Category Archives: European culture

Saint Anthony at the movies

Perhaps the ultimate and most underrated dream vision (underrated because it is not recognized as a dream vision) in the history of Western literature is the The Temptation of St. Anthony, here [1] painted by Domenico Morelli as Le Tentazioni di Sant’Antonio, also the title of an Italian film of 1911 which depicts Flaubert’s version.

[1] painted by Domenico Morelli as Le Tentazioni di Sant’Antonio,

Saint Anthony has not been popular among writers nor filmmakers but has been very influential to painters, the dream visions lend themselves perfectly to exploring taboo subject matter.

[2]

Only two notable filmmakers had a go at the story, Georges Méliès in 1898 and the aforementioned Italian version of 1911.

Then there is the curious case of The Private Affairs of Bel Ami[3]. For the realisation of this film Loew-Lewin Productions announced a “Temptation of St. Anthony” contest. David Loew and Albert Lewin had persuaded twelve modern artists to paint Anthony’s vision. Each artist was commissioned for $500. Max Ernst was the $3,000 prizewinner.

The work was to be shown in a close-up at a key moment in the film.

[4]

Although Max Ernst‘s rendition (here[5] in a better scan) was the winning work, Salvador Dalí‘s contribution[6] (featuring a parade of spider-legged elephants tormenting the saint) went on the become better-known.

The terrestrial globe is covered with volcanoes

“Le globe terrestre est couvert de volcans qui lui servent d’anus.”

“The terrestrial globe is covered with volcanoes, which serve as its anus.”

From: Georges Bataille, ‘The Solar Anus‘. via Surreal Documents in a post[1] on Skullflower.

“The perversity of woman!”

Danielle Darrieux is Mme de Rênal

I’m slowly and carefully moving towards the middle of The Red and the Black and am stricken by quotes on “female perversions” (there is no such thing, or is there?) and instances of “happiness in crime”:

“Their joy was thenceforward of a far higher nature, the flame that devoured them was more intense. They underwent transports of utter madness. Their happiness would have seemed great in the eyes of other people. But they never recaptured the delicious serenity, the unclouded happiness, the spontaneous joy of the first days of their love, when Madame de Renal’s one fear was that of not being loved enough by Julien. Their happiness assumed at times the aspect of crime. ” –Chapter 19 in The Red and the Black

“The perversity of woman!” thought Julien. “What pleasure, what instinct leads them to betray us?” –Chapter 21 in The Red and the Black

Introducing Harry/i Peccinotti

Penguin Modern Poets 25 also features a photograph of female lips smoking a cigarette, one of his trademark image tropes.

Alberto Moravia‘s 1976 Penguin edition of The Woman of Rome

I haven’t properly introduced Harri Peccinotti, the man celebrated in the previous post on Nova magazine.

Harry Peccinotti (born 1938, London, UK) is a photographer and art director. He was Nova magazine‘s first art director and regular photographer throughout. He also did the Pirelli Calendars of 1968 and 1969, with designer Derek Birdsall.

He also provided the cover photograph for Alberto Moravia‘s 1976 Penguin edition of The Woman of Rome and contributed photographs to The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics.

Penguin Modern Poets 25 also features a photograph of female lips smoking a cigarette, one of his trademark image tropes.

He has designed record sleeves for Esquire Records.

He is still working with fashion stylists such as Charlotte Stockdale and Antje Winter.

Cross-pollinations such as BBC Radiophonic Workshop/Doctor Who and Studio di Fonologia Musicale/Death Laid an Egg

Tape editing: Bruno Maderna (left) and Luciano Berio (right)

Simon Reynolds published the director’s cut of an article[1] he wrote at the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which was founded in 1958 on an unknown date. Similar radio services were started at the various public radios in Europe, all of influence to the emerging fields of electronic music and acousmatic music. Paris had the Groupe de Recherches Musicales which developed musique concrète, Cologne had Studio für elektronische Musik which nurtured the talent of Stockhausen, Italy had Studio di Fonologia Musicale with Bruno Maderna.

I’m probably generalizing, mixing studios with projects and radio with art projects. However, all of these projects share common characteristics: they are state funded (this is post-war, Marshall plan funded Europe), they involve electronic music and are centered around tape editing and thus the development of non-linearity in music recording.

So far the history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, which was probably the biggest, as well as the other scenes mentioned above have been best documented. However, such studios and projects must have existed all over Europe. It would be interesting to get your feedback of the scene of your country. Scandinavia, Spain, Austria, the Balkan, everywhere, let’s hear it from you. I’m especially looking for cross-pollinations such as BBC Radiophonic Workshop/Doctor Who and Studio di Fonologia Musicale/Death Laid an Egg.

I’m collecting the notes for this project at European public radio and experimental music.

Life imitating art: the model to copy

Penguin Classics cover: from which painting?

I started reading The Red and the Black by Stendhal. Chapter 7 is entitled Les affinités électives, possibly a reference to Elective Affinities, published by Goethe 21 years earlier. This passage perfectly illustrates life imitating art:

“À Paris, la position de Julien envers Mme de Rênal eût été bien vite simplifiée ; mais à Paris, l’amour est fils des romans. Le jeune précepteur et sa timide maîtresse auraient retrouvé dans trois ou quatre romans et jusque dans les couplets du Gymnase, l’éclaircissement de leur position. Les romans leur auraient tracé le rôle à jouer, montré le modèle à imiter ; et ce modèle, tôt ou tard, et quoique sans nul plaisir, et peut-être en rechignant, la vanité eût forcé Julien à le suivre.”[1]

“In Paris, Julien’s position with regard to Madame de Renal would very soon have been simplified; but in Paris love is the child of the novels. The young tutor and his timid mistress would have found in three or four novels, and even in the lyrics of the Gymnase*, a clear statement of their situation. The novels would have outlined for them the part to be played, shown them the model to copy; and this model, sooner or later, albeit without the slightest pleasure, and perhaps with reluctance, vanity would have compelled Julien to follow.” –translation by C. K. Scott-Moncrieff (1889–1930)

The first literary example of life imitating art was Don Quixote in which Alonso Quixano has been driven crazy by reading too many mediaeval knight-errantry romances such Amadis of Gaul, the pulp fiction of the day.

The Red and the Black is an exceedingly accomplished novel.

*My excellent Dutch translation by Hans van Pinxteren (Pandora Pockets, Uitgeverij Contact, p.45) translates Gymnase as cabaret (liedjes in het cabaret). Gymnase probably refers to the Théâtre du Gymnase Marie Bell, rather than a gymnasium.

Happy 80th birthday Oswalt Kolle

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pE6FA2UwKs]

German documentary on the occasion of his birthday.

Germany’s sexual liberator and educator Oswalt Kolle turns 80 today. He was an equivalent of Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen in the U. S. and Torgny Wickman in Scandinavia. He was pivotal in the 1960s sexual revolution. I wouldn’t known who his other European counterparts were. The cinematic genre he spawned is known by cult film aficionados as white coaters, or in its home country as Aufklärungsfilme. The genre is related to the sex report films.

Kolle’s detractors came from the catholic corner (see sexual repression and Christianity and sexuality) and called him “Schweinehund” in the documentary above.

Kolle broke another taboo in 2000, when he assisted his wife’s euthanasia.

Visuals?

Check these:

What makes European erotic films of the seventies “euro chic” variety particularly interesting …

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBTM-H74FjE]

Monamour, fresco footage at :10

“I had never heard of Tinto Brass until the late 1970s when I read an interview he gave to Gideon Bachmann in The London Times (Wednesday, 3 August 1977, p. 13). His remarks sufficiently intrigued me to begin a decades-long search, a search that for many years turned up almost nothing apart from tantalizing articles in trade papers. Since the autumn of 2000, though, thanks to friends in Italy, on-line overseas shopping, and eBay, I’ve been able to locate a fair number of Brass’s creations. I had been expecting at least a few of his earlier films to be excellent, but I wasn’t expecting them to be quite as good as they actually turned out to be. –RJBuffalo, a pseudonym of Ranjit Sandhu

This I read in the early 2000s when I discovered the site http://www.geocities.com/busterktn, a site hosted at Yahoo/Geocities, of which the author says it was “deleted without notice or explanation. They deleted all my email messages too.” I believe him. Yahoo did the same to my site in 2004.

Last week, I found the same site, back online, now hosted under its own domain name, http://www.rjbuffalo.com, a pleasure for the eye and the brain.

Brass is one of Jahsonic’s canonical filmmakers. Researching him today brought footage of Monamour, in which Marta visits a museum, I presume in Mantua and admires scatological (see comment 1) frescoes by – again I presume – by Giulio Romano in – presuming further – the Palazzo del Te.

Palazzo del Te frescoes

Palazzo del Te fresco (detail)

As Sholem Stein has noted: “What makes European erotic films of the seventies “euro chic” variety particularly interesting is the fact that Europe has the scenery, and the best cinematic euro chic erotomaniacs (Tinto Brass, Just Jaeckin, etc…) have put it to use. There is a reason why Radley Metzger came to Europe in the seventies to film his softcore visual extravaganzas.”

Charlotte Roche on wetlands and damp areas

Stern read it.

It’s waiting to be read (and translated)

She’s reading it too.

Feuchtgebiete is Charlotte Roche‘s debut novel. Semi-autobiographical, it was first published in German in 2008 by DuMont and was the world’s best-selling novel in March 2008. For supporters it is a piece of erotic literature; for critics it is cleverly marketed pornography.

The title, which might be translated as “wetlands” or “damp areas,” here refers to a woman’s nether regions, i.e. her vagina and anus.

Charlotte Roche is featured in this clip:

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4dfnsGW3C0]

Tip of the hat to Ineke Van Nieuwenhove, the Belgian journalist who recently did an article for Goedele on plastic surgery for vulvas, less-well-known as labiaplasty.

Mauricio Kagel (1931 – 2008)

[Youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=963AgJeM_-o&]

German–Argentinian composer Mauricio Kagel died on September 18.