Bob Rafelson was an American film director. I remember him for Head (1968) and Five Easy Pieces (1970).
Five Easy Pieces is famous for its chicken salad scene.
Head is known for being a hippie film in the style of The Trip (1967), Medium Cool (1969) and Putney Swope (1969).
Richard Rogers was a British architect. He is best known for designing and building the Centre Pompidou (1977), the first postmodern building.
The film above is a strange juxtapoem. It is a film of the construction phases of the Centre Pompidou set to the tones of “Black Cow” (1977) by Steely Dan.
Jean-Paul Belmondo was a French actor known for his boxer’s nose and rubbery lips.
He is famous for breaking the fourth wall in the nouvelle vague film Breathless (1960); for his stunts and bravado in That Man from Rio (1964); and for painting his face blue in Pierrot le Fou (1965).
In the beginning of his career, he played in both art films and commercial films, later on he only followed the money and the popularity, flat out saying:
“I really prefer making adventure movies like Rio to the intellectual movies of Alain Resnais or Alain Robbe-Grillet.”–Jean-Paul Belmondo, The New York Times, 1964
Jean-Claude Romer was a French actor, film critic and film historian.
He was editor-in-chief of French film magazine Midi Minuit Fantastique (1962 – 1971), the first magazine dedicated to genre cinema and cinema fantastique.
It has come to my attention that the first issue of Midi Minuit Fantastique is online in full at Archive.org[1].
That issue is dedicated to Terence Fisher, who still seems to be a bit underrated and of whose film The Stranglers of Bombay it is said:
“More clearly than any other Hammer effort, The Stranglers of Bombay lays bare the foundation of voyeurism, scopophilia, misogyny, castration anxiety, repression, sadomasochism, and “the male gaze” which informs the construction of Hammer’s output.”
The Charm of Evil: The Life and Films of Terence Fisher (1991) by Wheeler W. Dixon
One thing leading to another as they say, I stop here, because it is leading me too far.
Antón García Abril was a Spanish composer. In my universe he is known for the music he wrote for Spanish horror movies starring Paul Naschy.
On YouTube there is a scene from El hombre y la Tierra with music by Abril.
Antón García Abril’s death made me discover Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic (1985) by Randall D. Larson.
Larry King was an American talk show host iconic in the 1990s. He was called the father of talk show democracy and was instrumental in the development of infotainment.
His whole era is captured by the superb documentary Spin.
In that documentary, he can be seen talking to G. W. Bush on the merits of the drug Halcion at 5:40.
Jim Haynes was a cultural entrepreneur and leading member of the American-British underground. He was the co-founder of the Traverse Theatre in Scotland and International Times countercultural newspaper. He was also involved in Suck magazine and the Wet Dream Festival.
He was a source of fascination for me in the 1990s when my interest in the underground was at its highest.
There is very good footage of him in Naughty!, the amusing film in which he, somewhere backstage during the Wet Dream Festival, says:
“I’m just interested in freedom, extreme libertarianism, the right for anyone to see, eat and do whatever they want.”
and in true “make love, not war” style:
“Biafra children starving, that’s pornography.”
It is often said that history repeats itself. I wonder if the 1960s will repeat themselves. When? And are the 1960s a repetition of some previous libertarian era? I believe it has some elements unique to itself that will not be easily repeated. For one thing, the world has been globalized which makes all the circumstances different.
In accordance with the 1960s mythology of which Jim Haynes is part, by way of illustration of the repressive tolerance and ‘selling out’ concepts, I show above the advertising clip Jim Haynes recorded for Nestlé in order to promote their After Eight mints.
Remaining survivors born in 1933 in my book are Tinto Brass, Yoko Ono and Liliana Cavani.
Eddie Cooley was an American songwriter best known for co-writing “Fever” (1956).
That song has become a pop standard and is best known in the Peggy Lee rendition.
However, I I give you the version of The Cramps from their debut album Songs the Lord Taught Us (1980).
After all, as I explained before, I like all roads to lead to Rome, and The Cramps are central to my archive.
Krzysztof Penderecki was a Polish composer of 20th century classical music, a period characterized by the use of dissonance.
Outside of the classical music domain his music has been popular in horror films. The piece Polymorphia (1962) for example, is used in The Exorcist (1973) and in The Shining (1980).
And then there is his opera based on the book The Devils of Loudun (1952) by Aldous Huxley. The story of the Loudun possessions is highly remarkable and any occasion to bring it to your attention, shall be grasped.
Another covid-19 victim.
Manu Dibango was a Cameroonian saxophonist best-known for his composition “Soul Makossa” (1972), a crucial proto-disco recording.
I also had Gone Clear (1980) and Electric Africa (1985) in my collection.
Only today do I listen for the first time to the whole Soul Makossa (1972) album. I already was familiar with “New Bell” (which had been covered on the electro scene) but “Hibiscus” was new to me and totally exquisite.
Now that I listen to “Soul Makossa” today, I hear in the bassline resonances of acid house. Do you hear it too?