The Most Controversial Movie Ever Made Got Its Director Murdered

Rome November 1st 1975 Pierre Paulo Pelini one of Italy's most celebrated and undoubtedly its most controversial filmmaker is having dinner at a restaurant with a group of friends according to one of the friends Pelini talked of violence and how it had been devastating the city of Rome despite that the directors seemed to be in good spirits having just completed filming on his latest work Solo or the 120 days of Sodom it would later earn the reputation for being one of the most grotesquely violent and depraved films ever made and as we'll see for good reason Pelini left his friends that night at around 10:30 p.m. they'd never see him again his body was discovered the following morning on the deserted beaches of osta just outside Rome the autopsy report concluded that he'd been bludgeoned repeatedly by a blunt object had been run over multiple times by a car and was set on fire later that night a 17-year-old boy named Peno poosi was arrested for speeding and driving without a license in a silver Alpha Romeo registered to pasolini Pelosi was charged with the director's murder he claimed that Pelini picked him up from Rome's rail station at around 11 p.m. that night then they drove to the site of the crime when pasini made violent sexual advances toward the youth Pelosi killed him in self-defense he would plead guilty and be incarcerated for the crime however many doubts still existed Pelosi's physical figure was considered too delicate to pose a real threat to Pelini who supposedly was very strong and proficient in martial arts there also weren't any marks on Pelosi that would indicate a physical encounter took place between the two nor was there any blood on his clothes and most damning of all official forensic examination concluded that Pelini was the victim of an attack carried out by more than one person yet for decades the case was considered closed that was until 2005 when Pelosi publicly retracted his admission of guilt he claimed that Pelini was in fact murdered by a group of five members of a neo-fascist party and he'd only accepted culpability for the crime because they threatened the lives of his family and friends the men had pummeled Pelini to death while calling him a dirty communist as well as other derogatory slurs the case into pelini's murder was reopened by Italian police in the same interview Pelosi calls upon pelini's close friend and frequent collaborator Sergio chiti to come forward with information he had about the murder chati claimed he had night witness source that verified Pelosi's retelling of the event events and claimed further that pelini's murder was part of a political conspiracy one directly related to his final film solo Pierre Paulo pelini's assassins and the true motive for his murder have remained an enduring and enigmatic mystery as well as a topic of much speculation several decades prior to Chi's unveiling of new evidence a notable journalist wrote of the director's death quote pasolini was assassinated by Society in a Savage Act of self-defense a society which could not bear his Defiance his undisguised equation of commitment and life the hatred Unleashed against him was expressed in the staging of the crime a public execution at High Noon so that everyone might see and learn four key questions immediately spring to mind who really was Pier Paulo Pelini who killed him and why what aspect ects of society he defy to deserve death what did his assassins want people to learn through his death Pelini is primarily known as a filmmaker outside of his native Italy the truth is he was an iconoclastic artist whose sprawling work cannot be bound by a single label his first artistic achievement came in 1942 at the age of 20 on his own dime he published a book of poems in the fuan dialect spoken in the rural region of Italy where he was raised many literary critics at the time found Merit in young pelini's poetry yet were forbidden from writing positive reviews Italy's fascist government did not want literature written in any dialect to be promoted so began a lifelong career-defining conflict between Pan's love for authentic traditional culture and the state's effort to homogenize the nation Pelini began to write proficiently upon moving to the slums of Rome he was a novelist a poet critic journalist and screenwriter who even worked with the likes of Federico felini Pelini was 39 years old when he completed his first film aaton in Italy while he remains a polarizing figure pelini's enduring Legacy is that of a highly transgressive and influential public intellectual whose ideas provoked the political establishment and earned him much respect but also a lifetime of State Cent ship public harassment and even landed him in prison for blasphemy one constant throughout most of pel's work was his championing of Italy's lower classes he felt a profound connection with the disenchanted and the downtrodden he felt they possessed greater cultural integrity and expressed a Humane Purity that did not exist in the middle and ruling classes in other words they were the ones who truly comprised authentic Italian culture and values it was their faces and stories he felt compelled to show and tell and through his early films he depicted what he saw as their imminent destruction in quite a fatalistic way this built upon themes from his literary work when asked in an interview while he made the leap into film making Pelini answered I decided to go into film making that is to say another language so that I could abandon the Italian language in a sort of protest against Italy and my Society a kind of rejection of my Italian nationality from the outside looking in Pelini appears to be a man of many contradictions he was an ideological Marxist whose ideas and films were scorned by the Italian Communist Party he was an atheist who was imprisoned for blaspheming the Catholic church yet went on to make the film The Gospel According to St Matthew a film The Vatican includes on their exclusive list of the best religious films ever made and one the Vatican is heralded as the best depiction of Jesus Christ ever put to film and he was an Italian who cherished his traditional culture yet rejected his nationality what exactly did Pelini find so objectionable about his own society that he go as far as to reject his own Heritage and how did his objections to Italian Society inform his later films particularly solo the Italy Pelini rejected was one he no longer recognized following the end of the second World War and the fall of fascism Italy's economic model rapidly transformed from Mostly agricultural to highly industrial and with the emergence of intrusive Industries came the eradication of traditional culture in the form of mass consumerism this shift was so profound and fundamental that he could no longer identify with the nation he called home Pelini went as far as to label this consumerism as cultural genocide saying that genocide is this adaptation to the power of Italian consumerism this power is violently tearing away at ancient ways of life at the age-old values that are really at the source of Italian culture as a whole it is imposing its own models and values and destroying in the process a way of life Pelini boldly declared the effects of consumerism on the Italian people to be even more Insidious than that of fascism stating that consumerism quote has not only scratched the soul of the Italian people but has lacerated raped and be smirched it forever that brings us to pelini's scandalous magnumopus Solo or the 120 days of Sodom it's only possible to speak of Solo in hyperbolic terms in terms of its actual content it very easily is one of the most disturbing shocking and Vile films ever made although it does have artistic and critical merits and is key to understanding the philosophy and death of Pelini I truly do not recommend watching it unless you absolutely know what you're in for and are sure you can handle it even then proceed with caution if you're unfamiliar with solo here's the basic gist the film was adapted from the novel The 120 days of Sodom from the infamous Marquee dad from whose name the word sadism is derived four obscenely wealthy and Powerful Libertines along with four equally depraved prostitutes and their state-funded accomplices select 18 victims young boys young girls and sequester themselves in a large estate where their Limitless sexual deviancy can run rampant without any imped from the outside world there are several tweaks P lady makes from The Source material besides the claim that the film is supposedly and somehow more tame than the novel P Le switches the location in time from an isolated Chateau in the Black Forest during the 18th century to the final days of World War II in the Republic of Salo the capital of the fascist Italian regime during the German occupation in an interview just prior to his death Pelini has asked about how he views salo's place in his filmography he replied it's the first time I'm making a film about the modern world the first time he depicted the consumer's hellscape he saw Italy become for some pelini's death did not come as a surprise his endless provocations made him a persistent nuisance for those with a loose grasp on power but as long as he made movies about the workingclass struggles and adaptations of classic literature he was tolerable Sergio chiti called his friend's death convenient convenient to all those who were afraid of his mind and free spirit he certainly would not have been the only Italian political distant of that turbulent time to die under mysterious circumstances there is speculation that Pelini had in his possession evidence that would directly expose the corruption and possibly even criminal actions of certain heads of state evidence he planned to publish in an unfinished book the question however Remains the Same who killed Pelini the case is still technically open as to who actually killed him and as to who ordered it how however in recent years the mystery has begun to clear up and the facts May one day soon rise to the surface if they haven't already it could be that with the production of his first film about the modern world Pelini signed his own death warrant in 2005 chiti revealed some new details regarding the incident that incited his friend's death several months before the incident at AA a production office storing the reels of film containing solo had been broken into spools of film containing about 1/3 of solo were stolen if not recovered copies of the original film would have to be used resulting in a lesser quality desperate to get the film back Pelini arranged a meeting with the thieves on the night of his death we know the rest ch's testimony of the true events of that night led to a reopened inquiry into the murder case however the case would be shut closed again in October of 2005 on the very same day that chiti himself died at this point it's worth asking yourself do you believe in coincidences in the years that followed the case has been endlessly examined with new leads being discovered as recently as March of 20123 notably in 2010 pini's family requested forensic analysis on the close worn by the director and Pelosi Pelosi was Vindicated the analysis found DNA tra races from multiple individuals none of them being from Pelosi the Italian police however were unable to find any conclusive matches from the DNA samples thus the new probe came to an end but with it came a refreshed interest in the life and work of Pelini this interest manifested in a biographical film set on the artist's final day directed by Abel Ferrara and starring William defo as Pelini Ferrara focuses solely on the character of Pelini and his relationships avoiding any speculation into the conspiratorial nature of his death when the film was in production Ferrara asked David greo a close friend of Pelini to pen the script greo declined yet evidently felt compelled to set his own notion of the events to film a couple of years later he made his own film about pelini's death entitled lak or in English the ploy Greco's film follows pelini's demise from the thread of Solo's theft still consumed with uncovering the truth behind his friend's death many years later greo has spearheaded yet another push for the Italian police to reopen the case in 2023 specifically to reexamine the DNA samples retrieved in 2010 the fresh initiative came as the result of an online petition that garnered thousands of signatures as well as a new piece of compelling testimony in December of 2022 a former member of a notorious Roman gang gave a statement to an Italian parliamentary anti-mafia commission the criminal in question marcizio abatino confirmed that pelini's murder was connected to the theft of solo the director had gone to AA to recover the film bringing along Pino Pelosi who was acquainted with the criminals to act as a sort of mediator the commission also pointed out that Pelosi specifically spoke about the stolen film to magistrates all the way back in 2005 and also confirmed his role to them as mediator the commission's report concluded with the acknowledgement that the case may never be truly solved but emphasized that attempting to get to the truth was vital for the history books unfortunately for now the truth behind pelini's death lacks real certainty we are still left with two principal questions what aspects of society did Pelini defy to deserve death and what did his assass lons want people to learn through his death for any hope of concrete answers we should look back to solo if solo is truly his depiction of the modern world suffice it to say it's a pretty Grim diagnosis reading between the reals of solo it becomes clear that Pelini weaved several analogies within the torture and brutality we'll start with the most apparent of them the connection Pelini draws between power and violence the four Libertines are never identified by name only by position the president the Duke the magistrate and the bishop they're not meant to be characters in the traditional sense but rather symbols of the state's supreme power the heads of its institutions with that power comes the privilege to bypass all manner of Law and Morality In fact within the state The Libertines create their own nefarious laws and anyone who breaks them gets their name written in an ominous black book a rain check for the most vicious violence that's doled out in the film's climax another subtle distinction Pelini makes from The Source material is that unlike The Libertines in the novel who are portrayed as vigorous Uber MCH The Libertines in the film are weak and impotent requiring a steady stream of filthy stories and scenarios to become aroused over time they built up a tolerance of the regular mode of deviancy and were forced to continually up the ante in order to return to a baseline much like an addict with their drug of choice in essence what Pelini seems to be saying is that the powerful have an incredibly tenuous grasp of power over themselves and their basis urges and therefore quell their inner feelings of weakness by exerting force and violence on their perceived lessers especially the non-conformists many viewers who are brave enough to watch Salo through to the end are often left wondering what the point of the Carnage was and if there even was one according to Pelini dad Sato masochism has a clear and specific purpose the effect of what power does to the human body the reduction of the human body to a commodity the cancellation of another person's personality this is a core characteristic of the Italian consumerism Pelini railed so fervently against the degradation of people into products Pelini portrays this trend literally and solo presenting the Youth of Italy as the ones being sold out turned into merchandise manipulated and defiled by the powerful and just as evil as The Libertines exploiting the youth are the common folk who captured and sold them off in the first place these mothers fathers societal Elders benefit from and are culpable and complicit in perpetuating the consumer system and any one of them who object are swiftly dispatched the mother of one of the captured girls drowned in a river while trying to save her daughter and for the rest of the film The Libertines treated as a sort of running gag far gone were the days where community and Purity were valued now Italy's future was reduced to nothing but corporeal Capital with its invented laws imposed norms and Draconian rule life in Solo becomes a representation of Italian society as Pelini saw it the literal excrements consumed equ equalent to mass-produced fast food the sorted stories told each day representative of mindless television programming numbing creativity the routinized torture extinguishing individual flourishing for Pelini the effect of consumerism on society was to homogenize culture into a bland uniform state of being where there are no individuals but a collective of consumers all served up the same excrement it scorches the Earth from which authenticity grows it institutes new vapid values that indoctrinate the youth and spread virulently throughout Society from the top down and solo nearly all the fruits of pelini's beloved traditional culture storytelling music dance clothing paintings and food are subverted by The Libertines to satisfy their disgusting desires not only our hopes for genuine cultural advancements snuffed out completely but the gems of the past are irreversibly defiled on the last day of his life pasolini stated the Saints the Hermits The intellectuals the ones who shaped history are the people who said no this refusal should not be small or sensible but large and total until the very end Pelini exercised his intellectual responsibility to say no perhaps then the aspect of society Pelini defied to deserve death was simply the authority of its leaders and their insist on propping up consumerist values he defied them by being a contentious insistent and highly influential thorn in their side by constantly critiquing by refusing to fall in line refusing complacency and encouraging free thought and open dialogue and like the unfortunate ones in the film who bent the rules the punishment was death there is one scene in Solo where Pelini ominously foreshadows the fate of societal dissident such as himself through a string of betrayals it is revealed to The Libertines that Etso one of the guards is having an affair with a servant a capital crime at solo when they discover his infraction Etso doesn't cow toow and beg for forgiveness he says no Standing Tall his fist firmly raised in Defiance for defying the figures of authority Etso is killed eto's refusal doesn't shape history in the film his bravery seems to Shake The Libertines momentarily but is completely forgotten about soon after being dispatched the results of his resistance seemed to run contrary to pelini's quote although he maintains his personal dignity eto's refusal is the very opposite of large in total he doesn't Inspire any kind of rebellion within solo and peline is depiction of the modern world the power of The Libertines is too great and too oppressive it is is absolute power let's briefly return to the journalist's quote from earlier the hatred Unleashed against him was expressed in the staging of the crime a public execution at High Noon so that everyone might see and learn there is one final question to answer what did pelini's assassins want everyone else to see and learn just as Pelini sought to create a shocking and gruesome spectacle of the depravity of consum numorous power and of the modern world so too did his assassin seek to create a shocking and gruesome image of the consequences of standing in the way of the status quo pasolini did not seek out a solution to the consumerist conundrum in Solo the film's climax is decidedly Bleak at the end of the 120 days The liberians Round Up all the victims who disobeyed their invented laws the dissidence and subjected them to the crul torture imaginable for killing them in the final scene two of the young guards unfazed by the horror around them play smooth jazz and make small talk while dancing with each other just prior to that they're seen joking with The Libertines and reving in the inhumanity of the situation this suggests that Conformity is the only path to survival in pel's modern world there can be no doubt that he'd shudder in horror if he could see the world we live in ultimately was the Italian artist sacrifice for not was he like Etso the guard whose dignifi duty to say no ended in a whimper and a thud the answer is a resounding no pelini's Defiance still reverberates many decades later and will continue to do so he's an artist whose influence is large enough to the point of being unquantifiable the work he left behind has a boundless reach and continues to inspire to this day like many great artists who die young the brevity of his life immortalizes his work one of his most famous and poignant quotes was this it is only at the point of death that our life to that point ambiguous undecipherable suspended acquires a meaning the meaning we can derive from pelini's life is to always remain true to our values and principles even under persecution even under threat of death to cultivate our own sense of authenticity to vly reject the aspects of society we find detestable and weed out the social complacency that fertilizes and enables it and lastly although ironically for pan will likely always be remembered for his ugliest film to remain driven by your ideal of Beauty for Pelini was found in the Italian Countryside in Renaissance paintings in the poems of of his native dialect in the pure faces of Italy's simple folk in their struggles pursuing your perception of beauty is Paramount for in the words of dooi beauty will save the world

Channel: Renegade Films

Views: 1,427,453

Keywords: salo, salo or the 120 days of sodom, pier paolo pasolini, pasolini, 120 days of sodom

Id: XzVIs3vkVsE

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2023