A 1833 novel by Petrus Borel: Champavert, contes immoraux

Champavert : Contes immoraux (1833) – Pétrus Borel [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK] – more …

A 1974 film by Walerian Borowczyk. Tagline: “You don’t have to go to a museum to see an X-rated Picasso”.

Immoral Tales (1974) – Walerian Borowczyk [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK] more …

A 1994 non fiction book Immoral Tales: European Sex & Horror Movies 1956-1984 by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, that won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction. The book covers European Cinema with profiles of Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, José Larraz, José Bénazéraf, Walerian Borowczyk and Alain Robbe-Grillet.

Immoral Tales: Sex And Horror Cinema In Europe 1956-1984 (1994) – Cathal Tohill & Pete Tombs [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK] more …

Immorality is poised on the brink of good/evil, psychopathology and morality.

To the creator of films as well as other forms of literature, the dark side of human nature has often proved more rich and interesting than the bright. Films and books on the lives of saints have not been as popular as murder mysteries and works of horror. While we may have no desire to experience them in our own lives, terrible deeds and evil people exert their perverse attraction on our psyches. We who consider ourselves moral and upright are often fascinated by the behavior of the pitiless, merciless, and guiltless psychopath. Like a magnificent black panther: powerful, dangerous, and alien, the psychopathic character can have a dark, perfect beauty that simultaneously attracts and repels us. –Gordon Banks [1]

The last quote by Gordon Banks reminds me very much chapter four in Aristotle’s Poetics which explains our attraction to the horrific when fiction is concerned. Why we like things which are painful.

Depending on the translation Aristotle states:

• Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity: such as the forms of the most ignoble animals and of dead bodies. –sourced here. [Aug 2005]
• for we enjoy looking at accurate likenesses of things which are themselves painful to see, obscene beasts, for instance, and corpses. –sourced here. [Aug 2005]

See also: ambivalence – art horror – representation