I mentioned last night that one of the simplest ways to make a first date painful is to make a horrible movie choice. If you’re going to invite someone over to watch a movie on a first date, you’re bold. If you choose to mark the occasion by viewing something tasteless, like Salò, you are guaranteed to have an awkward evening.
For those of you who have not been inducted into the Salò fanclub yet (which is non-existent, but I’d be happy to start one if there’s enough interest), or who have not seen the film, allow me to explain. In 1975 the famed Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini created one of the most unnerving, controversial films of the 20th century. It’s based on the novel The 120 Days Of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade. In short, it follows four men of power who kidnap about twenty young men and women, and then torture and humiliate them over a span of 120 days. It’s pretty fucked up. You can read about the movie on Wikipedia as well as the book, which is actually way more insane than the movie. Alas, this blog post is not about the movie, but it’s score, which was — shockingly — composed by Ennio Morricone. Some people argue that none of Morricone’s score actually appears in the movie, but since I can’t tell the difference between solo piano pieces written by Morricone and pre-existing ones, I can’t say what is true. IMDB says he composed the “jazzy soundtrack,” and that he said he was “very uncomfortable watching the movie.” Duh.
So, to this point, there is no offical soundtrack for Salò. One or two tracks composed by Morricone have appeared on Italian soundtrack compilations for Pasolini films. The closest I found to the full score was what I’m about to share with you. It’s actually the entire movie, cut into about 20 parts, in MP3 form. When I first heard the title screen MP3 I was excited that I had found the full score, but then I heard dialog and I realized that it was the full movie. Oh well. This is not nearly as cool as having the entire movie of The Big Lebowski in MP3 (which I also have, and will share if you’re interested — let me know), but I guess it’s kind of cool. It’s definitely making me practice my Italian more. For a while I was pretty good at it. Then Marika stopped tutoring me. Then I graduated. Now I live in LA and hear Spanish all the time. So long, countless hours spent learning Italian!
Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma
Original Motion Picture Score
MegaUpload DL Link
