Julie

One example of this type of moral implication is SWEPT AWAY, another controversial Italian masterpiece — and a film that my wife reminded me about yesterday. (Both SWEPT AWAY and SALO were released in the mid 1970s.) In SWEPT AWAY, a rough working-class Sicilian deckhand clashes with a bourgeois Milanese family on a yacht in the Mediterranean. One woman in the family is particularly condescending to the Sicilian and the audience hates her. After the Sicilian and the woman find themselves stranded on a deserted island, the man starts to get back at Milanese by taking advantage of the fact that he is physically stronger than her and more capable of surviving in the wild. But things get out of control, and his behavior quickly turns cruel and repulsive. He starts abusing her and many critics have described the film as a great work of misogynism. In that film, the audience is morally implicated because the connection between the reprehensible conduct on the part of the Sicilian and the questions being asked of the audience (e.g., why, at first, were we enjoying the man using his physical power to control the woman?) is direct and tight. The audience is implicated because we feel complicit.

I agree that Pasolini is trying to engage the audience — both by suggesting something awful about human nature and by asking the viewers questions. And undoubtedly there’s reprehensible conduct being portrayed on the screen. But I think his attempt at “moral implication” — if this was indeed an aim of his — fails because the reprehensible conduct is too extreme, too far afield. The more extreme the reprehensible conduct portrayed in the film, the harder it is to draw a straight line between the audience and the characters.

When I watch SALO, I have two primary reactions. The first is that the film is disgusting. The second is that it’s a great work of art. But the actions carried out on the screen are so disgusting that I don’t get the feeling of complicity that I think is necessary for moral implication.

Two subjects I didn’t touch are: the arc of McDaniel’s career; and, separately, the political implications of the Mamie character in GWTW. In terms of McDaniel’s career, you have to think she would have been an amazing leading lady if there had been parts written for her (and, more to the point, movies greenlit with parts written for her) that went beyond servant characters. In terms of the character in GWTW, I think Mamie is a fascinating and interesting character who is portrayed more fully and honestly than one might have expected in the 1930s. On the other hand, thinking about the black characters in the movie should raise some dicey issues, and it’s certainly the case that the movie shows us a great many black characters without showing ANY that do not remain Southern loyalists.

Recently read Didion’s ‘Year of Magical Thinking’, which was excellent. I hadn’t read her in awhile and I find her writing so fresh, even with very heavy subject matter.

I am now reading ‘Black Sun: The Brief Transit and Violent Eclipse of Harry Crosby’ by Geoffrey Wolff (brother of Tobias Wolff). I think you’d like it if you haven’t read it yet. I also started Stein’s ‘Autobiography of Alice Toklas’, but haven’t read far.