Tag Archives: 1929

RIP Henri Garcin (1929 – 2022)

Abel (1986), Christmas breakfast scene, Henri Garcin is the father. See below for transcript and translation of this scene.

Henri Garcin was a Belgian actor, born as Anton Albers in Antwerp to Dutch parents. In his twenties, he left for Paris to try his luck as an actor.

He found a place on the stage in several high-brow theatrical plays and went on to become a character actor in cinema, appearing in more than hundred French films.

In my universe he is of importance for playing in several Alex Van Warmerdam films: Abel, (1986), The Northerners, (1992) and The Dress, (1996), Grimm (2003) and Schneider vs. Bax (2015).

He also had parts in two films by fellow cult director Jos Stelling.

The first time that I saw Garcin was in 1986 in Cinema Cartoons in Antwerpen, when we went to see Warmerdam’s debut feature Abel.

In the clip above you can see the famous Christmas breakfast scene of that film, one of the best scenes of Dutch cinema by one of its most interesting filmmakers.

Continue reading →

RIP Mariano Laurenti (1929 – 2022)

Mariano Laurenti was an Italian film director known for his work in the commedia sexy all’italiana genre.

Ubalda, All Naked and Warm (1972)

In that genre he directed several films in the ‘decamerotico’ subgenre, like the one above.

Ubalda, All Naked and Warm (1972) is nothing more than one big excuse to show the naked breasts of Edwige Fenech and Karin Schubert.

RIP E. O. Wilson (1929 – 2021)

 Sociobiology: The Human Animal (1977)

E. O. Wilson was an American writer, biologist and naturalist best-known for his book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975).

This book met with great criticism from the political left. In Not in Our Genes (1984) these opponents rejected sociobiology and expressed their desire for a socialist society.

There is a film Sociobiology: The Human Animal (1977) by the BBC. I show it supra. It features interviews with Wilson and his main opponent, Lewontin, co-author of Not in Our Genes.

RIP Richard Lewontin (1929 – 2021)

Not in Our Genes

Richard Lewontin was an American evolutionary biologist noted for many things, but also for opposing Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) by E. O. Wilson, co-writing  Not in Our Genes (1984), in the preface of which is stated:

“We [Richard Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon Kamin] share a commitment to the prospect of the creation of a more socially just—a socialist—society. And we recognize that a critical science is an integral part of the struggle to create that society, just as we also believe that the social function of much of today’s science is to hinder the creation of that society by acting to preserve the interests of the dominant class, gender, and race.”