Yearly Archives: 2009

RIP J. G. Ballard (1930 – 2009)

RIP J. G. Ballard (1930 – 2009)

The Atrocity Exhibition (1970) – J. G. Ballard [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Cover for the first edition of The Atrocity Exhibition.

James Graham Ballard (born November 15, 1930 in Shanghai – 19 April 2009) was a British writer. He was a prominent member of the New Wave in science fiction. His best known books are the controversial Crash, and The Atrocity Exhibition, Crash was made into film by David Cronenberg.

The adjectiveBallardian“, defined as “resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in JG Ballard’s novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments,” has been included in the Collins English Dictionary.

His work was most recently celebrated in the exhibition J. G. Ballard. Autopsy of the new millennium.

2591 Reprint (1974) by mjkghk 2499 Reprint (1974) by mjkghk 2229 Reprint (1974) by mjkghk The Drought by Martin Isaac

David Pelham covers

Cheri: New Michele Pfeiffer film

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCUdEXqiNZ0]

Cheri

Cheri is an upcoming film starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Friend (The Libertine), and directed by Stephen Frears. It is an adaptation of the novel by French author Colette. The film premiered at the 2009 Berlin International Film Festival. Set in 1920s Paris, Cheri tells the story of the end of a six-year affair between an aging retired courtesan, Léa, and a pampered young man, Chéri. Turning stereotypes upside-down, it is Chéri who wears silk pajamas and Léa’s pearls, and who is the object of gaze.

The film also stars Kathy Bates (Misery) and Anita Pallenberg (Performance).

Hitler @120

Adolf Hitler @120

Heartfield vs. Hitler

John Heartfield Hitler Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk, 1932. [1]

Adolf Hitler (18891945) remains a powerful and dark figure even 64 years after his death. His legacy as a personification of evil in the 20th century is rivalled only by Joseph Stalin‘s. Both were possessed by the Devil, Gabriele Amorth, the Vatican’s chief exorcist, asserted in 2006.

Which brings me to the problem of evil.

Epicurus is generally credited with first expounding the problem of evil, and it is sometimes called “the Epicurean paradox” or “the riddle of Epicurus.”

“Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?” — Epicurus, as quoted in 2000 Years of Disbelief

But shocking as it may sound, both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin believed that they were actually bettering the world by their actions; the evil of Hitler and Stalin had — in their own eyes — a purpose.

Some feel that true evil lacks this purpose and only enjoys causing destruction and chaos as a form of ultraviolence without motive. As such, figures like serial killers, spree killers and psychopaths are the personificaton of evil.

It is their kind of gratuitous violence we fear most, because it is unmotivated, a caprice.

“Stranger-killing, the killing which has no motive, is something which we associate to “pure evil“, and that we fear more than anything else in the world. There are several excellent examples of this morbid fascination, especially in the world of cinema: some of the most “relevant” contemporary blockbusters deal with the theme of serial killing (Ridley Scott’s “Hannibal” and “The Silence of the Lambs“, David Fincher’s “Seven“, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho“, Mary Harron’s “American Psycho“).” — Albert Hofer[2] via [3]

While we like to think –not without reason, the first spree killer is a postwar development — that this kind of senseless violence is a late 20th century phenomenon, proof exists that gratuitous acts of violence already existed as far back as the early 19th century. Witness this illustration by Dutch illustrator Christiaan Andriessen:

Senseless Violence

A boy attacked in the street by a butcher’s apprentice with a cleaver, 22nd of November 1806. “What’s the matter lad? Well, that boy over there just cut me in my face with his cleaver.” — from the diary of Christiaan Andriessen:

RIP Peter “Carry On” Rogers (1914 – 2009)

RIP Peter Rogers (1914 – 2009)

Carry On… Up the Khyber

Peter Rogers (20 February 1914 – 14 April 2009) was a British film producer. Rogers is best-known as producer of the Carry On series of British sex comedy films, beginning with Carry On Sergeant in 1958.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkqHI3-KXCs&]

“It sounds bizar but the Carry On films are as much part of the sixties as Pink Floyd” (documentary by the BBC, 2007).

The Carry On films were a long-running series of British low-budget comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers. An energetic mix of parody, farce, slapstick and double entendres, they are seen as classic examples of the low end of British humour in the British comic tradition of the music hall and seaside postcards, best documented in Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema by Simon Sheridan.

World Cinema Classic #98

Via Ian Kerkhof‘s incredibly prolific blog[1] comes our 98th World Cinema Classic, an ongoing project at the Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia.

This entry goes to The Dogway Melody [2] (1930), one of the Dogville shorts.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II1BkpX03-M]

The Dogway Melody is a 1930 comedy short film that recreates scenes from early musical films, particularly The Broadway Melody. The entire cast are trained dogs with human voiceovers. It was directed by Zion Myers and Jules White and it forms part of the MGM produced series of Dogville shorts.

“Antichrist,” a horror film by Lars von Trier

Via Tomorrow Museum comes the announcement of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist[1]

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-3mWmLAcsY]

Lars von Trier‘s Antichrist


Antichrist is a 2009 horror film directed and co-written by Lars von Trier. The film is about a couple who, after the death of child, retreat to a cabin in the woods where they encounter strange and terrifying occurrences. Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe, the film is scheduled for release on August 19, 2009 in France.

Lars von Trier (born Lars Trier, April 30, 1956) is a Danish film director. He is closely associated with the Dogme95 collective, calling for a return to plausible stories in filmmaking and a move away from artifice and towards technical minimalism, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches. Danish film in the 1990s was dominated by Lars von Trier. His films Europa, Breaking the Waves, The Idiots, and Dancer in the Dark received great international attention and were nominated for numerous awards. Von Trier’s 2000s Dogville was a radical departure from the naturalistic rules of Dogme 95, and instead the film invented a completely new style that draws from the theatre but yet remains eminently cinematic.

The antichrist is one under the direct control of the Devil, who will lead the abomination in the end times

Icon of Erotic Art #44

Femme damnée (huile, Louvre) Anonyme attribué à Octave Tassaert (1800-1874) by you.

Femme damnée

Icon of Erotic Art #44 is Femme damnée a painting by Octave Tassaert, or more accurately, ascribed to Tassaert.

Its title, Femmes damnées is also the title of at least two poems by Baudelaire, one from the collection Les Fleurs du mal and the other from Les Épaves. The subject matter of Femmes damnées (« À la pâle clarté ») is the forbidden love which is lesbian in nature. Its subtitle is Delphine and Hippolyte.

It is also the title of a 1885 sculpture by Rodin and a 1897 painting by Carlos Schwabe.

Icon of Erotic Art #43

Three Young White Men and a Black Woman by Dutch painter Christiaen van Couwenbergh

Three Young White Men and a Black Woman (1632) by Christiaen van Couwenbergh

To pronounce the painting above erotic art, is perhaps stretching the concept of eroticism. However after my illustrious predecessor Georges Bataille stated in 1957 “Eroticism … is assenting to life up to the point of death” there is not much stretching to be done. Truly one of the curiosities in the history of painting, here is Icon of Erotic Art #43 Three Young White Men and a Black Woman.

RIP Maurice Druon (1918 – 2009)

RIP Maurice Druon (1918 – 2009)

Tistou les pouces verts is a story by Maurice Druon illustrated by Jacqueline Duhême.

Tistou les pouces verts

Tistou les pouces verts is a story by Maurice Druon illustrated by Jacqueline Duhême. The story was animated by Production I.G.[1]

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

Maurice Druon (b.April 23 1918 – d.April 14 2009) was a French novelist and member of Académie française.

Tistou les pouces verts is a story by Maurice Druon illustrated by Jacqueline Duhême.

Tistou les pouces verts

Surnamed “L’imagière des poètes,” Jacqueline Duhême is a French author and illustrator born in Versailles in 1927.