Notes on Saló

Another recently discovered translation from Serge Daney's first book, La Rampe.

Notes on Saló

Hyperion, On the Future of Aesthetics, Vol XI, No 1, Summer 2018. Translation by  Rainer J. Hanshe. [link to website / link to pdf file].

It is not because Saló is the last film of Pasolini that you are forced to see it as a “testament” (or a letter bomb, to open only with precaution: “No one indeed, it seems, can recover,” said Roland Barthes about this film). It is much easier to see the reconstruction of what could be, in a comparable context (Italian fascism) and a similar setting (Saló), the final attempt of masters in perdition to enjoy their power. 

First published in Cahiers du Cinéma, No 268-269, July-August 1976. Reprinted in La Rampe, cahier critique 1972-1982, Cahiers du cinéma – Gallimard, 1983. The illustration is from the original edition of La Rampe. The caption reads: "A left arm in Saló by P. P. Pasolini"