Movie Review Salo

Last night I went to the Philoctetes Center to see a movie by the late Italian film director Pier Paolo Pasolini called Salo. I had been warned that this movie was hard to take, and that I might not be able to sit through the whole thing. But you know it is, sometimes you have to see something for yourself. I did however make sure that I didn't eat dinner before the movie! This is how the movie is described by the distributor, Criterion Collection:

"Pier Paolo Pasolini's notorious final film, Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . it's also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker's transposition of the Marquis de Sade's 18th-century opus of torture and degradation to 1944 Fascist Italy remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in." -Criterion Collection.

Well, I think that pretty much sums up this movie. I don't think I have seen a more disturbing film, in depicting how human beings can gleefully torture and degrade others for their own sadistic pleasure or amusement. It wasn't so much the nudity or the sex scenes, it was the look in the predators eyes as they survey the teenage boys and girls that have been rounded up by three middle-aged procuresses and taken to a bucolic villa in the countryside. For the most part, it is the four governors in this small town, who are of course male, that perpetrate the horrific scenes of violence and sexual perversity, while the middle-aged women for the most part remain passive. The close-ups on the faces of certain of the girls and boys, and the tear stains on their faces says more than graphic violence could ever say. And there is certainly plenty of that. There was one whole section of the movie that I couldn't even watch because I was afraid that I was just going to embarrass myself by retching in the aisles.

The movie ends with no hope that these adolescents are going to be saved. No Allied troops march in, and round up the men, setting them free. The last scene in the movie is of two young soldiers dancing to music in a room, while those girls and boys who have committed offenses are tortured and killed.

Sounds like a fun evening huh? After the movie was over, I was devastated. I couldn't stop shaking. It was at this moment that I really missed my friends, and I regret that I didn't invite them to join me. At least we could have been appalled together! What I needed at that moment after the film was over, was a big hug, some human contact to show me that not all humans are as venal as the ones in the film. I've never felt so alone in my life as I did after seeing this movie. Instead, what I got, was some elderly man on seeing how upset I was, announcing that "it was only a movie!"

Oh my effing God, are you effing kidding me? Duh, I know that it's a movie. But isn't the point of art to provoke a response in the viewer? To move them, enrage them, make them think? Seriously, are all heterosexual men missing a sensitivity chip? Instead of the milk of human kindness, I ended up dumped at the bus stop, like a small child who's parents had forgotten to pick him up at school. Just left there to deal with the emotional bruising that I just suffered. I thought about stopping off to have a drink, but that the last thing I wanted was to drink by myself. Sitting at the bar, crying silently, while my tears turn my reisling salty.

I went home, which was a good thing, because I barely made it through the front door before the bile that I had been attempting to keep down, made its way back up again. I tried to erase images of the film from my mind by watching The Real Housewives of Atlanta, thinking that conspicuous consumption, fake boobs, and even faker friendships would cheer me up. But instead I just lay in my bed after it was over for hours, thinking about how grateful I am that tonight I am going to see my posse and spend time with them. And how happy I am that I live in 21st century New York.

Even if men can be detached, and insensitive jackasses.

Hey Are You Looking at Me?

This weekend I went to a roundtable at the Philoctetes Center on "From Looking to Voyeurism." Given how disappointed I was about the Shakespeare roundtable, I was kind of nervous about this one, but I was pleasantly surprised. Dany Nobus, the moderator, kept the discussion going and it was quite lively. He started off reading a bit of Freud, which always gets my hackles up, given my feelings about the father of psychoanalysis, and then the discussion went off.

I was particularly struck however by a comment by one of the panelists that women do not like looking at naked men. Really? What women do you know? Perhaps it is a generational thing but I know that I and my friends have no qualms about admirining the male body. We may not be as vocal about it as men are, but we do just as much looking let me tell you. I remember being twelve years old and sneaking copies of Playgirl underneath my Seventeen magazine at the newsagent (I had no idea at the time that more gay men read Playgirl than heterosexual women!). Despite my being underage, I never had a problem buying it and my friends and I would pore over the pictures of the men in the magazine. Perhaps it was the fact that it was kind of forbidden that made it so exciting. Maybe that's why women aren't as vocal about our appreciation of the male form. There is still something forbidden about a woman admiring the male form unless it is the contexxt of an art class or in a painting or sculpture. My friends and I discussed yesterday the parts of the male nude body that we liked, particularly that arrow of hair that points directly to....Given the amount of money that Chippendales made and now Hunkmania, I can safely say that Dr. Nersessian has no idea what he is talking about!

And women do go to strip clubs. Perhaps not as often as men do. We certainly don't say to each other "Hey, instead of going to that movie/bar/lecture, let's go to a strip club" the men do, but we go. However it is more of an event, like a bachelorette party or a girl's night out, not an ordinary or average event. Again, it's that whole forbidden connotation. For a women to go to a male strip club, we are seeking a way to blow off steam, to be a little naughty away from our husbands or boyfriends. Which is probably why women are insane when they go to these places, screaming and ramming five dollar bills in their g-strings.

I was struck by what one of the panelists, Katherine Frank said, about how men in strip clubs use the women as sort of a confessional, telling them about how their wives/girlfriends/male friends don't understand them etc. It's like the modern equivalent of going to a priest, particularly if you are not religious or Catholic. Whereas the male strippers that I encountered the one time that I went to strip club, spent most of the time talking about themselves. They were totally not interested in us, which I thought was strange since the point was to entice us to buy a lap dance. Maybe it is because women are used to be listeners, and men aren't.

The thing I remember the most was when a group of us turned our chairs around to watch a lap dance, just out of curiousity, because we couldn't fathom how that worked with a guy performing one. When it got to the questions from the audience, Adam Ludwig brought up a point that I was thinking of, which was the opposite of voyeurism, exhibitionism. People who like to be watched, who get off having sex in public places because they know there is a possiblity that they might be seen or caught.

The same woman who brought up where to find men in New York at an earlier roundtable (a constant refrain of my friends and I), now wanted to know if men who went to stripclubs were inherently narcissistic, which was kind of strange because why would a narcissist go to a strip club? He might think that every stripper in the club would of course fall over themselves to give him a lap dance, but I don't think he sees himself reflected in these women.

So question, are there other women out there who enjoy looking at naked men or was Dr. Nersessian right?

Ode to the Bard

Last Friday, I went to a lecture on Shakespeare at the Philoctetes Center and I have to say that I was a tad disappointed. Maybe my expectations were too high, but I felt that the evening fell far short of what was promised in the handout. I have a great love and appreciation for the Bard of Avon. When I first decided to become an actress, my biggest dream was to one day perform Shakespeare with the Royal Shakespeare Company. That was before I realized that I would have to be British to accomplish that one.

We didn't really touch the Bard much when I was in college. So I made it my mission afterwards that if I was going to take acting classes in New York that I would focus on Shakespeare. I managed to find a mentor in Eric Hoffmann at The Riverside Shakespeare Company, and then to get to study in London at BADA and The Royal National Theatre Studio. One of my fondest memories is watching Mark Rylance play Henry V in the inaugural season of the Globe in London, standing in the pit. Shakespeare in Love is one of my favorite films and I even watched Michael Wood's 4 hour Searching for Shakespeare program. Now the bar was set a little high for me.

There certainly was a distinguished panel of experts, Robert Brustein, the former artistic director of Yale Rep and the American Repertory Theater was the moderator. Daniela Varon (who practically saved the evening) from Shakespeare & Company represented the director's eye, Alvin Epstein, who has had a distinguished career in the theater represented the actor's point of view (and said practically nothing all evening. At one point, I thought he had fallen asleep), Ron Rosenbaum who has written a book called The Shakespeare Wars, Eugene Mahon, a pyschoanalysis and playwright. But there was something missing. Perhaps it was the Bard himself. I would have liked to have seen perhaps some readings of the Sonnets or some of Shakespeare's monologues. It would have taken the discussion from the abstract into something more concrete.

Interesting points were brought up and then dropped. Robert Brustein mentioned the idea that Shakespeare was a mysognist and that was never really addressed. And other ideas were brought up and then just dismissed. One of the most interesting was who was Shakespeare? Was it the man from Stratford? Was it a committee of men as put forth by Delia Bacon? Was it Edmund de Vere, the Earl of Oxford? Brustein dismissed the idea out of hand because Ben Jonson said that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. J.P. Wearing spoke about Shakespeare as a working playwright, who not only had to work with a company of actors, and tailor parts to suit them, but he also had to write plays that pleased the audience. The fact that he managed to do so on so many levels is amazing.

For me, the 400 pound Gorilla in the room was the fact that no one even really mentioned Merchant of Venice. Critics and Scholars have been divided for 400 years about whether or not the play is anti-semitic or not. I would have liked to have seen the panel delve into that. One of my favorite episodes of John Barton's playing Shakespeare is the one in which Patrick Stewart and David Suchet talked about playing Shylock and how they approached the role, particularly David Suchet since he's Jewish (or his father is, I'm not sure if he was actually raised in the faith). Daniela Varon mentioned in terms of The Taming of the Shrew that audiences have to look at the play both from a 21st Century point of view but also to understand how modern Shakespeare was in the context of his time in writing this play.

I disagreed with Ron Rosenbaum that you can't find Shakespeare in his writings, and is his notion that what was the point since we don't know anything about Homer apart from his blindness yet we continue to read The Odyssey and The Iliad. I think that almost every writer, whether he does it consciously or unconsciously reveals something about himself in his writing. I know that I personally have used themes that I'm interested in, emotions that I've experienced, things that have happened to me, in my fiction writing, not just what I write here on the blog.

So while I was disappointed in the evening ultimately, I'm glad that I went, if only to hear Daniela Varon speak. I'm sorry that I missed the production of Robert Brustein's play about Shakespeare that she directed, because I'm intrigued now to see what she would do with Shakespeare on stage. I was also struck by a question that an audience member asked of the panel. He said that he hadn't quite gotten a clear picture of each person's Shakespeare and I thought that would be such a great campaign for The Public Theater, to have famous actors who have worked there to describe their Shakespeare.

Monday Manifesto

I mentioned on Saturday that I was attending at lecture at The Philoctetes Center called Mating in Captivity: Sexuality and Monogamy. Among the speakers were Michael Kimmel, a socialogist and author of Guyland, Pamela Paul, famous for writing the book about starter marriages, and Esther Perel whose new book Mating in Captivity inspired the lecture in a way. The actual title Mating in Captivity actually comes from a DH Lawrence poem where he asserts that domesticity is a cage. Questions were thrown out by the moderator, why does great sex fade? Why does intimacy not always lead to great sex?



One of the first comments by Pamela Paul was the fact that people today live longer, into their eighties and nineties. Whereas in previous centuries, women died off in childbirth, which meant that men could have two or three marriages, and women whose husbands died, married again for financial security, if the previous husband had no money. Since people are living longer, they are facing being in a marriage or relationship with someone for fifty or sixty years. Look at the Queen and Prince Philip, last year they celebrated sixty years of marriage, while three of their children have been married and divorced, and remarried. I'm sure Prince Philip never imagined that for sixty years, he was going to have to walk 3 paces behind his wife!



The panel discussed the fact that people marry for more than just great sex (or they should), that marriages change over time, and that people in happy marriages accept and expect that the relationship will change and grow, that there is an ebb and flow of desire and intimacy. Esther brought up the fact that for the first time in history, people expect their partner to be not just a provider, but a lover, and a best friend as well. Up until the 19th and 20th century, love was really at the bottom of the list in terms of attributes for a husband/wife. The more important questions were: was he a good provider, and was she going to be a good breeder?



Michael Kimmel mentioned that if there is equality in a relationship or some kind of equilibrium, the relationship is happier. Meaning that if men pull their weight, by helping out with parenting etc. there is less resentment from their partner, and more sex. Both Pamela Paul and Esther Perel brought up that you lose sight of your partner as an individual, seperate from the relationship, that is where the problems can come.



There was much discussion about the role of fantasy in relationships, and how some people are threatened by the idea. And how many people are afraid to admit their deepest desires to their partner, for fear that there partner might reject them, if for instance they want to indulge in a little bondage, or role-playing. Remember the episodes of Desperate Housewives, when Bree discovered that her husband was going to the neighborhood dominatrix?



Francis Levy brought up the idea of romance novels. At first I wasn't sure where he was going with the idea, particularly when he brought up the idea of being ravished, which is so 1980's bodice rippers, but then he mentioned a man wanting to be ravished and having his partner in control and I remembered the scene in Hope Tarr's new Blaze release Bound to Please, where the heroine has her way with the hero. I'm just glad that no one brought up that old chestnut about romance novels giving women unreal expectations of relationships and marriage, because I would have had to go all Wendy Williams on them and it would not have been pretty.



In the end there was no consensus about what the right answer was in terms of preserving a monogamous relationship. Esther Perel mentioned that one can never really know one's partner. That your partner was sort of on loan to you with an option to renew.



I didn't get to ask my question which was: Why is it that it is still the responsibility of the woman to do all the work in a relationship? Every month in women's magazines, there is a constant stream of articles of how to make a relationship thrive, and top 10 tips to wow a man in bed. You never see articles like that in men's magazines. It's either cars, money, with pictures of hot women thrown in the mix. No articles on how to find her G-spot, or how to deal with your wife who has post-partum depression. Even most self-help books about relationships are geared towards women. Everything from The Rules to advice books written by gay men.



But the saddest question was from a 70 year old physician who was wondering what to do, since there is a limited supply of older men given that they still die off sooner than we do? She wasn't interested in dating younger men, because of insecurity about her 70 year old body vs. his younger one. Than another woman got up and suggested that an alternative was having a relationship with another woman.



Seriously? These are our options? Giving up on men altogether and becoming a lesbian? Or just resigning yourself to being alone?


You know what I think of that?

No offense to anyone who opts for either of those choices, but I'm not ready to give up on the penis just yet!

I refuse to believe that there isn't man out there who can see just how fabulous I am. Someone who see me for exactly who I am and can still say, "Look at her, isn't she just amazing? And sure she can't clean for sh#%t, she sometimes takes things too personally, and she's a sarcastic bitch 80% of the time, but she can make an amazing spinach lasagna, give a kick ass back rub, she'd give the shirt off her back to a friend, and did I mention she's smoking hot?"

Can I get a hell yeah?

EKM