Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious film is now 50 years old, and its cavalcade of shocking cruelty and violence still leaves a stark impact on its viewers. Film-makers explain why Pasolini ‘was a saint to us’

Abel Ferrara was there at the beginning. In his new memoir, Scene, the cult director describes his experience at the American premiere of Salò, the hugely controversial final film from Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. At the beginning of the film – at which Ferrara and company arrived with wine and cheese, given its length – there were 15 people in the audience. Once the credits rolled, there were eight. “I was standing with like six people,” Ferrara says now. “And you know, two or three of those people I still see.”

When it comes to Salò, it seems that you never forget your first time. The film, which has reached its 50th anniversary in 2025, is known for its seemingly endless cavalcade of cruelty and violence, leaves a stark impact on those who come across it. “We had high expectations, but it went beyond that,” Ferrara says. “He had just died, so he was a saint to us.” But not everyone so readily embraces the film on first viewing. Film-maker Catherine Breillat says that at first, she didn’t like Salò, “regretted seeing it, [and] sort of wished that [I] hadn’t”. For Breillat, “you have to be ready to see Salò. Its like Arthur’s Round Table; it will come to you when you’re ready. There’s a moment where you can sit down with the knights of the Round Table, after following a dangerous path, and you don’t disappear into the abyss.”