John Exshaw.3
Page 27 JESS FRANCO, or THE MISFORTUNES OF VIRTUE John Exshaw El sueño de la razon produce monstruos (The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters) Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Los Caprichos, plate 43, (17971798) In his book, Jess Franco: El sexo del horror, the Spanish film historian Carlos Aguilar closes a chapter with the following remark: “It is really true that, in his own way, Jesus Franco represents a damn peculiar case . .” (1) That Jess Franco can produce such a perplexed (and exasperated) response in a compatriot who was, after all, engaged in writing a booklength biographical and critical overview goes some way to illustrate the difficulties encountered in trying to come to grips with Jesús Franco Manera, a director whose staggering output of something like 180 films in fortyfive years contrives to make words like ‘maverick’, ‘obsessive’, ‘enigma’, or even ‘deranged’, seem sadly inadequate. Some might question whether it is worth “coming to grips” with Franco at all. His detractors are legion, and, despite the publication of three serious studies (2) and a veritable host of admiring magazine articles, it is fair to say that Franco and his films still fly well below the radar of respectable critical attention; considered, when considered at all, to be beneath both notice and contempt. In part, of course, this attitude is simply a hangover from what might be termed ‘La Plus longue nuit des auteurs’, the Cahiers du Cinémainspired revolution which, having done sterling work in elevating the importance of the Seventh Art, then proceeded, like an earlier French Revolution, to overstay its welcome, descending into a kind of intellectual Terror in which certain directors of genre films were elevated to the Pantheon (particularly if they laboured in the more obscure depths of the Hollywood system) while others (mainly European) were simply ignored.
[Show full text]