Salo | Through the Shattered Lens

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

103 years ago, on this date, Pier Paolo Pasolini was born in Italy. His controversial films and his mysterious death continue to inspire debate to this very day. Both the man and his works were full of intriguing contradictions. Pasolini was an atheist who made one of the best Biblical films ever made. He was a communist who made films that celebrated individual freedom and who had little use for the upper class liberals who made up much of the European counterculture of the 1960s. In the end, he was an artist unafraid to challenge all assumptions, whether they were found on the right or the left. His final film, Salo, was the most controversial of his career. It was also projected to be the first part of a trilogy, though those plans were ended by Pasolini’s murder.

It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Pier Paolo Pasolini Films

Accatone (1961, dir by Pier Paolo Pasolini, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)

The Gospel According To St. Matthew (1964, dir by Pier Paolo Pasolini, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)

The Hawks and The Sparrows (1966, dir by Pier Paolo Pasolini, DP: Mario Bernardo and Tonino Delli Colli)

Salo (1975, dir by Pier Paolo Pasolini, DP: Tonino Delli Colli)

I’ve been slacking off about getting this particular list down and posted, but with film news being quite slow outside of Oscar-related items I thought it was time to get my lazy ass to get this done. Some of the titles I’ll mention are favorite films of 2010 for me while others only made it onto the list not because I liked or even enjoyed them, but they were just well-executed and made.

A couple of the titles I’ve listed also made their premiere’s in their home country earlier than 2010, but it wasn’t until this past year that they were shown here in the U.S. thus it qualifies as a 2010 for me. For those who have seen the very final title on my list should know that this is one title that I definitely didn’t find entertaining at all, but found it to be as daring and as subversive as another film made decades before it which received similar negative reactions from many: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo.