A fascist dictator slicing off the tongue of a disobedient teen, a couple aroused by the sight of a car crash and the classic line “He’s not the messiah; he’s a very naughty boy” are just three of the scenes brought together today in a list of the 10 most controversial films of all time.
Despite the eclecticism of the shortlist, it is the brutal depiction of torture, necrophilia, ritual abuse and amputation that wins the day in Time Out’s film guide, 1,000 Films To Change Your Life, to be published later this week.
Top of the list came Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom, which draws on the Marquis de Sade’s novel to depict the final dark days of Italian fascism as four officials inflict revolting sexual, physical and psychological violence on nine kidnapped teenagers. The film caused outrage throughout the world when it was released in 1975, and has proved a hot potato for film certification boards.
In Britain, the first cinema to screen an uncut version of the film in 1977 was raided by police. A heavily cut version was shown until six years ago, when the British Board of Film Classification agreed to reclassify the movie, acknowledging its capacity to vividly illustrate the idea that “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
Salò was directed by the notorious Italian poet, novelist, painter and film-maker Pier Paolo Pasolini, who was murdered before it was released.
Other films on the list include Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ and David Cronenberg’s Crash, which was banned in 1996 by several local authorities in Britain. The oldest film on the list is Birth of a Nation, directed by DW Griffith in 1915. Griffith, who said he was not racist, used the movie to present viciously racist portrayals of black Americans. The film has recently been used by far-right groups in America as a recruiting sergeant for the Ku Klux Klan.
But it is a Briton who stands out most in a list of death, horror, sexual perversion and violence. The only director on the list to ignite controversy with comedy, Terry Jones, is granted ninth place for his 1979 movie Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Christian groups deemed as blasphemous the satire about the reluctant saviour whose mother insists: “He’s not the messiah; he’s a very naughty boy.”
Most controversial
1 Salò (1975) Pier Paolo Pasolini
2 Natural Born Killers (1994) Oliver Stone
3 Crash (1996) David Cronenberg
4 The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Martin Scorsese
5 The Devils (1971) Ken Russell
6 Pretty Baby (1977) Louis Malle
7 Birth of a Nation (1915) DW Griffith
8 Straw Dogs (1971) Sam Peckinpah
9 Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) Terry Jones
10 Bandit Queen (1994) Shekhar Kapur
