Venus Rising from the Sea — A Deception[1] (c. 1822) Raphaelle Peale
The still lifes of Juan Sánchez Cotán
One hint from Femme Femme Femme brings up a barrage of images.
Venus Rising from the Sea — A Deception[1] (c. 1822) Raphaelle Peale, reminiscent of Magritte[2] .
The still lifes of Juan Sánchez Cotán[3][4], reminiscent of de Chirico[5] .
Francisco Zurbarán[6] and Pieter Claesz[7] are contemporaries
Jack Palance would have turned 90 had he not died 3 years ago.
Like so many American actors — some of them had fallen on hard times, though I do not know if this is the case for Palance — they had a second life in European cinema, see for example the recently featured European career of American sex kitten Carroll Baker[1].
My father was nuts for Shane, and I’m sure he alerted me and my brother of that movie and had us see it, but my first conscious experience of Palance was in the cinematic fable Bagdad Café.
Back to the European career of Palance.
Palance starred in Godard‘s Contempt and Breathless, Jess Franco‘s Marquis de Sade: Justine, as well as in the poliziottesco Mister Scarface.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHFK2mTDd3M]
I leave you with a scene from Bagdad Café, I loved that film when it came out, not in the least because of the brilliant loungy Jevetta Steele track, “Calling You.”
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyU1R50_Nc8]
Introducing Alva Bernadine and icon of erotic art[1] #39
Back in the day, when I was still editing Jahsonic.com, I had amassed a list of erotic photographers I thought were important. The list consisted of Alva Bernadine, Gilles Berquet, Guy Bourdin, Steve Diet Goedde, Nan Goldin, David Hamilton, Irina Ionesco, Richard Kern, Doris Kloster, Eric Kroll, David LaChapelle, Sally Mann, Robert Mapplethorpe, Steven Meisel, Carlo Mollino, Helmut Newton, Man Ray , Bettina Rheims, Paolo Roversi, Thomas Ruff, Jan Saudek, Jeanloup Sieff, Romain Slocombe, Roy Stuart, Jock Sturges, Ellen Von Unwerth, Trevor Watson and Theodore Zichy.
Today is the day to introduce Alva Bernadine, a man whose work is a fusion of the erotic and the surreal.
Alva Bernadine (born June 17, 1961) is a British photographer born in Grenada, West Indies, and brought to London at the age of six. He is self-trained and has photographed for Vogue, GQ, Elle and others. Winner of the Vogue/Sotheby’s Cecil Beaton Award, he was also twice nominated English “Erotic Photographer of the Year.” His book Bernadinism: How to Dominate Men and Subjugate Women was published by Stemmle in 2001 with text by Nerve cofounder Genevieve Field. His work is self-admittedly inspired by Guy Bourdin, shows influences of the Distortions series [2] by Hungarian photographer André Kertész. Bernadine describes himself as an anti-portrait photographer, since he rarely shows faces, which gives his work that distinct forniphilia/sexual objectification* look. A recurring theme in his work is the mirroring of a female from the waist up/down[3][4].
The Philosopher Illumined by Candlelight – Alva Bernadine (image used with permission of author)
I’ve chosen his work The Philosopher Illumined by Candlelight as the current icon of erotic art. The photo depicts a man in a suit sitting in a darkened bedroom reading by candlelight. The lighted candle is protruding from a woman’s vagina. The picture has elicited comments of sexual objectification and misogyny. Objecters find more “proof” of Bernadine’s “misogyny” over here[5].
On the accusations of misogyny he says:
“I don’t really think about that [accusations of misogyny],” he declares. “Normally, I get an idea for a picture and if I can’t think of a good reason not, I take it. I can’t censor my own stuff.”
“That doesn’t bother me much, … you bring your own experiences to a picture. Sometimes I am surprised at the way they’re interpreted, but every opinion is as valid as mine because I haven’t usually formed an opinion before I’ve taken the shot. It’s only later that I work out the ramification. My work isn’t about subtlety. I need a reaction. It’s better to be a bad influence than no influence at all.”
On his inspiration for Illumined Bernadine commented:
“I once listened to a late night BBC Radio 4 programme called Sex in the Head where people described their sexual fantasies and on it a woman described how she enjoyed her partner reading his newspaper by the light of a candle placed in her vagina.
The image stayed in my head and 2 or 3 years later I was able to find a couple who agreed to model for the picture.”
You can find more by Bernadine at:
*In the forniphilia/sexual objectification/erotic furniture category belong artworks such as Chair, Table and Hat Stand[1] (1969) by Allen Jones and Les Krims‘s Heavy Feminist with Wedding Cake [2] (1970).
I discovered Cuba’s work via the Nu Yorica and Nova Classics 01 compilations. Tracks from those compilations that have acquired cult status include “Do You Feel It?[1]” (most likely his interpretation of the Latin traditional “El Ratón“[2]), and “El Pito (I’ll Never Go Back to Georgia)[3].”
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-xIxdwpqY8&]
His biggest hit was the 1966 “Bang! Bang![4],” which achieved unprecedented success for Latin music in the United States.
Joe Cuba (1931 – February 15, 2009), was a Puerto Rican musician who was considered to be the “Father of Latin Boogaloo“. The lyrics to Cuba’s music used Spanglish, a mixture of Spanish and English, becoming an important part of the Nuyorican Movement, somewhat the Latin version of the Harlem Renaissance.
Gargantua and Pantagruel illustrated by Gustave Doré
Surreal Documents writes[1]:
Genealogically, one can link the Medieval coq-à-l’âne to the Renaissance works of Rabelais, to Paul Scheerbart, Christian Morgenstern, Lewis Carroll, Pétrus Borel, Molière, Quirinus Kuhlmann, the Russian and Italian Futurists, and the Dadaists – and from there to ‘Les Légions Noires‘.
…
Surprisingly, Jahsonic hasn’t posted yet about Mikhail Bakhtin‘s Rabelais and His World…
As I’ve commented on Surreal Documents’ blog, I did “blog” on Rabelais and Bakthin back in 2004, but that was before I started the WordPress blog.
Of course it is impermissible that querying Rabelais on this blog brings up naught. Rabelais is canonical to me and my anthology which celebrates laughter and its rhizomatic proxies (theory of laughter, A History of Derision, laughter in literature, history of laughter; (too much overlap there, I will have to sort it out))
To set the omission straight, here is the list of Jahsonic’s canon. A list of individuals who have been formative and continue to be formative. They comprise of 173 people.
For those of you wondering how I arrived at the canon, here is the list of themes and sensibilities that engendered it quite naturally:
ABCDE |
E cont.FGHIKLMNO |
O cont.QRSTU |
Montjuic cemetery in Barcelona (photo by Stefan Cermak)
My first conscious experience of liking cemetries comes from climbing Mont Juic in Barcelona and seeing what appeared from a distance as a high-rise city. In reality that high-rise city was a multi story cemetery.
Last week I visited the neighbouring cemetry from where I teach.
It looks something like this:
… and is rather smallish compared to the huge and worldwide known (to cemetry enthousiasts) Schoonselhof cemetry, the artist’s cemetry of Antwerp.
The pictures are of photos mounted on the graves, usually aureoled by oval frames. I like the washed-out spooky ones. One of the joys of photographing is photographing photographs. After Sherrie Levine: After After Edward Weston.
The Naked Venus is a 1959 nudist film directed by American director Edgar G. Ulmer*. With Patricia Conelle, Don Roberts, Arianne Ulmer.
The current entry of gratuitous nudity does not even feature nudity … only hints at it (see innuendo). Can’t be careful enough these days! Ask the Undead Film Critic.
*Edgar G. Ulmer (1904 –1972) was an Austrian–American film director. He is best remembered for the movies The Black Cat (1934) and Detour (1945). These stylish and eccentric works have achieved cult status, but Ulmer’s other films remain relatively unknown.
I’d never seen this one before.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwQJdHLlSdk&]
Opening scene from Bad (most probably featuring Cyrinda Foxe)
Andy Warhol’s Bad is the title of a 1977 American film directed by Jed Johnson starring Carroll Baker, Cyrinda Foxe and Susan Tyrrell and produced by Andy Warhol. It is infamous for a scene where a baby is thrown out a window of a skyscraper by Susan Blond and dies on the pavement.
Got to love eighties video cover art.
The opening screening in March 1977 attracted over 750 people, including Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Julie Christie and George Cukor.
Who did the music on this intro?
Lou Castel and Carroll Baker
Carroll Baker’s “eurosleaze” career
After finding out about Bill Landis‘s death last month, I finally ordered his Sleazoid Express and surprisingly almost read it from cover to cover in chronological order.
I’m amazed by the book.
It is very much “spirit of place,” (I should explain, the whole book is divided in chapters that correspond to certain film theatres in the vicinity of 42nd Street, with knowledge of every hot dog stand, every theatre’s audience, the condition and relative safety of the bathrooms etc…).
At times Sleazoid Express reads like a realistic plotless piece of fiction in the manner of the enumerations of consumer goods in American Psycho.
Just like the consumer goods in Psycho, the films referenced are real and range from silents such as Trapped by the Mormons (1922) in its Mondo film chapter, to intriguing eurosleaze titles such as Orgasmo by Umberto Lenzi in its chapter on the sexploitation school of European exploitation so well documented in Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984.
Let us focus on Orgasmo, a 1969 Italian film by Umberto Lenzi starring Carroll Baker and Lou Castel.
Carroll Baker’s eurosleaze career
Following a protracted legal battle with Paramount Pictures and divorce from her second husband, Jack Garfein, Carroll Baker moved to Europe. Eventually settling in Italy, she would spend the next several years starring in hard-edged giallo thrillers, including The Sweet Body of Deborah (1968), Paranoia (1970), and Baba Yaga (1973). During those years, film locations would take her all around the world, including Spain, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. A lead role in Andy Warhol’s Bad (1977) brought her back to American shores.
Umberto Lenzi
Umberto Lenzi (born August 6 1931), is an Italian film director who was very active in low budget crime films, peplums, spaghetti westerns, war movies, cannibal films and giallo mysteries (in addition to writing many of the screenplays himself). He is the director of two highly controversial exploitation films: Eaten Alive! (1980) and Cannibal Ferox (1981) as well as the film adaptation of the Italian comic book Kriminal (1966). He was one of the first Italian directors to get involved in the Giallo film craze (along with Mario Bava and Dario Argento), and his “Man From Deep River” is credited as being the film that started the “Italian cannibal film” genre later popularized by Ruggero Deodato, Jess Franco and others. His most critically acclaimed film is Milano odia: la polizia non può sparare (1974).
Paranoia/Orgasmo
Trailer
Orgasmo is a 1969 Italian film by Umberto Lenzi starring Carroll Baker and Lou Castel. The film was released in the United States as Paranoia. Lenzi’s other film Paranoia (1969) was released as in the United States as “A Quiet Place To Kill” in the USA, since “Orgasmo” was already released in the USA as “Paranoia“.
Orgasmo premiered in Italy on February 2 1969. Bertrand Tavernier was credited but did not actually work on the film.
Orgasmo is my first exposure to Umberto Lenzi. It is the story of a rich woman being seduced by a male, who moves in with her but his “sister” comes along. His sister appears to be his lover and their goal is to destabilize the woman with drink and drugs and then kill her. (the plot twist of bringing a “sibling” to the party and destroying their host has been best explored in The Servant (1963) with Dirk Bogarde).
The film brings up interesting links.
Cuckoldry discovery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPnPpPzcKpY
Carroll Baker in scenes from Paranoia/Orgasmo, A Quiet Place To Kill and The World Is Full of Married Men.
For example the above YouTumentary of a recurring scene in Carroll Baker‘s oeuvre played by her in three different movies. In Paranoia/Orgasmo, A Quiet Place To Kill and The World Is Full of Married Men. This scene ought to have a name in narratology. The first hand experience of catching your lover making love to another woman or another man. An iconic moment in this category would be the famous walk-in scene in Brian De Palma‘s Body Double in which the hero discovers his wife after a long and painful build up.
When I think of myself I want to vomit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xf5WKB791M
An iconic scene of Orgasmo is Baker saying “When I think of myself I want to vomit.” Great stuff for when you are in a self-loathing mood.
Charles Darwin @200
Contemporary satirical drawing of Darwin
It is my fashion to view people’s careers in terms of their controversies and their influences outside of their own fields.
Darwin’s claim to fame in this context is that he said we are of common descent with “apes.”
Charles Robert Darwin (February 12, 1809 – April 19, 1882) was an eminent English naturalist who achieved lasting fame with his 1859 book On the Origin of Species which established evolution by common descent as the dominant scientific explanation of diversification in nature.
Influence on Naturalism
Writers who belong to the 19th century literary school of Naturalism were influenced by the evolution theory of Charles Darwin. They believed that one’s heredity and social environment decide one’s character. Naturalism attempts to determine “scientifically” the underlying forces (i.e. the environment or heredity) influencing these subjects’ actions. In fact, Zola wrote a long essay in which he mentioned Darwin in relation to contemporary literature. The essay was called The Experimental Novel and described the process of writing a novel as an experiment, in which the writer introduces “characters”, and the outcome is determined by heredity and mileu.
He wrote:
If I remember correctly, Naturalism in literature shares its etymological roots with the Natural Sciences, of which Darwin was a practitioner.
Also, one-time-Naturalist-turned-decadent Huysmans‘s in Against the Grain has his alter ego Des Esseintes praise the “evolution of language so rightly insisted on by Darwin“. But that book appalled Zola, who felt it had dealt a “terrible blow” to Naturalism.
Influence on Bergson
Henri Bergson was highly influenced by biology, particularly Charles Darwin‘s On the Origin of Species, which was released the year of Bergson’s birth. This leads Bergson to discuss the ‘Body’ and ‘Self’ in detail, arguably prompting the fundamental ontological and epistemological questions to be raised later in the twentieth-century French philosophy.
Related subjects
To say that Darwin has been influential is an understatement. His name has been linked to other controversial issues such as degeneration, social hygiene, color terminology for race, and social Darwinism, as well as the notion of the survival of the fittest.
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