It Worked!

In light of my dressing-down of anybody who might compare filmmaking chump Jared Hess to Pier Paolo Pasolini, Fox Searchlight has decided to shelve Gentlemen Broncos.

Or maybe it was a result of the disappointing opening weekend in NY/LA (come on, Searchlight--know your audience and premiere it in the Utah/Idaho/Oklahoma/Duh-ha-ha markets if you want a true read on how it rates).

Or maybe it was the fact that the movie just plain sucks and they are quietly admitting they have no idea what they are doing. Let us not forget the same 'studio' recently released Whip It like a fart in the wind and still seem to think they should sit at my dinner table.

Thoughts?

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Oh, no you didn't...

In his admonishing response to Manola Darghis' scathing review of the upcoming release Gentlemen Broncos, Richard Brody (of New Yorker magazine) went too far in his appraisal of director Jared Hess, no matter how good or bad that particular movie may be.

In light of the gratuitous bodily function jokes apparently present in Broncos, Brody claims the director that Jared Hess is most similar to--in all of film history--is none other than philosophical Italian provocateur Pier Paolo Pasolini.

Huh? Yeah. Peep this:

But then, she also thinks that Benjamin (Michael Angarano), the teen-ager at the film’s center—a science-fiction fantasist whose work is pilfered by a blocked, aging novelist and by a pair of local filmmakers—is a “rotten writer.” In fact, he’s the author of a new gospel, and Hess’s wondrously ingenuous filming of Benjamin’s visions are both as sublime and as crudely carnal as scripture itself. The grotesque bodily functions, human, animal, and alien, that the movie depicts unflinchingly—as well as the “unpleasant, unattractive characters” Dargis says the film is filled with—are the point. It’s easy to present the beautiful people and the scrubbed world as divine creations; Hess’s vision sacralizes what other filmmakers don’t. The director he’s closest to in this regard is Pier Paolo Pasolini (and Pasolini, too, had an extraordinary sense of the naïve, the repellent, and the ridiculous).

Now, I don't know how many of you are familiar with Pasolini's work, but it is nothing like Napolean Dynamite, Nacho Libre, or Gentlemen Broncos. Nothing. Unless you find semi-amusing fart jokes and frightening, ritualistic depravity to prove a philosophical point one and the same.

Comparing Jared Hess to Pier Paolo Pasolini simply because they both made movies about outcasts living on the fringes of society is like comparing Scorsese to Taxi director James Burrows because they both made projects involving taxi drivers. There is nothing funny about Pasolini's depravity; there is nothing insightful about Hess' fart jokes.


Here is a quick recap of Jared Hess' life and works:

He is a 30 year-old heterosexual Mormon who studied film at Brigham Young University, is married to his college sweetheart, Jerusha Hess, has one child, lives in Salt Lake City, and has co-written and directed three feature-length oddball-comedies with his wife, one of which (Napolean Dynamite) became a cult hit.


Now, here is a quick recap of Pier Paolo Pasolini's life:

He studied literature and philosophy in college, was drafted into WWII, escaped from a Nazi prison to join his mother as a teacher of children in remote villages, was persecuted by the state due to his homosexuality and candor, became an accomplished poet, journalist, novelist, playwright, photographer, filmmaker, linguist, and political activist, troublesomely preached that a shift to communism was the only way to save Italy, had most of his films censored at one time or another due to their stark exploration of the depressing lives people led in the suburbs of Rome and their focus on sexual themes, and was brutally murdered by being repeatedly run over by his own car on a beach near Rome, not long before the premiere of what Time Out recently dubbed "The Most Controversial Film of All Time," Salo, his magnificent and horrifying adaptation of the the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom, in which he calls out fascism for being not unlike sadomasochism.

Okay, so...a sheltered and ignorant Mormon (a Mormon, for Christ's sake!) out for cheap laughs by exploring the fictional lives of losers living on the fringes of society in Middle America is supposed to be comparable to a notoriously revolutionary, oft-censored, communist homosexual Italian poet/filmmaker who unflinchingly documented the darker side of humanity in his starkly realistic explorations of the depths of the mind and its potential for depravity? An artist whom intellectuals still revere 34 years after his death?

Ich don't think so, Richard Brody...

The confused Richard Brody

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Repeat Offender

I watched Pier Paolo Pasolini's infamous Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom again, with a curious friend, and enjoyed it much more the second time around. It is pretty efficient storytelling, really working the audience's eyes, ears, and minds--especially for those who don't speak fluent Italian. I no longer wish it had a more-informative set-up; it has just the right amount, and Pasolini's unwillingness to pander to its audience is impressive.

Not that I was bothered by it the first time around, but I did notice that I was less distracted by the disgusting visuals this time around. Having already seen them, I concentrated instead on the philosophy behind the acts, and found the movie much more interesting as a result.

All this aside, I wonder how long it will take for me to go to the bathroom and not think of how disgusting it is that there are people out there who would want to eat/drink what I produce in there, as well as how disgusting it must taste. I think those thoughts will take a while to shake, although I hope I'm wrong.

One thing is for sure, after watching that movie, most other things that people find offensive, disgusting, or cruel seem quite tame; everything's relative.

120 Days of Sodom

Okay. So I finally watched Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo, or 120 Days of Sodom, an uber-controversial 1975 film adapted from the Marquis de Sade's equally controversial 18th-century book, The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Licentiousness.

How controversial was Salo when it came out? Well, 20 days before the movie was to premiere at the Paris Film Festival, Pasolini was repeatedly run over--with his own automobile--on a beach outside Rome. A 17-year-old hustler confessed to the crime, then recanted 30 years later, saying the safety of his family had been threatened unless he did as he was told.

Although most countries eventually allowed the film to screen--after rating it X and/or cutting footage--Salo is still banned in Australia.

Gotta love the Criterion Collection for putting this out there; it was the 17th film they chose to release (this is the second issue--much improved from the first, I hear, and full of extras).

As in the book--which remained unpublished for 150 years--most of the action in the movie involved homosexuality and shit eating, which is pretty unfortunate when you consider there were nine beautiful young girls (virgins, of course) they could have been having their way with instead. But hey, when it's my 120-day orgy, I guess I can start making the rules...

Overall, I enjoyed the experience--probably more than most people would, since my sensibilities have been continually worn down to nothing over the last...30 years...of action movies, horror movies, porn, Ultimate Fighting Championship, and my own perversely inventive imagination--but it is not without its problems.


From an ideological standpoint, I respect the movie. The transposition from pre-revolution France to the waning days of Fascist Italy definitely adds an interesting political dynamic to a story already rife with social commentary and philosophy generations ahead of Freud, Nietzsche, and the Surrealists. Through his depiction of the victims in the film, Pasolini seems to be saying that the public will always be forced to endure whatever they will tolerate--and that we should feel no sympathy for those people, as they chose their fate by allowing it to happen--is certainly heartless, but not exactly untrue, either. Methinks the scrolls of history seem to agree...

Additionally, the structure of the story is admirable--it ends in the middle of things, leaving the audience wondering how long the cruelties will continue, leaving the fate of the participants unknown, leaving us hanging, making us feel less like an audience watching a story unfold and more like voyeurs watching a sickening reality, and wondering if we should tell somebody about it or just keep watching and see how bad things get.

Will we do anything? Do we ever do anything? Oh, every few hundred years or so, when things get really bad...wait--are we at that point again? Shall we storm the Bastille like old times?

My main complaint about Salo is that I would have liked a little more set-up in the beginning. Who are these guys? Why are they doing this? Why exactly did others lend a hand in capturing beautiful young boys and girls for them? Even something as simple as showing some money change hands would have been enough for me... I think the movie's comment on Fascist Italy, the class system, and consumerism would be much more powerful if the audience were given a little more information at the outset, a little something to chew on while the perversions unfold.

All in all, I would say it is most important that this movie is watched as a work of art, as a philosophical treatise, as a political statement, and not as entertainment. It is not a popcorn movie; it is not a clever, cool art film that makes you want to move to Europe; nor is it pornography, for that matter, if you were so inclined, as the nudity is frequent, but decidedly un-erotic.

So if you've got a head on your shoulders and a stomach for filth, pop it in your VCR and see what you think...