best being 'Pasolini. Massacro di un poeta'). Even sadder, Pelosi passed away in 2017 aged 59. Most people were indeed convinced that then 17 years old Pelosi had indeed murdered Pasolini in self-defense, since the poet, writer, director was an avowed homosexual who was known to accompany himself with male prostitutes (bear in mind that Pasolini arrived in the outskirts of Rome in 1950, and the city's peripheric areas were slums no different than those in Third World countries until the 1980s). Nobody ever considered the fact that it was downright impossible for skinny, diminutive, 17 years old Pelosi to overpower 53 years old, 185 cm tall, muscular, excellent swimmer and semiprofessional football player Pasolini. But those were the 'Lead Years' (lead as in Pb, the letal chemical element used in b*llets), a contradictory period where Italy was in great development, but political tensions were very high, and saw the activity of left wing terrorists and right wing carnages, not to mention the international situation (Greece, Chile, Argentina, Vietnam).

Thanks for this video!

[kierank]

Every filmmaker is in Pasolini's shadow. He made the ultimate mic drop final film which artistically but devastatingly summed up his sincere beliefs. When Salo was summited to our censor in England our scissor-happy censor was moved by it and tried to release it but the police seized the film. Pasolini even made censors want to break rules by arguing that his genius was an exception to any censor rules. Bravo for making your video.

[hattorihanzo]

I was in Bologna last summer. I was not aware Pasolini was from Bologna. I saw banners about a Pasolini in a square. The power of WiFi allowed me to discover I was a few minutes walk to his childhood home.

[mateusgreenwood]

No matter what Saló makes you feel, you should realize much worse things happened in real life and in every country.

[curtisdaniel]

I saw this upon a recommendation from a friend. His only explanation was, " you need to watch this." I did, but it took me few days to get through it. Too much in one sitting. This was in the days before the internet and trying to find some background on th film was not easy. Your video essay is very good, and gives me the necessary details about the film and its creator. Even if it brought back some sad and disturbing memories, I would like to say thanks.

[zadehgenerous]

This was an absolutely excellent video essay. This popped up in my feed on my lunch break and it had me thinking " what was the video that had me sub to this channel?" ... and then I got lost in the content. So good.

[giovanna]

I haven't seen the movie but, of course, have known about it for decades. The recent findings in the Long Island serial killer case, which reveal the rich and powerful and their sordid connection to the deaths of prostitutes recently led me to think of Salo, and look it up. I assume that's why I got this channel in my feed. Excellent, well narrated essay on a great man. Thank you!

[GreenshirtMr]

I once told an Italian girl at a party that I admired Pasolini's work and she side eyed me and said "oh, you know about Pasolini"

[trelard]

Bit of background: I was born in the UK in the late 1970's and was of an age where the "Video Nasties" scare imprinted certain defiant principles when I was a child. Namely, tell me I can't see or hear something, I'm going to use a phrase with the acronym F.O.. The first time I watched Salo, it was a circus of depravity that left me feeling sick. I rewatched it a few decades later and was able to discern and separate from the visuals presented. What I found is this: Unchained power is a recipe for delusional power. Victimhood is offered by the powerful towards the weak as a means of survival, even if that survival can be measured in minutes. The truly powerful are those who refuse the whims of the 'powerful', even at the risk of death. It's a common truth throughout history, and nothing scares the 'powerful' more. They MUST have total subservience. They will NEVER have it.

[tumblebugspace]

Wow. Thank you for this documentary, young man! From a Gen X-er who’s never heard of this director before. ☮️❤️🐾