[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfSdXK5sMM4]
The Night Porter (1974) – Liliana Cavani
The trailer features the bunker-cabaret scene with Greta Keller’s ‘Wenn ich mir was wünschen dürfte’ [Youtube] played in the background and Charlotte Rampling in a strange striptease. It’s the most memorable scene of the film. Greta Keller’s song is one of soothing melancholy.
Update: SensOtheque elaborates.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stth1IlAMk8]
Je t’aime… moi non plus (1976) – Serge Gainsbourg
I’m not sure Je t’aime… moi non plus would work if it was made today. I saw at the local art house cinema in my mid twenties. At the time I was as much in love with the yellow truck as with the decadence of the film, the performances of Jane Birkin, and Joe Dallesandro and the cameo by Gérard Depardieu. As a fan of Serge Gainsbourg, I’m glad to showcase it here today. The striptease scene at the beginning is very typical of this film. Towards the end of this Youtube clip, the footage is underlit.
Previous “World Cinema Classics“
From satirical and libertarian illustrated French magazine L’Assiette au Beurre 162, an illustration by František Kupka
Ubu et la grande gidouille (1987) – Jan Lenica
Ubu et la grande gidouille is a 1987 French language feature animation film by Jan Lenica based on the work of Alfred Jarry.
From the excellent collection of experimental films by Youtube user TheMotionBrigades, from which { feuilleton }, culled to report on Karel Zeman. Also check, from the same collection, new work by Walerian Borowczyk such as Encyclopedia de Grand Maman.
Nessus rapes Deianeira (1898) by Arnold Böcklin.
Arnold Böcklin (16 October 1827 – 16 January 1901) was a Swiss painter known for his grotesquely comic work. His best known painting is the macabre The Isle of the Dead. Most recently his work has been celebrated at the German traveling exhibition Comic Grotesque. He was born 180 years ago tomorrow.
I’ve always considered the ambivalence of the grotesque an essentially Western sensibility but I guess I’m wrong if you consider the work of Yue Minjun (Googe gallery) Yue Minjun is an artist based in Beijing working in painting and sculpture. His style is ambiguous in that it is very Chinese, yet at the same time very Western, and very political, satirical and humorous to the point of the grotesque. Last Friday, his painting “Execution” became the most expensive work sold by a Chinese contemporary artist.
As further ‘proof’ that the grotesque and fantastique (two very related sensibilities, in the sense that they both rely on ambiguity at their core), there is the anthology of stories Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, which Franz Kafka described as “exquisite” and the painting below:
One of the dragons from The Nine Dragons handscroll , painted by the Song Dynasty Chinese artist Chen Rong in the year 1244.
Tip of the hat to Doms.
In Consultation (1924) – Joseph Schippers
Monkey Portraits (2006) – Jill Greenberg
[Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Gorilla and Woman (1887) – Emmanuel Frémiet
Some paintings of Gabriel von Max, Joseph Schippers, Chardin. The photography of Jill Greenberg. The sculpture of Fremiet. King Kong at the low art end of the spectrum. Is there a work dedicated to the representation of apes and monkeys in art outside of The Monkey in Art (1994) by Ptolemy Tompkins?
Monkeys as Judges of Art, 1889
Gabriel Cornelius Ritter von Max (August 23, 1840, Prague – November 24, 1915, München) was a Prague-born Austrian painter. His themes were parapsychology and mysticism. He surrounded himself and with monkeys and painted them often, sometimes portraying them as human.
See also: Monkeys in art
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jQtkGJMtH0]
Fake H. P. Lovecraft 1933 WPA Newsreel Interview via William Gibson
Today, William Gibson reported on the above footage. In a second post, Gibson admits having been fooled. As he writes in a second post: “I guess I so wanted to believe that that was Lovecraft that I managed to ignore the actor’s complete lack of HPLoid bone-structure. (Lovecraft was one distinctively-jawed New Englander.)
Faking elder footage on YouTube, though, has great potential as a form.”
Ma Mère by Bataille, cover by publisher 10 | 18
#1) 10/18 is a publisher in France (with a sub collection named domaine français). Their series of Georges Bataille novels are illustrated by Hans Bellmer. One of the nicer book illustrations around. I like the overall feel of the design. Can someone tell me more about the graphic designer over at the 10/18 publishing imprint?
Here is the 10/18 cover of Madame Edwarda.
#2) In 1997 André S. Labarthe produced a documentary on Georges Bataille. The focus was Bataille’s extreme, perverse, surreal story ‘Madame Edwarda‘ where the prostitute reveals that she *is* God (‘je suis DIEU’) – perfectly merging the sacred and profane, a key notion for Bataille … in the final section of the clip, the infamous Chinese torture victim is shown … in his last work, the heavily-illustrated ‘Tears of Eros,’ Bataille said this about these photos:
posted by hiperf289 (check his other Youtube clips)
Over at ArtandPopularCulture book of the month is:
Anthology of Black Humor (1940) – André Breton
While I am antipathetic to André Breton as a person – his misogyny, his homophobia, his arrogance, his misguided tyranny – I have learned to appreciate his work of tracing the literary and artistic antecedents of surrealism. In this book he successfully delineates a corpus of writers that have shaped the sensibilities central to cult fiction.
