Monthly Archives: September 2007

Violence is fine, sex is not

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDqxuGlxbWc]

Explanations on the different ratings

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTL3XMDwY0c]

More on the private investigation bit on the MPAA members

This Film Is Not Yet Rated (2006)

The MPAA gave the original cut of the film an NC-17 rating for “some graphic sexual content”: scenes that illustrated the content a film could include to garner an NC-17 rating. Kirby Dick appealed, and descriptions of the ratings deliberations and appeal were included in the documentary. The new version of the film is not rated.

NC-17 is a film rating of the United States film industry used to denote films “No One 17 And Under Admitted” (18 and older ONLY). These films contain excessive graphic violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse, strong language, or any other elements which, when present, most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children and teens. NC-17 does not necessarily mean obscene or pornographic in the oft-accepted or legal meaning of those words. The Board does not and cannot mark films with those words. These terms are legally ambiguous, and their interpretation varies from case to case.

(A little) more on film censorship and banned films and more on Censorship in the United States.

EXPRMNTL

XPRMNTL 4, Knokke

EXPRMNTL 4, poster by Pierre Alechinsky

EXPRMNTL, also known as the Knokke Experimental Film Festival and Festival du Film Expérimental de Knokke-le-Zoute was the largest Belgian festival dedicated to experimental cinema. The festival succeeded the Brussels Experimental Film Festival (1947 and 1958) and was held under the EXPRMNTL moniker in 1963 (EXPRMNTL 3), 1967 (EXPRMNTL 4) and 1974 (EXPRMNTL 5). It was conceived and curated by Jacques Ledoux and the Cinémathèque royale de Belgique in Knokke-le-Zoute. It was organized five times between 1949 and 1974.

There is no equivalent of its kind today, except perhaps for the programmers at Cinema Nova, and the people at MuHKA cinema and other film museums in Belgium. Another worthwhile film festival is the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film.

Gratuitous nudity #3

On The Necessity of Violation

“On The Necessity of Violation” by Jean-Jacques Lebel in TDR T41 (1968)

Description: Incl. photos of happenings – ‘Sunlove’ happening with the Soft Machine, 1967 (Mike Ratledge with naked girl), ‘Miss Festival Contest’ happening with a naked Yoko Ono in background, Lebel’s ‘Happening on the theme of Playtex bras’, etc. Also: Arrabal; Stefan Brecht; Ann Halprin; interviews with Jerzy Grotowski (17pp.) and Charles Ludlam

The tragedienne of strippers

Rita Renoir 2

Rita Renoir, stripteaseuse and intellectual

Rita Renoir was/is a French nude model, actress and ‘art’ stripteaseuse, known in Paris as the “tragedian of strippers.” She was mainly active in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s along with an ‘elite’ of European stripteaseuses with exotic names as Lady Chinchilla, Rita Hymalaya, Rafa Temporel, Dodo d’Hamburg, Poupée la Rose, Bonita Super, Véronique, Truda, Lova Moor, Bettina Uranium, Sofia Palladium, and Rosa Fumetto.

Her first ‘serious’ work was with the happenings and mise-en-scènes of Jean-Jacques Lebel (Picasso‘s Le désir attrapé par la queue), and her first critical success was in the film Les Immortelles by Bourgeade. She also starred in Pierre Koralnik‘s film Cannabis.

She also worked with Michel Simon and starred in The Red Desert as Emilia.

She played herself in Sois belle et tais-toi.

Freddy de Vree wrote an article about her, so did Julio Cortazar (Homenaje a una joven bruja).

Any extra info is more than welcome.

Friendship on this day in history

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nj31VMDWbk]

Larry Levan plays his last weekend at the Paradise Garage in 1987.

Finding the Paradise Garage Classics 1976-1987 playlist in 1996, when I first gained access to the internet was the impetus for starting Jahsonic.com. The song you hear Larry playing is by the first male disco diva: Sylvester. The song in question “You are my Friend” is surely the most beautiful ode to friendship ever confined to vinyl. 

If you would like to investigate Larry’s music further, I recommend the trilogy Club Classics & House Foundations (1995). Buy from Amazon here, here and here.

Tracing sensibilities worldwide: two recent discoveries

A large part of my wiki is about tracing certain sensibilities around the globe. Recently, I made two discoveries which ‘opened’ Portugal and Belgium for me.

I found – what I believe to be – the Portuguese equivalent of Western publishing houses Losfeld, Pauvert, Olympia in France, März in Germany, Calders & Boyars in the UK or Grove Press in the U. S. : Edições Afrodite run by Fernando Ribeiro de Mello. Most of the info comes from the Portuguese Wikipedia and much of it still needs to be translated. My Portuguese is limited, so any help is welcome.

Quite a wonderful cover:

Textos Malditos

Textos Malditos, an Edições Afrodite edition

Freddy De Vree

Rita Renoir, enz.

In Belgium I found Freddy de Vree, Belgian intellectual, cult figure and companion to Sylvia Kristel in the last years of his life. He was a friend of Topor and W. F. Hermans, wrote critiques on such diverse topics as Pigalle stripteaseuse Rita Renoir or French ‘excremental’ philosopher Georges Bataille.

Below are two images from De Bezige Bij editions of Hermans’s King Kong by publisher De Bezige Bij, of which I found the graphics amazing. De Bezige Bij, an interesting Dutch publishing house.

Two very impressive Bezige Bij covers:

King Kong WF Hermans

King Kong

King Kong WF Hermans 2

King Kong tweede druk

De Bezige Bij also published De Vree’s book on W. F. Hermans: De aardigste man van de wereld.

I thought it would be nice to leave you with an image of Rita Renoir:

Rita Renoir