Did Any Actors Prepare For Nine Days With Character Rituals?

Growing up around stacks of scandalous novels and dusty philosophy tomes, I always thought '120 Days of Sade' was less a simple story and more a concentrated acid test of ideas. On one level it’s a product of the libertine tradition—an extreme push against moral and religious constraints that were choking Europe. Marquis de Sade was steeped in Enlightenment debates; he took the era’s fascination with liberty and reason and twisted them into a perverse experiment about what absolute freedom might look like when detached from empathy or law. Beyond the philosophical provocation, the work is shaped by personal and historical context. De Sade’s life—prison stints, scandals, and witnessing aristocratic decay—feeds into the novel’s obsession with power hierarchies and moral hypocrisy. The elaborate cataloging of torments reads like a satire of bureaucratic order: cruelty is presented with the coolness of an administrator logging entries, which makes the social critique sting harder. Reading it left me unsettled but curious; it’s the kind of book that forces you to confront why we have restraints and what happens when they’re removed, and I still find that terrifyingly fascinating.

If you're hoping for a compact roadmap through who’s named 'The 120 Days of Sodom' as an influence, I can give you a little guided tour from my bookshelf and brain. Georges Bataille is a must-mention: he didn't treat Sade as mere shock value but as a crucible for thinking about transgression and the limits of experience. Roland Barthes also dug into Sade—his essay 'Sade, Fourier, Loyola' probes what Sade's work does to language and meaning. Michel Foucault repeatedly used Sade as a touchstone when mapping the relationship of sexuality, power, and discourse; his discussions helped rehabilitate Sade in modern intellectual history. Gilles Deleuze contrasted Sade and masochism in his writings on desire and structure, using Sade to think through cruelty and sovereignty. On the creative side, Jean Genet admired the novel's radicalness and Pasolini famously turned its logic into the film 'Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom'. Henry Miller and William S. Burroughs are two twentieth-century writers who wore Sade's influence on their sleeves, drawing on his transgressive frankness for their own boundary-pushing prose. Each of these figures treated Sade differently—some as philosopher, some as antiseptic mirror, some as provocation—and that variety is what keeps the dialogue with 'The 120 Days of Sodom' so alive for me.

A tiny film like 'Slow Days, Fast Company' sneaks up on you with a smile. I got hooked because it trusts the audience to notice the small stuff: the way a character fiddles with a lighter, the long pause after a joke that doesn’t land, the soundtrack bleeding into moments instead of slapping a mood on. That patient pacing feels like someone handing you a slice of life and asking you to sit with it. The dialogue is casual but precise, so the characters begin to feel like roommates you’ve seen grow over months rather than protagonists in a two-hour plot sprint. Part of the cult appeal is its imperfections. It looks homemade in the best way possible—handheld camerawork, a few continuity quirks, actors who sometimes trip over a line and make it more human. That DIY charm made it easy for communities to claim it: midnight screenings, basement viewing parties, quoting odd little lines in group chats. The soundtrack—small, dusty indie songs and a couple of buried classics—became its own social glue; I can still hear one piano loop and be transported back to that exact frame. For me, it became a comfort film, the sort I’d return to on bad days because it doesn’t demand big emotions, it lets you live inside them. It inspired other indie creators and quietly shifted how people talked about pacing and mood. When I think about why it stuck, it’s this gentle confidence: it didn’t try to be everything at once, and that refusal to shout made room for a loyal, noisy little fandom. I still smile when a line pops into my head.

Fixing a minor snag early in a story is like oiling a rusty hinge — the whole door moves smoother afterward. I tend to notice how that proverb, 'a stitch in time saves nine', sneaks into novels as both a plot mechanic and a pacing tool. Small choices by characters or tiny incidents planted early often ripple outward: a thrown-away lie becomes a scandal, a half-healed injury worsens into a crisis, or a moment of empathy later saves someone’s life. Those tiny stitches are actually authorial investments in cause-and-effect. In my reading, authors use those early repairs to set stakes and keep the reader tethered. Think of the way an offhand comment in 'Pride and Prejudice' reframes a character’s behavior later, or how an overlooked wound in a gritty mystery blossoms into the central clue. It’s also a technique for believable escalation: instead of sudden, inexplicable catastrophe, consequences grow out of earlier decisions. I love dissecting books this way because it feels like uncovering the seams — and catching a fraying thread early usually means the whole story holds together more satisfyingly.

Flipping through panels, I keep spotting little acts that are basically tiny stitches — a character says the right thing at the right time, patches up an argument, or makes a small sacrifice — and suddenly ten problems never have to exist. In 'Fullmetal Alchemist' the Elric brothers' early hubris about trying to fix what was broken without patience becomes the opposite of that proverb: skipping the small, careful stitch leads to a cascade of losses. Conversely, in 'My Hero Academia' moments where mentors step in early to train or redirect students often stop future catastrophes before they escalate. I love how this plays out emotionally, too. In 'March Comes in Like a Lion' supportive characters hand Rei tiny lifelines — a phone call, an invitation to dinner — that steady him and prevent deeper isolation. Even goofy titles like 'Kaguya-sama: Love is War' riff on it comically: one small confession or honest moment would spare the characters a mountain of comedic machinations. Those little preventative moves are a storytelling shorthand for cause and effect, and when a manga handles them well, it feels deeply satisfying to watch the dominoes not fall. It reminds me that in fiction and life, small, timely fixes matter — and that hits me every time I reread my favorites.

There’s something cozy about a proverb tucked into a title; I find it instantly familiar and oddly promising. When I see 'A Stitch in Time' or the full 'A Stitch in Time Saves Nine' used as a title, my brain primes for a story about small actions with big consequences. I like that — it’s compact foreshadowing. That little domestic image of mending cloth makes the theme feel rooted, human, and intimate rather than abstract. Beyond the warmth, there’s economy and rhythm. The proverb carries meaning already, so the author borrows a whole emotional backstory in three or four words. It signals themes like prevention, urgency, or regret without long exposition, which is perfect for grabbing a reader scrolling through a sea of covers. Sometimes the title is used straight, sometimes wryly — the juxtaposition of homely mending language against a bleak plot can be deliciously ironic. Personally, I love it when a simple phrase primes me for complex consequences; it feels like the writer is winking and daring me to notice the small acts that ripple outward.

I love how little sayings can carry entire life lessons in just a few words, and 'a stitch in time saves nine' is one of those gems that always makes sense to me. The origin isn't tied to a single famous author — it's basically a practical sewing metaphor that grew into a general piece of folk wisdom. The image is simple: if you fix a small tear in fabric right away with a stitch, you prevent it from unraveling and needing many more stitches later. That literal, domestic scene was the perfect seed for an idea that applies to everything from plumbing to relationships. Historically, the phrase shows up in English usage around the 18th century, though exact first-print evidence is fuzzy and scholars debate the earliest citation. What I enjoy about that murkiness is how it highlights the proverb's oral life — people used it in speech long before any collector wrote it down. You can also spot the same impulse in lots of cultures: tend to small problems early, and they won't balloon. For me, that everyday practicality is why this line still gets tossed into conversations — it’s tidy, visual, and quietly bossy in the best way.

That stretch of nine days in the movie's ending landed like a soft drumbeat — steady, ritualistic, and somehow inevitable. I felt it operate on two levels: cultural ritual and psychological threshold. On the ritual side, nine days evokes the novena, those Catholic cycles of prayer and petition where time is deliberately stretched to transform grief into acceptance or desire into hope. That slow repetition makes each day feel sacred, like small rites building toward a final reckoning. Psychologically, nine is the last single-digit number, which many storytellers use to signal completion or the final stage before transformation. So the characters aren’t just counting days; they’re moving through a compressed arc of mourning, decision, and rebirth. The pacing in those scenes—quiet mornings, identical breakfasts, small changes accumulating—made me sense the characters shedding skins. In the final frame I saw the nine days as an intentional liminal corridor: a confined period where fate and free will tango. It left me with that bittersweet feeling that comes from watching someone finish a long, private ritual and step out changed, which I liked a lot.