sign in sign up
<<
Home , Barbarella (character), Christian Marquand, Claude Renoir, Comes a Horseman, David Hemmings, John Phillip Law

3 March 2015 (Series 30:6) , BARBARELLA (1968, 98 minutes)

Directed by Roger Vadim Written by Jean-Claude Forest (comic), Claude Brulé, (screenplay), Roger Vadim (screenplay), Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle Wood, Brian Degas, and Tudor Gates Produced by Music by Charles Fox Cinematography by Film Editing by Victoria Mercanton Production Design by Mario Garbuglia Costume Design by Jacques Fonteray and Paco Rabanne

Jane Fonda ... Barbarella John Phillip Law ... Pygar ... The Great Tyrant Milo O'Shea ... Concierge / Durand-Durand Marcel Marceau ... Professor Ping Games, 1976 Une femme fidèle, 1974 La jeune fille assassinée, Claude Dauphin ... President of Earth 1973 Don Juan (Or If Don Juan Were a Woman), 1972 Hellé, Véronique Vendell ... Captain Moon 1971 Pretty Maids All in a Row, 1968 Barbarella, 1966 The Giancarlo Cobelli Game Is Over, 1964 Circle of Love, 1963 , 1962 ... Captain Sun , 1961 Please, Not Now!, 1960 Blood and Nino Musco Roses, 1959 , 1958 The Night Heaven Franco Gulà Fell, 1957 , and 1956 ...And God Created Catherine Chevallier ... Stomoxys Woman. Marie Therese Chevallier ... Glossina

Umberto Di Grazia Terry Southern (writer, screenplay) (b. May 1, 1924 in David Hemmings ... Dildano Alvarado, Texas—d. October 29, 1995 (age 71) in New York ... Mark Hand City, New York) wrote 18 films and television shows, which are Vita Borg ... La magicienne 2007 Terry Southern's Plums and Prunes, 2004 Heavy Put-Away, Chantal Cachin ... La révolutionnaire 1998 Terry Southern Interviews a Faggot Male Nurse, 1988 The Fabienne Fabre ... La femme arbre Telephone, 1981-1982 “Saturday Night Live” (TV Series,

episodes), 1976 “The American Parade” (TV Mini-Series), 1970 Roger Vadim (director) (b. Roger Vladimir Plemiannikov, End of the Road, 1969 The Magic Christian, 1969 , January 26, 1928 in , France—d. February 11, 2000 (age 72) 1968 Candy, 1968 Barbarella, 1967 Don't Make Waves, 1967 in Paris, France) directed 31 films and television shows, Casino Royale, 1965 The Cincinnati Kid, 1965 The Loved One, including 1997 “Un coup de baguette magique” (TV Movie), 1965 The Collector, 1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to 1993 “Amour fou” (TV Movie), 1984 “Faerie Tale Theatre” (TV Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and 1958 “Armchair Series), 1983 Surprise Party, 1981 The Hot Touch, 1980 Night Theatre” (TV Series).

Vadim—BARBARELLA—2

Claude Renoir (cinematographer) (b. December 4, 1913 in which are 2011 4:44 Last Day on Earth, 2009 Napoli, Napoli, Paris, France—d. September 5, 1993 (age 79) in , Aube, Napoli, 2009 Chéri, 2007 Go Go Tales, 2007 Mister Lonely, France) was the cinematographer for 87 films, among them 2010 2002 Hideous Man (Short), 2001 “Absolutely Fabulous” (TV Afghanistan, 1979 The Medic, 1978 Attention, the Kids Are Series), 1998 Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis Watching, 1977 Animal, 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me, 1976 Une Bacon, 1976 Le berceau de cristal, 1970 Performance, 1969 femme fidèle, 1975 French Connection II, 1973 The Serpent, Michael Kohlhaas - Der Rebell, 1969 Dillinger Is Dead, 1969 1972 Hellé, 1972 Killer, 1971 The Burglars, 1971 The Heads (Short), 1968 Candy, 1968 Barbarella, 1968 Wonderwall, Horsemen, 1971 Swashbuckler, 1969 The Madwoman of and 1967 Degree of Murder. Chaillot, 1968 Barbarella, 1965 Marco the Magnificent, 1964 The Unvanquished, 1962 Marco Polo, 1961 Lafayette, 1960 Wasteland, 1959 Gorilla's Waltz, 1958 End of Desire, 1957 The Crucible, 1956 Crime and Punishment, 1956 Le mystère Picasso, 1955 A Missionary, 1954 Madame Butterfly, 1954 Maddalena, 1953 Puccini, 1952 , 1951 The River, 1950 Gunman in the Streets, 1949 Alice in Wonderland, 1947 Monsieur Vincent, 1947 La maison sous la mer, 1947 The Royalists, 1944 Bonsoir mesdames, bonsoir messieurs, 1938 Lumières de Paris, 1936 A Day in the Country, 1936 La vie est à nous, and 1935 Toni.

Jane Fonda ... Barbarella (b. Lady Jayne Seymour Fonda, December 21, 1937 in New York City, New York) won 2 , both for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the first in 1972 for (1971), and the second in 1979 for Coming Home (1978). She appeared in 53 films and television shows, including 2015 “Grace and Frankie” (TV Series, 13 episodes), 2012-2014 “The Newsroom” (TV Series, 10 episodes), 2014 Better Living Through Chemistry, 2013 Lee Daniels' The Butler, Milo O'Shea ... Concierge / Durand-Durand (b. Milo Donal 2005 Monster-in-Law, 1990 Stanley & Iris, 1989 Old Gringo, O'shea, June 2, 1926 in Dublin, Irish Free State (now Ireland)— 1986 The Morning After, 1985 Agnes of God, 1981 Rollover, d. April 2, 2013 (age 86) in Manhattan, New York City, New 1981 On Golden Pond, 1980 Nine to Five, 1979 The Electric York) appeared in 93 films and television shows, including 2003- Horseman, 1979 The China Syndrome, 1978 California Suite, 2004 “The West Wing” (TV Series), 2003 Mystics, 2002 1978 Comes a Horseman, 1978 Coming Home, 1977 Julia, 1977 Puckoon, 1999 “Oz” (TV Series), 1997 The MatchMaker, 1991 Fun with Dick and Jane, 1976 The Blue Bird, 1973 A Doll's Only the Lonely, 1985 , 1982 The House, 1973 Steelyard Blues, 1971 Klute, 1969 They Shoot Verdict, 1981 The Pilot, 1974 “Microbes and Men” (TV Series), Horses, Don't They?, 1968 Barbarella, 1968 , 1974 It's Not the Size That Counts, 1973 Theatre of Blood, 1973 1967 Barefoot in the Park, 1967 Hurry Sundown, 1966 Any Anyone for Sex?, 1968-1971 “Me Mammy” (TV Series, 21 Wednesday, 1966 The Chase, 1965 Cat Ballou, 1964 Circle of episodes), 1971 Sacco & Vanzetti, 1970 The Angel Levine, 1968 Love, 1963 Sunday in New York, 1962 Period of Adjustment, Barbarella, 1968 Romeo and Juliet, 1967 Ulysses, 1963 Carry 1962 The Chapman Report, 1962 Walk on the Wild Side, and on Cabby, 1957-1958 “Armchair Theatre” (TV Series), 1951 1961 “A String of Beads” (TV Movie). Talk of a Million, and 1940 Blackout.

John Phillip Law ... Pygar (b. September 7, 1937 in Los Marcel Marceau ... Professor Ping (b. Marcel Mangel, March Angeles, California—d. May 13, 2008 (age 70) in , 22, 1923 in Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France—d. September 22, California) appeared in 85 films, some of which are 2008 2007 (age 84) in Cahors, Lot, France) appeared in 18 films and Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves, 2004 The Three television show, which are 1998 Joseph's Gift, 1989 Paganini, Faces of Terror, 2001 CQ, 1997 “Spider-Man” (TV Series), 1986 Elogio della pazzia, 1983 The Islands, 1983 “Red Skelton's 1996 Hindsight, 1993 Angel Eyes, 1990 Alienator, 1988 Blood More Funny Faces” (TV Movie), 1976 Silent Movie, 1974 Delirium, 1988 Striker, 1985 Rainy Day , 1985 “Murder, Shanks, 1968 Barbarella, 1967 Ego zvali Robert, 1966 It, 1961- She Wrote” (TV Series), 1983 Tin Man, 1981 , the Ape 1966 “The Red Skelton Hour” (TV Series), 1959 Die schöne Man, 1977 Eyes Behind the Wall, 1976 The Cassandra Crossing, Lügnerin, 1956 Pantomimes, 1955 In the Park, 1954 “Der 1975 The Spiral Staircase, 1973 The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Mantel” (TV Movie), 1954 The Anatomy of Love, 1951 Journal 1971 , 1970 The Hawaiians, 1968 The Sergeant, masculin, and 1947 La bague. 1968 Barbarella, 1967 Death Rides a Horse, 1967 Hurry Sundown, 1966 The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are David Hemmings ... Dildano (b. David Leslie Edward Coming, 1964 High Infidelity, and 1951 Show Boat. Hemmings, November 18, 1941 in , , — d. December 3, 2003 (age 62) in Bucharest, ) appeared Anita Pallenberg ... The Great Tyrant (b. January 25, 1944 in in 116 films and television shows, among them 2007 Romantik, Rome, Lazio, Italy) has appeared in 17 films and TV shows, 2004 Blessed, 2003 The Night We Called It a Day, 2003 The Vadim—BARBARELLA—3

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 2002 “Lenny Blue” (TV VADIM, ROGER (Roger Vadim Plemiannikov) French director, Movie), 2002 , 2002 Equilibrium, 2002 scenarist. producer, and actor, was born in Paris, the son of Igor “Waking the Dead” (TV Series), 2002 “Slap Shot 2: Breaking Plemmiannikov and the former Marie-Antoinette Ardilouze. His the Ice” (Video), 2002 “Murder in Mind” (TV Series), 2001 father, of Russian birth, was a member of the French diplomatic Mean Machine, 2000 Gladiator, 1992 “Northern Exposure” (TV corps, and his career took the family to Palestine, Egypt, and Series), 1991 “L.A. Law” (TV Series), 1989 The Rainbow, 1985- Turkey during Vadim’s childhood. In December 1937 Igor 1987 “Magnum, P.I.” (TV Series), 1987 “Murder, She Wrote” Plemianikov collapsed suddenly at breakfast one morning (in his (TV Series), 1985 “The A-Team” (TV Series), 1983 Man, son’s presence) and died the following day. Vadim’s mother was Woman and Child, 1981 Prisoners, 1980 “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. left penniless with a young son and daughter to raise, and the Hyde” (TV Movie), 1979 Murder by Decree, 1977 The family endured considerable hardships during the war and the Disappearance, 1977 The Prince and the Pauper, 1977 Islands German occupation. For a time they lived in the French Alps, an in the Stream, 1975 “A Dream of Living” (TV Movie), 1974 experience Vadim drew on many years later in Hellé, Even then Lola, 1970 Fragment of Fear, 1968 Barbarella, 1967 , he was an expert skier, and on one occasion was nearly killed in 1966 Blow-Up, 1964 The Girl-Getters, 1963 “Taxi!” (TV an unsuccessful attempt to guide a Jewish fugitive across the Series), 1963 Two Left Feet, 1961 “Home Tonight” (TV Series, mountains into Switzerland. His mother, who was a communist, 38 episodes), 1961 The Wind of Change, 1959 No Trees in the lived with and later married an architect active in the Resistance. Street, 1957 Five Clues to Fortune, 1957 Saint Joan, and 1954 The best that can be said of Vadim’s education is that it The Rainbow Jacket. He also directed 28 films and TV episodes. was varied. According to Who’s Who in France he attended an assortment of state and private schools and colleges in Morzin, Ugo Tognazzi ... Mark Hand (b. Ottavio Tognazzi, March 23, Toulon, Nice, Cannes, Alés, Thonon-les-Bains, and Annemasse. 1922 in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy—d. October 27, 1990 (age For a time, contemplating a career in the foreign service, he 68) in Rome, Lazio, Italy) appeared in 149 films and TV shows, studied oriental languages, but soon lost interest and turned to the including 1991 “Una famiglia in ” (TV Movie), 1990 La theatre. From 1944 to 1946 he studied and acted with Charles batalla de los Tres Reyes, 1989 Tolérance, 1988 Days of Dullin in Paris. Vadim is said to have been a poor actor, but he Inspector Ambrosio, 1988 The Last Minute, 1986 Yiddish “was gifted with a power of self-analysis beyond his years, with Connection, 1985 La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding, 1984 a burning desire to impress himself on the world, as actor, writer, Bertoldo, Bertoldino, and Cascacenno, 1981 Tragedy of a director.” Ridiculous Man, 1980 La cage aux folles II, 1979 Traffic Jam, The film director Marc Allégret took Vadim on in 1947, 1978 First Love, 1975 My Friends, 1973 La Grande Bouffe, 1971 first as an actor, then as his personal assistant in In the Name of the Italian People, 1969 Satyricon, 1968 (1947), Maria Chapdelaine (1950), La Demoiselle et son Barbarella, 1968 Torture Me But Kill Me with Kisses, 1967 The revenant (1951), and other films. “Vadim is enormously Climax, 1965 Menage Italian Style, 1965 Run for Your Wife, cultivated,” Allégret has said. He has no formal education to 1964 The Magnificent Cuckold, 1963 The Conjugal Bed, 1963 speak of, though I think he passed the first part of his The Shortest Day, 1962 Always on Sunday, 1961 The Fascist, baccalauréat, but he reads a lot. He showed me his first short 1960 Love, the Italian Way, 1960 My Friend, Dr. Jekyll, 1959 La stories, which were surrealist and aggressively committed to the duchessa di Santa Lucia, 1951 La paura fa 90, and 1950 I cadetti Left….Vadim lived here and there on very little money. Once I di Guascogna. sent him to Sweden to make some sketches for a film set. He did the job but didn’t return. I discovered he’d met a flyer going north, and in turn the captain of a whaling boat, and off he had gone for a week. He’s full of possibilities but he’s lazy.” In1952-1954 Vadim was a journalist on Paris-Match, but he continued to work for Allégret as an assistant and also as scenarist on various inconsequential movies. He had already met a young cover girl named , and it seems that he took the Paris-Match job in order to convince her middle-class parents that he was capable of earning a regular wage. They were married in 1952, and with Vadim’s encouragement Bardot began to appear in movies, including one of those he wrote for Allegret. Futures vedettes (1955). At about this time Vadim persuaded a producer named Raoul Lévy to back him in a film of his own, with Bardot as his star. Lévy had more ambition than capital, but managed to scrape together enough to finance Et Dieu créa la femme (And God Created Woman, 1956). Bardot had already begun to make a name for herself as an insolently sexy starlet. She appears in her husband’s first film as an insouciant and unconventional young woman who has an affair with her husband’s older brother, is agonized by guilt, and From World Film Directors, V. II. Ed. John Wakeman. The in the end, after her husband has beaten up his brother and H. W. Wilson Company, NY, 1988 slapped her, gratefully returns to him. Vadim and Lévy are Vadim—BARBARELLA—4

credited as scriptwriters, but the dialogue is said to have been and letters, and there is a jazz score by Thelonius Monk, Art largely improvised. Prettily photographed on location in St. Blakey, and others. Tropez by Armand Thirard, in color and CinemaScope, the Les Liaisons dangereuses 1960 is about a sophisticated movie has x=excellent performances from Jean-Louis Trintignant couple who encourage each other’s infidelities for the voyeuristic as the husband, as the brother, and Curt pleasure of discussing them. The story, at first ironic and witty, Jurgens as a St. Tropez bar owner. darkens to demonstrate the wages of sin, and ends with the Reviewers credited Vadim with “a sharp eye for social husband murdered and the wife disfigured. Gérard Philipe was behavior and a wry sense of humor,” and liked his sympathetic considered too likable to do justice to the role of Valmont, but portrayal of youthful amorality. It was was magnificent as not these qualities that earned the film Juliette, and Annette Stroyberg made a its huge international success, however, creditable and decorative attempt at the but Bardot’s beauty, her sulky part of Marianne Tournel, driven to sexuality, and her willingness to take madness by Valmont’s heartless off more than the cinema in those days manipulations. generally allowed. The movie made Few critics took the film’s over four million dollars in the United moral pretensions very seriously, and States alone, and established Bardot some admirers of the novel called it a both as an international star and as the travesty, but most reviewers were kind of cultural phenomenon that is agreeably surprised by the quality of the dismissed by social as well as film adaptation. Dilys Powell thought it “no critics. For a time, presumably because more than the equivalent of playing of his use of location shooting and a Shakespeare in modern dress” and degree of improvisation, Vadim was concluded that “the formal passion and associated by critics with the nouvelle the diabolical mischief—and a great deal vague. It soon became clear that his of text—are preserved.” Shot in black interests were almost exclusively and white by Marcel Grignon, the movie commercial, but there is no doubt that was also praised for its visual elegance, the success of his first picture helped to and it remains the most admired of smooth the way for the New Wave, proving to the French Vadim’s films. At the box office it was even more successful, financiers that young filmmakers working outside the studio thanks partly to the fact that the French censors at first banned it system were capable of making them a great deal of money. for export, then relented when the picture was at the height of its Sait-on jamais? (When the Devil Drives/No Sun in notoriety. Venice 1957), set in Venice in winter, was also handsomely Stroyberg appeared again in Et Mourir de plaisir (Blood photographed by Thirard. Vadim wanted “a Venice that would be and Roses, 1960), with an international cast including Mel blue and green, a little like the photos of Ernst Haas. Therefore I Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, and Vadim’s mentor Marc Allégret. A consistently underexposed my Eastman color.” The film is based vampire movie with overtones, it was loosely based on on an unpublished novel by Vadim himself, but in transposing Sheridan Le Fanu’s story “Carmilla.” Roy Armes thought that it the action from Paris to Venice, he was obliged, he says, to “showed Vadim working with unaccustomed subject matter, but borrow from another novel “a story of counterfeit money which I the qualities of the completed film are those one associates with myself never understood.” There is a fine score by the Modern the director: elegance and visual polish, with sumptuous settings Jazz Quartet and a generous measure of eroticism (supplied here and some outstanding colour photography by Claude Renoir, but by Françoise Arnoul), and the result is a generally palatable none ot the narrative drive or sense of poetry needed to bring the confection, if somewhat confusing. Les Bijoutiers du clair de tale of vampirism fully to life.” lune (Heaven Fell That Night, 1958), Vadim’s third movie, was a At about this time Vadim was engulfed or bathed in one total failure, critically and commercially, in spite of the presence of he waves of scandal that periodically break over him. Annette of Bardot. Stroyberg left him, returned briefly, then fled again into the arms By the time it appeared, Bardot had left Vadim to marry of the ubiquitous Sacha Distel. After an emotional exchange of the singer Sacha Distel, and Vadim—“the real-life Svengali,” letters and declarations in the popular press, she returned, albeit “the Pygmalion of sex”—was grooming another young cover girl temporarily, to her husband (just like the heroine of Et Dieu créa to replace her. This was Annette Stroyberg, whom he married in la femme). In 1961 Vadim agreed (at Bardot’s request) to 1958 and who appears in his next film. Hoping perhaps to complete La Bride sut le cou (Only for Love), a film begun by recapture the waning interest of the serious critics (without losing Jean Aurel as his directorial debut. The news created a fresh his sensation-hungry paying customers), Vadim chose to film furor, earning Vadim the furious resentment of the nouvelle Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, a literary classic which vague. David Robinson called the result “old-time French farce had been considered pornographic when it was first published in erotic farce, with a thin, shabby veil of New Wave 1782. He adaptation, by Vadim and Roger Vailland, translates contemporaneity.” the action to present-day Paris, Deauville (out of season), and a After contributing one of the episodes to the ski resort. Cars and tape recorders are substituted for carriages compilation film Les Sept péchés capitaux (1962), Vadim made Le Repos du guerrier (Warrior’s Rest, 1962). Adapted by Vadim Vadim—BARBARELLA—5

and Claude Choublier from Christiane Rochefort’s novel, it is an between “the disturbance of this psychopathic killer” and “the unconvincing account of an affair between a shy young violence and anxiety…accepted as normal in very many of the bourgeoise (Bardot) and an antisocial alcoholic () aspects of the life that surrounds the developing young.” Other whom she saves from suicide. Le Vice et la Vertue (Vice and reviewers reacted very differently, however, and Andrew Sarris Virtue, 1962), based vaguely on de Sade, is a squalid and foolish called it “one of the stupidest movies ever made by a director of film about a “pleasure castle” for Nazi officers. It introduced—as non-stupid movies” as well as “a very vicious movie, as much the incorruptible Justine—Vadim’s latest protégée, Catherine anti-stud as anti-woman.” Deneuve, to whom he was at one time engaged and by whom he Vadim worked again with Bardot in Don Juan 1973, has a child. Château en Suéde, adapted by Françoise Sagan from which he calls “a disaster; in fact, the only film I ever regret.” her own hit play, was another critical failure, in spite of a cast The director himself stars in La Jeune Fille assassiné (Charlotte, that included , Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Louis 1974), in which a highbrow essayist write a book about the Trintignant, and Curt Jurgens. There was an equally cold murder of a girl and then has to confront her killer. The director reception for La Ronde (Circle of Love, 1964), a redundant Alexandre Astruc also appears in the movie, which was another remake of the Ophuls classic, failure, as was Une Femme fidèle written by Jean Anouilh and (A Faithful Woman, 1976) The photographed by Henri Decaë latter was Vadim’s own remake but found “leaden and of Les Liaisons dangereuses tedious.” (1960), this time with Sylvia Jane Fonda, who Kristel, , and Natalie appeared in La Ronde, starred Delon, and it was universally in La Curée (1966), a agreed that he should have left superficial adaptation of a well enough alone. Night Games Zola novel. She became (1980) is a piece of nonsense Vadim’s latest sex object or about a frigid Beverly Hills subject and in 1967, after his housewife whose sexual problems spectacular divorce from are resolved by nightly visits Annette Stroyberg, his third from an (imaginary?) lover- wife. (“Once you have incubus-sex therapist. This was created something, once you Vadim’s second American movie have taught a woman how to and introduced Cindy Pickett, his be free, she gets away from newest discovery. you,” Vadim complained to Roy Armes writes that an interviewer.) “Metzengerstein,” an episode in Histoires the chief characteristic of Vadim’s work is “a considerable extraordinaires (1967) was followed by Barbarella (1968), surface brilliance. He has worked almost entirely in colour and adapted by Terry Southern and others from the wide screen and achieved a fie understanding with his directors spoof by Jean-Claude Forest. of photography, notably Armand Thirard…Claude Renoir and The best of Vadim’s later films, Barbarella is about the Henri Decaë….Vadim has a positive dislike for the kind of adventures of a space-traveling Candide (Jane Fonda) whose realism that embraces anything sordid or dirty, so that his search for a missing scientist (Milo O’Shea) brings her to a characters are glossily removed form the problems and pressures strange planet where she becomes involved in a revolutionary of real life. Politics and social questions do not affect him, but he struggle against the Black Queen. Anita Pallenberg is the has always possessed a sure instinct for what is fashionable and wonderfully depraved queen and David Hemmings is an up-to-date….He has revealed to us the naked charms of a incompetent revolutionary. Barbarella is attacked by dolls with succession of beautiful young women, mostly his wives or metal teeth, pecked at by birds, and racked by the mad scientist mistresses, and dealt in a characteristic way with his sexual on a machine which is supposed to intensify erotic sensation until themes: avoiding depth, glossily covering up unpalatable facts, it causes death (but which in fact blows out in the face of the relying on star performances and technical polish to disguise his heroine’s superior sexual resources). A happy ending is lack of interest in psychological truth.” Derek Prouse allows that engineered by an angel cured by Barbarella of his fear of flying. Vadim is often startlingly original in the composition of his Jane Fonda, who was reportedly worried about the film’s explicit shots, but agrees that he is otherwise no more than “an elegant sexism, nevertheless played her part with wide-eyed gusto and in titillator.” Liz-Anne Bawden, somewhat less hostile, concludes an assortment of plastic dishabilles, and this witty mixture of that Vadim’s “undoubted intelligence and wit are usually put at magic, religion, politics, science fiction, and eroticism was the service of ephemeral material, but his work reflects his inventively photographed by Claude Renoir. unaffected enjoyment of filmmaking.” Vadim’s first American film followed, Pretty Maids All There has been much serious and pseudo-serous in a Row (1971). This black comedy stars as a high discussion of Vadim’s role as “the Pygmalion of sex”—the man school football coach and guidance counselor, loved and admired who “created” Bardot and her successors. A writer in the New by all, who falls into the habit of strangling his young protégés. Statesman suggests that his “desire to arouse envy has made The British critic David Robinson found the film “very funny” Vadim an exhibitionist of an unusual kind, which found and was interested and impressed by the implied connection expression in his first film. By screening his wife in a succession Vadim—BARBARELLA—6

of scenes, he sought to arouse in the men who saw it this film as though I had arrived on a strange planet with my the desire to possess the baby vamp and so—this is the point—to camera directly on my shoulder—as though I was a reporter be in her husband’s place.” Caroline Moorhead, reviewing doing a newsreel.” Vadim’s autobiography Memoirs of the Devil, called it “180 pages of women’s magazine philosophy about the trials of being “What interests me is the chance to escape from the morals of the involved with some of the world’s most beautiful women, all of 20th century and depict a new, futuristic morality,” added Vadim. whom, ultimately, are found wanting.” “It’s a very romantic story, really. Barbarella has no sense of Vadim was divorced from Jane Fonda, apparently guilt about her body. I wanted to make something beautiful out finding her increasing political commitments tedious (“It is one of eroticism.” of the diseases of the past decade. The world has become so serious.”). He was married for the fourth time to Catherine Vadim loves science fiction and he’s gotten me interested,” said Schneider, daughter of an industrialist, who had no desire to Fonda. “In a way, cinema is the natural medium for it, but up to become an actress; that marriage also ended in divorce. Vadim’s now the technical gimmicks have been treated as the raison marriage to Annette Stroyberg, Jane Fonda, and Catherine d’etre of the science fiction film. As an actress, I’m more Schneider each produced a daughter, and he has a son by concerned about the story, and the character.” . Vadim is said to have “a sleepy seductive aura” and “a soft, deep voice,” as well as a “bony, gaunt face” Vadim later elaborated: which “lights up with a smile of great charm.” He enjoys skiing “I can tell you all the things she won’t be. She won’t be and chess. In 1983 he published a novel, The Hungry Angel, an a science fiction character, nor will she play Barbarella tongue in autobiographical work set in France at the end of world War II, cheek. She is just a lovely, average girl with a terrific space whose hero, Julien, a budding actor-director, is a womanizing record and a lovely body. I am not going to inetllectualise her. hedonist. Reviewers found the story thin and melodramatic, Although there is going to be a bit of satire about our morals and “more cinematic than literary.” More recently Vadim has our ethics, the picture is going to be more of a spectacle than a published a book about his wives, Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda: My cerebral exercise for a few way out intellectuals. She is going to Life With the Most Beautiful women in the World (1986), which be an uninhibited girl, not being weighed down by thousands and was viewed as entertaining but narcissistic and indiscreet. thousands of years of Puritan education.”

Fonda explained how she saw the character: “The main thing about this role is to keep her innocent. You see, Barbarella is not a vamp and her sexuality is not measured by the rules of our society. She is not being promiscuous, but she follows the natural reaction of another type of upbringing. She is not a so-called ‘sexually liberated woman’ either. That would mean rebellion against something. She is different. She was born free.”

Her father, Henry Fonda, was the original choice for the President of Earth.

Writing A large number of writers worked on the script, including Terry Southern. Southern late claimed “Vadim wasn’t particularly From Wikipedia Barbarella (film) interested in the script, but he was a lot of fun, with a discerning eye for the erotic, grotesque, and the absurd. And Jane Fonda Development was super in all regards.” Producer Dino de Laurentiis invited Fonda to the project after Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot turned down the starring role. Charles B. Griffith worked on the script uncredited; he said “they Though Fonda also declined, Vadim convinced her to change her hired fourteen other writers” after Terry Southern “before they mind. got to me. I didn’t get credit because I was the last one.” He says he became involved because he was a friend of John Philip Vadim was a fan of American comic strips such as Popeye and Law’s: Peanuts. “I like the wild humour and impossible exaggeration of “I guess I rewrote about a quarter of the film that was the comic strips,” said Vadim. “I want to do something in that shot, then reshot, and I added the concept that there had been myself in my next film.” thousands of years since violence existed, so that Barbarella was very clumsy all through the picture. She shot herself in the foot “It is absolutely camp, sophisticated camp, the wildest of them and everything. It was pretty ludicrous. The stuff with Claude all,” said Fonda. Dauphin and the suicide room were also part of my contribution to the film.” “In science fiction, technology is everything,” said Vadim. “The characters are so boring—they have no psychology. I want to do Shooting Vadim—BARBARELLA—7

Production began in 1967 in Rome on 15 April 1967. about you… ( the hell that means.) You’d be hard- pressed to find a more ridiculous (or for Fonda, more Fashion designer Paco Rabanne was responsible for Fonda’s embarrassing) moment in cinema over the past 50 years. But I costumes. Rabanne was influence by the women’s liberation guarantee that you’ll never forget it. Obviously Mike Myers movement and designed outfits in the style of metal armor, didn’t — he lifted whole chunks of Barbarella for his retro- drawing influence from an Indian philosophy that posited an age obsessed Austin Powers flicks. And let’s not overlook Simon Le of iron. Bon & Co., who named their Brit pop band after one of the film’s main characters, Milo O’Shea’s Durand-Durand. Vadim said during filming that “Paramount has left me completely free, and so has DeLaurentiis, who is known as a J.-C. Forest, 68, Cartoonist Who Dreamt Up 'Barbarella' tyrant.” PARIS, Jan. 2, NY Times, January 3, 1999 Jean-Claude Forest, who created the sultry science fiction comic strip character Barbarella and designed sets for the 1968 movie starring Jane Fonda, died Wednesday in a hospital near Paris. He was 68. The cause was a respiratory illness, said Helen Werle, spokeswoman for the publisher Editions Dargaud. The film of ''Barbarella'' inspired fashion designers, the 80's pop group Duran Duran, which took its name from a character in the movie, and the creators of other comic strip heroines. After success with the youthful adventure comic strip ''Bicot,'' Mr. Forest created Barbarella, the seductive 41st-century adventuress, in April 1962, ''to amuse myself,'' he said. She first appeared that year in V Magazine as a futuristic barbarian, seducing androids on the planet Lythion. Chris Nashawaty, on Entertainment Weekly: Though published in other languages, the series was Jane Fonda has been nominated for seven Oscars and won two of initially censored in France, barred from advertising or sale to them. Needless to say, you don’t get a résumé like that without minors until the early 1970's. having pretty sound instincts. But those instincts took a holiday ''Barbarella'' tested the limits of French censorship, Guy for a brief moment in the late ’60s when Fonda turned down both Vidal, director of comic strips at Dargaud, said in a telephone Bonnie and Clyde and Rosemary’s Baby to star in Barbarella interview. ''There have been those who helped unlock (1968, PG, 1 hr., 38 mins.). Directed by her then husband, Roger censorship,'' he said. ''Forest was one of them.'' Vadim, Barbarella left critics with their jaws in their laps. The It was not until the producer Dino de Laurentiis bought New York Times’ Renata Adler called it a ”special kind of mess.” the film rights to ''Barbarella'' that the character gained world She wasn’t wrong. The film is a silly intergalactic bonbon about fame. The film also helped ignite Jane Fonda's movie career. a sexed-up space adventuress in the year 40000 tasked with The movie, directed by Roger Vadim, her husband, was saving the galaxy from a war-hungry scientist who’s released in June 1968, just after the May social upheaval in masterminded a weapon that threatens centuries of peace and France, which reflected the revolt against traditional French love. But here’s the thing: Barbarella is my kind of mess. And morality. Mr. Forest designed most of the sets for the production, I’m not alone. Over the years, the futuristic fantasia has become which was shot in Rome. a camp classic — a sort of swinging-’60s Alice in Wonderland Ms. Fonda's shiny, form-fitting space age outfits stirred with lots of half-baked jokes about drugs, , and military the imaginations of designers. Barbarella-style creations by Jean- interventionism. And while the trippy-dippy screenplay from Paul Gaultier were featured in the 1997 film ''The Fifth Element.'' Vadim and Terry Southern is so thin you could roll a joint with Mr. Forest sketched his first comic strip as a 19-year-old it, Barbarella remains one of the grooviest-looking films you’ll student at art school. He began his career with ''Le Vaisseau ever lay your eyes on, especially in the breathtaking new Blu-ray Hante,'' or ''The Haunted Ship,'' published by Elan. In 1950, he edition. The foxy Fonda hopscotches from one bizarre space became illustrator for such publication lines as Le Livre de Poche locale to another, getting pawed by horny aliens while coyly and Voila. twirling her hair and modeling a kinky array of vinyl go-go Mr. Forest's last ''Barbarella'' episode was published in boots, see-through Lucite bustiers, and high-tech weapons that 1981. look like they were stolen from Boba Fett. Along the way, she After years of censorship, the French Government gets pulled on a sled by a manta ray, flies on the back of a blind rehabilitated Mr. Forest, having him represent the country's bare-chested angel, and gets attacked by both samurai cavemen comic strip artists abroad beginning in 1976. He was honored in and marching porcelain dolls with razor-sharp metal teeth. Still, 1984 with the Grand Prize of Angouleme, site of an annual the highlight of the film has to be its infamous opening-credits comic strip festival. sequence, where Fonda performs a full-monty zero-gravity He is survived by his wife, Petra, a sculptor who lives in striptease in her shag-carpeted pink spaceship as her theme song Paris, and a son, Julien. kicks in: Barbarella, psychedella, there’s a kinda cockle shell Vadim—BARBARELLA—8

The online PDF files of these handouts have color images

Coming up in the Spring 2015 Buffalo Film Seminars Mar 10 Bob Fosse, All That Jazz, 1979 Mar 24 George Miller, Mad Max, 1979 Mar 31 Karel Reisz, The French Lieutenant’s Woman, 1981 Apr 7 Gregory Nava, El Norte, 1983 Apr 14 Bryan Singer, The Usual Suspects, 1995 Apr 21 Bela Tarr, Werkmeister Harmonies, 2000 Apr 28 Sylvain Chomet, The Triplets of Belleville, 2003 May 5 Joel and Ethan Coen, No Country for Old Men, 2007

CONTACTS: ...email Diane Christian: [email protected] …email Bruce Jackson [email protected] ...for the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com ...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] ....for cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the Market Arcade Film & Arts Center and State University of New York at Buffalo with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News