Tag Archives: RIP

RIP Gene Youngblood (1942 – 2021)

 Gene Youngblood is an American writer best known for his book Expanded Cinema (1970). The book is a typical product of 1960s counter-cultural utopianism.

Unidentified edition of ‘Expanded Cinema’.

Contrary to the usual 1960s utopianism, Youngblood’s utopianism is not focused on politics but on form.

Central to this book is the predicted advent of a new noosphere. Noosphere is a concept coined by Teilhard de Chardin (along with Vladimir Vernadsky).

RIP Patrick Juvet (1950 – 2021

“I Love America”

Patrick Juvet was a Swiss singer-songwriter who had a string of hit records in France (“Où sont les femmes?”) during the seventies.

He found international success with disco compositions such as “I Love America” (1978) which was his biggest record and was included on the compilation A Night at Studio 54 (1979).

Also in 1979, he wrote the soundtrack to Laura by David Hamilton.

By the early eighties, after the death of disco, his five minutes of fame were over.

RIP Nawal El Saadawi (1931 – 2021)

Nawal El Saadawi was an Egyptian feminist writer, activist, physician, and psychiatrist.

She wrote many books on the subject of women in Islam, paying particular attention to the practice of female genital mutilation in her society.

She described her mutilation in The Hidden Face of Eve (1977) in these words:

“Then suddenly the sharp metallic edge seemed to drop between my thighs and there cut off a piece of flesh from my body.”

[…]

“I did not know what they had cut off from my body, and I did not try to find out. I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them, as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few moments ago.”

RIP Antón García Abril (1933 – 2021)

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.

El hombre y la Tierra

Antón García Abril’s death made me discover Musique Fantastique: A Survey of Film Music in the Fantastic (1985) by Randall D. Larson.