Pasolini’s “Salò” comes to Criterion blu-ray
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1976 legendary art-house shocker Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma) is getting the high definition treatment courtesy of the Criterion Collection set to be released October 4th, 2011. The film follows the degradation, torture and rape of 18 kidnapped teenagers over the span of four months at the hands of a group of wealthy libertines in 1944 fascist Italy. Salò has been called “nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic” but it has also been called a “masterpiece”. Sadly it was Pasolini’s last film as he was murdered just before its opening.
DISK DETAILS:
- 1.85:1 widescreen
- High-definition digital restoration (with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- “Salò”: Yesterday and Today, a thirty-three-minute documentary featuring interviews with director Pier Paolo Pasolini, actor-filmmaker Jean-Claude Biette, and Pasolini friend Nineto Davoli
- Fade to Black, a twenty-three-minute documentary featuring directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Catherine Breillat, and John Maybury, as well as scholar David Forgacs
- The End of “Salò”, a forty-minute documentary about the film’s production
- Video interviews with set designer Dante Ferretti and director and film scholar Jean-Pierre Gorin
- Optional English-dubbed soundtrack
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring essays by Neil Bartlett, Breillat, Naomi Greene, Sam Rohdie, Roberto Chiesi, and Gary Indiana, and excerpts from Gideon Bachmann’s on-set diary
- Italian language
- English subtitles
- 116 minutes
