Category Archives: European culture

Statues also die

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Pb9nykjQA]

Les Statues meurent aussi

Les Statues meurent aussi (Eng: Statues also Die) is a short subject documentary film by Chris Marker and Alain Resnais released in 1953 and financed by the anticolonial organisation Présence africaine. Its theme was that Western civilization is responsible for the decline of black art due to cultural appropriation. The film was seen at the Cannes Film Festival, it won the Prix Jean Vigo in 1954 but was banned shortly afterwards for more than 10 years by the French censor.

Aimé Césaire (1913 – 2008)


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Aimé Fernand David Césaire (25 June 1913 – 17 April 2008) was a French poet, author and politician. He was with Léopold Sédar Senghor one of the figure heads of the négritude movement, the precursor to the Black Power movement of the 1960s. His writings reflect his passion for civic and social engagement. He is the author of Discours sur le colonialisme (Discourse on Colonialism) (1953), a denunciation of European colonial racism which was published in the French review Présence Africaine. In 1968, he published the first version of Une Tempête, a radical adaptation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest for a black audience.

Film lovers, good evening!

Or, world cinema classic #43

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi5rmt-gucs]

Man Bites Dog

After long and careful deliberation, I’ve decided against pronouncing this film a world cinema classic #43. Instead, I’ve chosen a 1992 film which was made in Belgium, and it’s probably one of the best-known Belgian films abroad of the late 20th century. The film dates of 1992 and much like the American film Natural Born Killers, is a satire on the media’s exploitation of graphic violence, only much better. Sadly, the director of this black mockumentary committed suicide two years ago, as often happens to very talented people with an appreciation of the darker side of life. Without further ado, I present you Man Bites Dog, one of the best features of the 1990s, a must-see feature film. As a seal of quality, it carries an NC-17 rating by the Motion Picture Association of America (such is the beneficial role of censorship organizations).

Cult fiction #4


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Horror Panegyric is a 2008 book by Keith Seward which looks at the Lord Horror stories published by Savoy Books (David Britton and Michael Butterworth). The cover design is by British illustrator John Coulthart.

Lord Horror is the most recent work of literature after Last Exit to Brooklyn to be banned in England and obliged Britton to serve a term in a British prison.

Colin Wilson, in a review of the Lord Horror series remarked:

“I think that, as an exercise in Surrealism, Lord Horror compares with some of the best work that came out of France and Germany between the wars, for example Georges Bataille. The book has some brilliantly funny passages, particularly about Old Shatterhand. Britton is undoubtedly brilliant, but when I came to the bit about Horror hollowing out a Jewess’s foot and putting it over his penis, I started skipping. With the best will in the world, I couldn’t give his brilliant passages the attention they deserve because I kept being put off by this note of violence and sadism. No doubt it is because I belong to an older generation that is still basically a bit Victorian.”

Tip of the hat to Paul Rumsey.

Rafael Azcona (1926 – 2008)

Rafael Azcona died last Monday. I was sort of waiting until someone in the English blogosophere would write a fitting obituary (I was thinking of Robert Monell or Mike from Esotika), but it appears that his death went largely unnoticed in the anglosphere. As such, it would have gone unnoticed by me as well, were it not for the excellent Belgian literary blog “De Papieren Man” who reported Azcona’s death here.

To mainstream audiences, Azcona is best known for his writing credits on Belle Époque Youtube, which starred Penelope Cruz.

To cult film aficionados as myself, Azcona is best-known for his collaborations with über cult filmmaker Marco Ferreri, and especially as the scriptwriter of La Grande Bouffe WCC#13.

More Ferreri/Azcona collaborations include El Pisito, The Wheelchair, The Ape Woman , The Conjugal Bed, Countersex , The Man With The Balloons, The Wedding March, Kiss The Other Sheik, Her Harem, The Audience and, Don’t Touch the White Woman.

There is one Spanish obituary you may want to check by a blogger who calls himself an emotional pornographer (que bonito) [1]. Finally, this seems to be one of the more complete English language obituaries.

Mas, mas … or, moaning and heavy breathing in popular music

More party music from Belgium = World music classic #32.

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAmi1M2Vm0E&]

Jungle Fever (song)

“Jungle Fever” is a musical composition by Belgian band The Chakachas first published in 1972. It sold over a million copies in the U.S. and reached #3. In the UK# it fared less well: despite some airplay soon after release it was later banned by the BBC, who took exception to the moaning and heavy breathing heard on the record, first by a woman and later by a man as well. It peaked at #29.

The song was featured in the movie Boogie Nights, has been sampled by the likes of 2 Live Crew and Public Enemy and is featured on the Grand Theft Auto fictional radio station Master Sounds 98.3. A big shout-out to the musical consultant of the latter, he or she has very good tastes and it’s an invaluable job bringing this music to the younger masses, it’s probably the only way they would be exposed to it.

Mas, mas … is Spanish for more, more …

Two from the toob

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uRNA3SgUG8&]

Lena Horne in Now (1965) by Santiago Álvarez

Now (1965) is the title of a short subject directed by Cuban filmmaker Santiago Álvarez, about racial discrimination towards black people and ensuing race riots in the United States. The propaganda/political film uses morgue photos and newsreel footage and is narrated by Lena Horne by way of a song (words set to the ultimate world music classic “Hava Nagila“) entitled “Now is the Time.”

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA3NRe5kgak]

L’Inferno by Giuseppe de Liguoro with added music by Zbigniew Preisner

L’Inferno is a 1911 silent film by Giuseppe de Liguoro, loosely adapted from Dante‘s The Divine Comedy and presented to a Parisian public by Ricciotto Canudo in the same year to inaugurate “The Birth of the Sixth Art“.

World music classics #29

Sleeve of the seven inch of Max Berlin’s “Elle et moi“ (1978)

“Elle et moi” is a musical composition by Max Berlin, first published in 1978 on the Belgian recording label USA Import.

This is the type of track which has survived in popular consciousness through nightclub play rather than radio play. I can’t remember hearing “Elle et Moi” on any commercial radio station.

Skilled and knowledgeable DJs usually play “Elle et moi” after or before Gainsbourg’s 1968 Requiem pour un con (YouTube), from the soundtrack to the film Le Pacha.