Roger Vadim, BARBARELLA (1968, 98 minutes)

3 March 2015 (Series 30:6)
Roger Vadim, BARBARELLA (1968, 98 minutes)
Directed by Roger Vadim
Written by Jean-Claude Forest (comic), Claude Brulé, Terry
Southern (screenplay),
Roger Vadim (screenplay), Vittorio Bonicelli, Clement Biddle
Wood, Brian Degas, and Tudor Gates
Produced by Dino De Laurentiis
Music by Charles Fox
Cinematography by Claude Renoir
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
Anita Pallenberg ... The Great Tyrant
Milo O'Shea ... Concierge / Durand-Durand
Marcel Marceau ... Professor Ping
Claude Dauphin ... President of Earth
Véronique Vendell ... Captain Moon
Giancarlo Cobelli
Serge Marquand ... Captain Sun
Nino Musco
Franco Gulà
Catherine Chevallier ... Stomoxys
Marie Therese Chevallier ... Glossina
Umberto Di Grazia
David Hemmings ... Dildano
Ugo Tognazzi ... Mark Hand
Vita Borg ... La magicienne
Chantal Cachin ... La révolutionnaire
Fabienne Fabre ... La femme arbre
Roger Vadim (director) (b. Roger Vladimir Plemiannikov,
January 26, 1928 in Paris, France—d. February 11, 2000 (age 72)
in Paris, France) directed 31 films and television shows,
including 1997 “Un coup de baguette magique” (TV Movie),
1993 “Amour fou” (TV Movie), 1984 “Faerie Tale Theatre” (TV
Series), 1983 Surprise Party, 1981 The Hot Touch, 1980 Night
Games, 1976 Une femme fidèle, 1974 La jeune fille assassinée,
1973 Don Juan (Or If Don Juan Were a Woman), 1972 Hellé,
1971 Pretty Maids All in a Row, 1968 Barbarella, 1966 The
Game Is Over, 1964 Circle of Love, 1963 Vice and Virtue, 1962
Love on a Pillow, 1961 Please, Not Now!, 1960 Blood and
Roses, 1959 Les liaisons dangereuses, 1958 The Night Heaven
Fell, 1957 No Sun in Venice, and 1956 ...And God Created
Woman.
Terry Southern (writer, screenplay) (b. May 1, 1924 in
Alvarado, Texas—d. October 29, 1995 (age 71) in New York
City, New York) wrote 18 films and television shows, which are
2007 Terry Southern's Plums and Prunes, 2004 Heavy Put-Away,
1998 Terry Southern Interviews a Faggot Male Nurse, 1988 The
Telephone, 1981-1982 “Saturday Night Live” (TV Series,
episodes), 1976 “The American Parade” (TV Mini-Series), 1970
End of the Road, 1969 The Magic Christian, 1969 Easy Rider,
1968 Candy, 1968 Barbarella, 1967 Don't Make Waves, 1967
Casino Royale, 1965 The Cincinnati Kid, 1965 The Loved One,
1965 The Collector, 1964 Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and 1958 “Armchair
Theatre” (TV Series).
Vadim—BARBARELLA—2
Claude Renoir (cinematographer) (b. December 4, 1913 in
Paris, France—d. September 5, 1993 (age 79) in Troyes, Aube,
France) was the cinematographer for 87 films, among them 2010
Afghanistan, 1979 The Medic, 1978 Attention, the Kids Are
Watching, 1977 Animal, 1977 The Spy Who Loved Me, 1976 Une
femme fidèle, 1975 French Connection II, 1973 The Serpent,
1972 Hellé, 1972 Killer, 1971 The Burglars, 1971 The
Horsemen, 1971 Swashbuckler, 1969 The Madwoman of
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 The Golden Coach, 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
Academy Awards, both for Best Actress in a Leading Role, the
first in 1972 for Klute (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,
2005 Monster-in-Law, 1990 Stanley & Iris, 1989 Old Gringo,
1986 The Morning After, 1985 Agnes of God, 1981 Rollover,
1981 On Golden Pond, 1980 Nine to Five, 1979 The Electric
Horseman, 1979 The China Syndrome, 1978 California Suite,
1978 Comes a Horseman, 1978 Coming Home, 1977 Julia, 1977
Fun with Dick and Jane, 1976 The Blue Bird, 1973 A Doll's
House, 1973 Steelyard Blues, 1971 Klute, 1969 They Shoot
Horses, Don't They?, 1968 Barbarella, 1968 Spirits of the Dead,
1967 Barefoot in the Park, 1967 Hurry Sundown, 1966 Any
Wednesday, 1966 The Chase, 1965 Cat Ballou, 1964 Circle of
Love, 1963 Sunday in New York, 1962 Period of Adjustment,
1962 The Chapman Report, 1962 Walk on the Wild Side, and
1961 “A String of Beads” (TV Movie).
John Phillip Law ... Pygar (b. September 7, 1937 in Los
Angeles, California—d. May 13, 2008 (age 70) in Los Angeles,
California) appeared in 85 films, some of which are 2008
Chinaman's Chance: America's Other Slaves, 2004 The Three
Faces of Terror, 2001 CQ, 1997 “Spider-Man” (TV Series),
1996 Hindsight, 1993 Angel Eyes, 1990 Alienator, 1988 Blood
Delirium, 1988 Striker, 1985 Rainy Day Friends, 1985 “Murder,
She Wrote” (TV Series), 1983 Tin Man, 1981 Tarzan, the Ape
Man, 1977 Eyes Behind the Wall, 1976 The Cassandra Crossing,
1975 The Spiral Staircase, 1973 The Golden Voyage of Sinbad,
1971 The Last Movie, 1970 The Hawaiians, 1968 The Sergeant,
1968 Barbarella, 1967 Death Rides a Horse, 1967 Hurry
Sundown, 1966 The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are
Coming, 1964 High Infidelity, and 1951 Show Boat.
Anita Pallenberg ... The Great Tyrant (b. January 25, 1944 in
Rome, Lazio, Italy) has appeared in 17 films and TV shows,
which are 2011 4:44 Last Day on Earth, 2009 Napoli, Napoli,
Napoli, 2009 Chéri, 2007 Go Go Tales, 2007 Mister Lonely,
2002 Hideous Man (Short), 2001 “Absolutely Fabulous” (TV
Series), 1998 Love Is the Devil: Study for a Portrait of Francis
Bacon, 1976 Le berceau de cristal, 1970 Performance, 1969
Michael Kohlhaas - Der Rebell, 1969 Dillinger Is Dead, 1969
Heads (Short), 1968 Candy, 1968 Barbarella, 1968 Wonderwall,
and 1967 Degree of Murder.
Milo O'Shea ... Concierge / Durand-Durand (b. Milo Donal
O'shea, June 2, 1926 in Dublin, Irish Free State (now Ireland)—
d. April 2, 2013 (age 86) in Manhattan, New York City, New
York) appeared in 93 films and television shows, including 20032004 “The West Wing” (TV Series), 2003 Mystics, 2002
Puckoon, 1999 “Oz” (TV Series), 1997 The MatchMaker, 1991
Only the Lonely, 1985 The Purple Rose of Cairo, 1982 The
Verdict, 1981 The Pilot, 1974 “Microbes and Men” (TV Series),
1974 It's Not the Size That Counts, 1973 Theatre of Blood, 1973
Anyone for Sex?, 1968-1971 “Me Mammy” (TV Series, 21
episodes), 1971 Sacco & Vanzetti, 1970 The Angel Levine, 1968
Barbarella, 1968 Romeo and Juliet, 1967 Ulysses, 1963 Carry
on Cabby, 1957-1958 “Armchair Theatre” (TV Series), 1951
Talk of a Million, and 1940 Blackout.
Marcel Marceau ... Professor Ping (b. Marcel Mangel, March
22, 1923 in Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France—d. September 22,
2007 (age 84) in Cahors, Lot, France) appeared in 18 films and
television show, which are 1998 Joseph's Gift, 1989 Paganini,
1986 Elogio della pazzia, 1983 The Islands, 1983 “Red Skelton's
More Funny Faces” (TV Movie), 1976 Silent Movie, 1974
Shanks, 1968 Barbarella, 1967 Ego zvali Robert, 1966 It, 19611966 “The Red Skelton Hour” (TV Series), 1959 Die schöne
Lügnerin, 1956 Pantomimes, 1955 In the Park, 1954 “Der
Mantel” (TV Movie), 1954 The Anatomy of Love, 1951 Journal
masculin, and 1947 La bague.
David Hemmings ... Dildano (b. David Leslie Edward
Hemmings, November 18, 1941 in Guildford, Surrey, England—
d. December 3, 2003 (age 62) in Bucharest, Romania) appeared
in 116 films and television shows, among them 2007 Romantik,
2004 Blessed, 2003 The Night We Called It a Day, 2003 The
Vadim—BARBARELLA—3
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, 2002 “Lenny Blue” (TV
Movie), 2002 Gangs of New York, 2002 Equilibrium, 2002
“Waking the Dead” (TV Series), 2002 “Slap Shot 2: Breaking
the Ice” (Video), 2002 “Murder in Mind” (TV Series), 2001
Mean Machine, 2000 Gladiator, 1992 “Northern Exposure” (TV
Series), 1991 “L.A. Law” (TV Series), 1989 The Rainbow, 19851987 “Magnum, P.I.” (TV Series), 1987 “Murder, She Wrote”
(TV Series), 1985 “The A-Team” (TV Series), 1983 Man,
Woman and Child, 1981 Prisoners, 1980 “Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde” (TV Movie), 1979 Murder by Decree, 1977 The
Disappearance, 1977 The Prince and the Pauper, 1977 Islands
in the Stream, 1975 “A Dream of Living” (TV Movie), 1974
Lola, 1970 Fragment of Fear, 1968 Barbarella, 1967 Camelot,
1966 Blow-Up, 1964 The Girl-Getters, 1963 “Taxi!” (TV
Series), 1963 Two Left Feet, 1961 “Home Tonight” (TV Series,
38 episodes), 1961 The Wind of Change, 1959 No Trees in the
Street, 1957 Five Clues to Fortune, 1957 Saint Joan, and 1954
The Rainbow Jacket. He also directed 28 films and TV episodes.
Ugo Tognazzi ... Mark Hand (b. Ottavio Tognazzi, March 23,
1922 in Cremona, Lombardy, Italy—d. October 27, 1990 (age
68) in Rome, Lazio, Italy) appeared in 149 films and TV shows,
including 1991 “Una famiglia in giallo” (TV Movie), 1990 La
batalla de los Tres Reyes, 1989 Tolérance, 1988 Days of
Inspector Ambrosio, 1988 The Last Minute, 1986 Yiddish
Connection, 1985 La Cage aux Folles 3: The Wedding, 1984
Bertoldo, Bertoldino, and Cascacenno, 1981 Tragedy of a
Ridiculous Man, 1980 La cage aux folles II, 1979 Traffic Jam,
1978 First Love, 1975 My Friends, 1973 La Grande Bouffe, 1971
In the Name of the Italian People, 1969 Satyricon, 1968
Barbarella, 1968 Torture Me But Kill Me with Kisses, 1967 The
Climax, 1965 Menage Italian Style, 1965 Run for Your Wife,
1964 The Magnificent Cuckold, 1963 The Conjugal Bed, 1963
The Shortest Day, 1962 Always on Sunday, 1961 The Fascist,
1960 Love, the Italian Way, 1960 My Friend, Dr. Jekyll, 1959 La
duchessa di Santa Lucia, 1951 La paura fa 90, and 1950 I cadetti
di Guascogna.
From World Film Directors, V. II. Ed. John Wakeman. The
H. W. Wilson Company, NY, 1988
VADIM, ROGER (Roger Vadim Plemiannikov) French director,
scenarist. producer, and actor, was born in Paris, the son of Igor
Plemmiannikov and the former Marie-Antoinette Ardilouze. His
father, of Russian birth, was a member of the French diplomatic
corps, and his career took the family to Palestine, Egypt, and
Turkey during Vadim’s childhood. In December 1937 Igor
Plemianikov collapsed suddenly at breakfast one morning (in his
son’s presence) and died the following day. Vadim’s mother was
left penniless with a young son and daughter to raise, and the
family endured considerable hardships during the war and the
German occupation. For a time they lived in the French Alps, an
experience Vadim drew on many years later in Hellé, Even then
he was an expert skier, and on one occasion was nearly killed in
an unsuccessful attempt to guide a Jewish fugitive across the
mountains into Switzerland. His mother, who was a communist,
lived with and later married an architect active in the Resistance.
The best that can be said of Vadim’s education is that it
was varied. According to Who’s Who in France he attended an
assortment of state and private schools and colleges in Morzin,
Toulon, Nice, Cannes, Alés, Thonon-les-Bains, and Annemasse.
For a time, contemplating a career in the foreign service, he
studied oriental languages, but soon lost interest and turned to the
theatre. From 1944 to 1946 he studied and acted with Charles
Dullin in Paris. Vadim is said to have been a poor actor, but he
“was gifted with a power of self-analysis beyond his years, with
a burning desire to impress himself on the world, as actor, writer,
director.”
The film director Marc Allégret took Vadim on in 1947,
first as an actor, then as his personal assistant in Blanche Fury
(1947), Maria Chapdelaine (1950), La Demoiselle et son
revenant (1951), and other films. “Vadim is enormously
cultivated,” Allégret has said. He has no formal education to
speak of, though I think he passed the first part of his
baccalauréat, but he reads a lot. He showed me his first short
stories, which were surrealist and aggressively committed to the
Left….Vadim lived here and there on very little money. Once I
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 Brigitte Bardot, 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
in the end, after her husband has beaten up his brother and
slapped her, gratefully returns to him. Vadim and Lévy are
Vadim—BARBARELLA—4
credited as scriptwriters, but the dialogue is said to have been
largely improvised. Prettily photographed on location in St.
Tropez by Armand Thirard, in color and CinemaScope, the
movie has x=excellent performances from Jean-Louis Trintignant
as the husband, Christian Marquand as the brother, and Curt
Jurgens as a St. Tropez bar owner.
Reviewers credited Vadim with “a sharp eye for social
behavior and a wry sense of humor,” and liked his sympathetic
portrayal of youthful amorality. It was
not these qualities that earned the film
its huge international success, however,
but Bardot’s beauty, her sulky
sexuality, and her willingness to take
off more than the cinema in those days
generally allowed. The movie made
over four million dollars in the United
States alone, and established Bardot
both as an international star and as the
kind of cultural phenomenon that is
dismissed by social as well as film
critics. For a time, presumably because
of his use of location shooting and a
degree of improvisation, Vadim was
associated by critics with the nouvelle
vague. It soon became clear that his
interests were almost exclusively
commercial, but there is no doubt that
the success of his first picture helped to
smooth the way for the New Wave, proving to the French
financiers that young filmmakers working outside the studio
system were capable of making them a great deal of money.
Sait-on jamais? (When the Devil Drives/No Sun in
Venice 1957), set in Venice in winter, was also handsomely
photographed by Thirard. Vadim wanted “a Venice that would be
blue and green, a little like the photos of Ernst Haas. Therefore I
consistently underexposed my Eastman color.” The film is based
on an unpublished novel by Vadim himself, but in transposing
the action from Paris to Venice, he was obliged, he says, to
borrow from another novel “a story of counterfeit money which I
myself never understood.” There is a fine score by the Modern
Jazz Quartet and a generous measure of eroticism (supplied here
by Françoise Arnoul), and the result is a generally palatable
confection, if somewhat confusing. Les Bijoutiers du clair de
lune (Heaven Fell That Night, 1958), Vadim’s third movie, was a
total failure, critically and commercially, in spite of the presence
of Bardot.
By the time it appeared, Bardot had left Vadim to marry
the singer Sacha Distel, and Vadim—“the real-life Svengali,”
“the Pygmalion of sex”—was grooming another young cover girl
to replace her. This was Annette Stroyberg, whom he married in
1958 and who appears in his next film. Hoping perhaps to
recapture the waning interest of the serious critics (without losing
his sensation-hungry paying customers), Vadim chose to film
Laclos’ novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, a literary classic which
had been considered pornographic when it was first published in
1782. He adaptation, by Vadim and Roger Vailland, translates
the action to present-day Paris, Deauville (out of season), and a
ski resort. Cars and tape recorders are substituted for carriages
and letters, and there is a jazz score by Thelonius Monk, Art
Blakey, and others.
Les Liaisons dangereuses 1960 is about a sophisticated
couple who encourage each other’s infidelities for the voyeuristic
pleasure of discussing them. The story, at first ironic and witty,
darkens to demonstrate the wages of sin, and ends with the
husband murdered and the wife disfigured. Gérard Philipe was
considered too likable to do justice to the role of Valmont, but
Jeanne Moreau was magnificent as
Juliette, and Annette Stroyberg made a
creditable and decorative attempt at the
part of Marianne Tournel, driven to
madness by Valmont’s heartless
manipulations.
Few critics took the film’s
moral pretensions very seriously, and
some admirers of the novel called it a
travesty, but most reviewers were
agreeably surprised by the quality of the
adaptation. Dilys Powell thought it “no
more than the equivalent of playing
Shakespeare in modern dress” and
concluded that “the formal passion and
the diabolical mischief—and a great deal
of text—are preserved.” Shot in black
and white by Marcel Grignon, the movie
was also praised for its visual elegance,
and it remains the most admired of
Vadim’s films. At the box office it was even more successful,
thanks partly to the fact that the French censors at first banned it
for export, then relented when the picture was at the height of its
notoriety.
Stroyberg appeared again in Et Mourir de plaisir (Blood
and Roses, 1960), with an international cast including Mel
Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, and Vadim’s mentor Marc Allégret. A
vampire movie with lesbian overtones, it was loosely based on
Sheridan Le Fanu’s story “Carmilla.” Roy Armes thought that it
“showed Vadim working with unaccustomed subject matter, but
the qualities of the completed film are those one associates with
the director: elegance and visual polish, with sumptuous settings
and some outstanding colour photography by Claude Renoir, but
none ot the narrative drive or sense of poetry needed to bring the
tale of vampirism fully to life.”
At about this time Vadim was engulfed or bathed in one
of he waves of scandal that periodically break over him. Annette
Stroyberg left him, returned briefly, then fled again into the arms
of the ubiquitous Sacha Distel. After an emotional exchange of
letters and declarations in the popular press, she returned, albeit
temporarily, to her husband (just like the heroine of Et Dieu créa
la femme). In 1961 Vadim agreed (at Bardot’s request) to
complete La Bride sut le cou (Only for Love), a film begun by
Jean Aurel as his directorial debut. The news created a fresh
furor, earning Vadim the furious resentment of the nouvelle
vague. David Robinson called the result “old-time French farce
erotic farce, with a thin, shabby veil of New Wave
contemporaneity.”
After contributing one of the episodes to the
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
unconvincing account of an affair between a shy young
bourgeoise (Bardot) and an antisocial alcoholic (Robert Hossein)
whom she saves from suicide. Le Vice et la Vertue (Vice and
Virtue, 1962), based vaguely on de Sade, is a squalid and foolish
film about a “pleasure castle” for Nazi officers. It introduced—as
the incorruptible Justine—Vadim’s latest protégée, Catherine
Deneuve, to whom he was at one time engaged and by whom he
has a child. Château en Suéde, adapted by Françoise Sagan from
her own hit play, was another critical failure, in spite of a cast
that included Monica Vitti, Jean-Claude Brialy, Jean-Louis
Trintignant, and Curt Jurgens. There was an equally cold
reception for La Ronde (Circle of Love, 1964), a redundant
remake of the Ophuls classic,
written by Jean Anouilh and
photographed by Henri Decaë
but found “leaden and
tedious.”
Jane Fonda, who
appeared in La Ronde, starred
in La Curée (1966), a
superficial adaptation of a
Zola novel. She became
Vadim’s latest sex object or
subject and in 1967, after his
spectacular divorce from
Annette Stroyberg, his third
wife. (“Once you have
created something, once you
have taught a woman how to
be free, she gets away from
you,” Vadim complained to
an interviewer.) “Metzengerstein,” an episode in Histoires
extraordinaires (1967) was followed by Barbarella (1968),
adapted by Terry Southern and others from the science fiction
spoof by Jean-Claude Forest.
The best of Vadim’s later films, Barbarella is about the
adventures of a space-traveling Candide (Jane Fonda) whose
search for a missing scientist (Milo O’Shea) brings her to a
strange planet where she becomes involved in a revolutionary
struggle against the Black Queen. Anita Pallenberg is the
wonderfully depraved queen and David Hemmings is an
incompetent revolutionary. Barbarella is attacked by dolls with
metal teeth, pecked at by birds, and racked by the mad scientist
on a machine which is supposed to intensify erotic sensation until
it causes death (but which in fact blows out in the face of the
heroine’s superior sexual resources). A happy ending is
engineered by an angel cured by Barbarella of his fear of flying.
Jane Fonda, who was reportedly worried about the film’s explicit
sexism, nevertheless played her part with wide-eyed gusto and in
an assortment of plastic dishabilles, and this witty mixture of
magic, religion, politics, science fiction, and eroticism was
inventively photographed by Claude Renoir.
Vadim’s first American film followed, Pretty Maids All
in a Row (1971). This black comedy stars Rock Hudson as a high
school football coach and guidance counselor, loved and admired
by all, who falls into the habit of strangling his young protégés.
The British critic David Robinson found the film “very funny”
and was interested and impressed by the implied connection
between “the disturbance of this psychopathic killer” and “the
violence and anxiety…accepted as normal in very many of the
aspects of the life that surrounds the developing young.” Other
reviewers reacted very differently, however, and Andrew Sarris
called it “one of the stupidest movies ever made by a director of
non-stupid movies” as well as “a very vicious movie, as much
anti-stud as anti-woman.”
Vadim worked again with Bardot in Don Juan 1973,
which he calls “a disaster; in fact, the only film I ever regret.”
The director himself stars in La Jeune Fille assassiné (Charlotte,
1974), in which a highbrow essayist write a book about the
murder of a girl and then has to confront her killer. The director
Alexandre Astruc also appears in the movie, which was another
failure, as was Une Femme fidèle
(A Faithful Woman, 1976) The
latter was Vadim’s own remake
of Les Liaisons dangereuses
(1960), this time with Sylvia
Kristel, Jon Finch, and Natalie
Delon, and it was universally
agreed that he should have left
well enough alone. Night Games
(1980) is a piece of nonsense
about a frigid Beverly Hills
housewife whose sexual problems
are resolved by nightly visits
from an (imaginary?) loverincubus-sex therapist. This was
Vadim’s second American movie
and introduced Cindy Pickett, his
newest discovery.
Roy Armes writes that
the chief characteristic of Vadim’s work is “a considerable
surface brilliance. He has worked almost entirely in colour and
wide screen and achieved a fie understanding with his directors
of photography, notably Armand Thirard…Claude Renoir and
Henri Decaë….Vadim has a positive dislike for the kind of
realism that embraces anything sordid or dirty, so that his
characters are glossily removed form the problems and pressures
of real life. Politics and social questions do not affect him, but he
has always possessed a sure instinct for what is fashionable and
up-to-date….He has revealed to us the naked charms of a
succession of beautiful young women, mostly his wives or
mistresses, and dealt in a characteristic way with his sexual
themes: avoiding depth, glossily covering up unpalatable facts,
relying on star performances and technical polish to disguise his
lack of interest in psychological truth.” Derek Prouse allows that
Vadim is often startlingly original in the composition of his
shots, but agrees that he is otherwise no more than “an elegant
titillator.” Liz-Anne Bawden, somewhat less hostile, concludes
that Vadim’s “undoubted intelligence and wit are usually put at
the service of ephemeral material, but his work reflects his
unaffected enjoyment of filmmaking.”
There has been much serious and pseudo-serous
discussion of Vadim’s role as “the Pygmalion of sex”—the man
who “created” Bardot and her successors. A writer in the New
Statesman suggests that his “desire to arouse envy has made
Vadim an exhibitionist of an unusual kind, which found
expression in his first film. By screening his wife in a succession
Vadim—BARBARELLA—6
of striptease scenes, he sought to arouse in the men who saw it
the desire to possess the baby vamp and so—this is the point—to
be in her husband’s place.” Caroline Moorhead, reviewing
Vadim’s autobiography Memoirs of the Devil, called it “180
pages of women’s magazine philosophy about the trials of being
involved with some of the world’s most beautiful women, all of
whom, ultimately, are found wanting.”
Vadim was divorced from Jane Fonda, apparently
finding her increasing political commitments tedious (“It is one
of the diseases of the past decade. The world has become so
serious.”). He was married for the fourth time to Catherine
Schneider, daughter of an industrialist, who had no desire to
become an actress; that marriage also ended in divorce. Vadim’s
marriage to Annette Stroyberg, Jane Fonda, and Catherine
Schneider each produced a daughter, and he has a son by
Catherine Deneuve. Vadim is said to have “a sleepy seductive
aura” and “a soft, deep voice,” as well as a “bony, gaunt face”
which “lights up with a smile of great charm.” He enjoys skiing
and chess. In 1983 he published a novel, The Hungry Angel, an
autobiographical work set in France at the end of world War II,
whose hero, Julien, a budding actor-director, is a womanizing
hedonist. Reviewers found the story thin and melodramatic,
“more cinematic than literary.” More recently Vadim has
published a book about his wives, Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda: My
Life With the Most Beautiful women in the World (1986), which
was viewed as entertaining but narcissistic and indiscreet.
this film as though I had arrived on a strange planet with my
camera directly on my shoulder—as though I was a reporter
doing a newsreel.”
“What interests me is the chance to escape from the morals of the
20th century and depict a new, futuristic morality,” added Vadim.
“It’s a very romantic story, really. Barbarella has no sense of
guilt about her body. I wanted to make something beautiful out
of eroticism.”
Vadim loves science fiction and he’s gotten me interested,” said
Fonda. “In a way, cinema is the natural medium for it, but up to
now the technical gimmicks have been treated as the raison
d’etre of the science fiction film. As an actress, I’m more
concerned about the story, and the character.”
Vadim later elaborated:
“I can tell you all the things she won’t be. She won’t be
a science fiction character, nor will she play Barbarella tongue in
cheek. She is just a lovely, average girl with a terrific space
record and a lovely body. I am not going to inetllectualise her.
Although there is going to be a bit of satire about our morals and
our ethics, the picture is going to be more of a spectacle than a
cerebral exercise for a few way out intellectuals. She is going to
be an uninhibited girl, not being weighed down by thousands and
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.
From Wikipedia Barbarella (film)
Development
Producer Dino de Laurentiis invited Fonda to the project after
Sophia Loren and Brigitte Bardot turned down the starring role.
Though Fonda also declined, Vadim convinced her to change her
mind.
Vadim was a fan of American comic strips such as Popeye and
Peanuts. “I like the wild humour and impossible exaggeration of
the comic strips,” said Vadim. “I want to do something in that
myself in my next film.”
“It is absolutely camp, sophisticated camp, the wildest of them
all,” said Fonda.
“In science fiction, technology is everything,” said Vadim. “The
characters are so boring—they have no psychology. I want to do
Writing
A large number of writers worked on the script, including Terry
Southern. Southern late claimed “Vadim wasn’t particularly
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
was super in all regards.”
Charles B. Griffith worked on the script uncredited; he said “they
hired fourteen other writers” after Terry Southern “before they
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
Law’s:
“I guess I rewrote about a quarter of the film that was
shot, then reshot, and I added the concept that there had been
thousands of years since violence existed, so that Barbarella was
very clumsy all through the picture. She shot herself in the foot
and everything. It was pretty ludicrous. The stuff with Claude
Dauphin and the suicide room were also part of my contribution
to the film.”
Shooting
Vadim—BARBARELLA—7
Production began in 1967 in Rome on 15 April 1967.
Fashion designer Paco Rabanne was responsible for Fonda’s
costumes. Rabanne was influence by the women’s liberation
movement and designed outfits in the style of metal armor,
drawing influence from an Indian philosophy that posited an age
of iron.
Vadim said during filming that “Paramount has left me
completely free, and so has DeLaurentiis, who is known as a
tyrant.”
Chris Nashawaty, on Entertainment Weekly:
Jane Fonda has been nominated for seven Oscars and won two of
them. Needless to say, you don’t get a résumé like that without
having pretty sound instincts. But those instincts took a holiday
for a brief moment in the late ’60s when Fonda turned down both
Bonnie and Clyde and Rosemary’s Baby to star in Barbarella
(1968, PG, 1 hr., 38 mins.). Directed by her then husband, Roger
Vadim, Barbarella left critics with their jaws in their laps. The
New York Times’ Renata Adler called it a ”special kind of mess.”
She wasn’t wrong. The film is a silly intergalactic bonbon about
a sexed-up space adventuress in the year 40000 tasked with
saving the galaxy from a war-hungry scientist who’s
masterminded a weapon that threatens centuries of peace and
love. But here’s the thing: Barbarella is my kind of mess. And
I’m not alone. Over the years, the futuristic fantasia has become
a camp classic — a sort of swinging-’60s Alice in Wonderland
with lots of half-baked jokes about drugs, free love, and military
interventionism. And while the trippy-dippy screenplay from
Vadim and Terry Southern is so thin you could roll a joint with
it, Barbarella remains one of the grooviest-looking films you’ll
ever lay your eyes on, especially in the breathtaking new Blu-ray
edition. The foxy Fonda hopscotches from one bizarre space
locale to another, getting pawed by horny aliens while coyly
twirling her hair and modeling a kinky array of vinyl go-go
boots, see-through Lucite bustiers, and high-tech weapons that
look like they were stolen from Boba Fett. Along the way, she
gets pulled on a sled by a manta ray, flies on the back of a blind
bare-chested angel, and gets attacked by both samurai cavemen
and marching porcelain dolls with razor-sharp metal teeth. Still,
the highlight of the film has to be its infamous opening-credits
sequence, where Fonda performs a full-monty zero-gravity
striptease in her shag-carpeted pink spaceship as her theme song
kicks in: Barbarella, psychedella, there’s a kinda cockle shell
about you… (Whatever the hell that means.) You’d be hardpressed to find a more ridiculous (or for Fonda, more
embarrassing) moment in cinema over the past 50 years. But I
guarantee that you’ll never forget it. Obviously Mike Myers
didn’t — he lifted whole chunks of Barbarella for his retroobsessed Austin Powers flicks. And let’s not overlook Simon Le
Bon & Co., who named their Brit pop band after one of the
film’s main characters, Milo O’Shea’s Durand-Durand.
J.-C. Forest, 68, Cartoonist Who Dreamt Up 'Barbarella'
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.
Though published in other languages, the series was
initially censored in France, barred from advertising or sale to
minors until the early 1970's.
''Barbarella'' tested the limits of French censorship, Guy
Vidal, director of comic strips at Dargaud, said in a telephone
interview. ''There have been those who helped unlock
censorship,'' he said. ''Forest was one of them.''
It was not until the producer Dino de Laurentiis bought
the film rights to ''Barbarella'' that the character gained world
fame. The film also helped ignite Jane Fonda's movie career.
The movie, directed by Roger Vadim, her husband, was
released in June 1968, just after the May social upheaval in
France, which reflected the revolt against traditional French
morality. Mr. Forest designed most of the sets for the production,
which was shot in Rome.
Ms. Fonda's shiny, form-fitting space age outfits stirred
the imaginations of designers. Barbarella-style creations by JeanPaul Gaultier were featured in the 1997 film ''The Fifth Element.''
Mr. Forest sketched his first comic strip as a 19-year-old
student at art school. He began his career with ''Le Vaisseau
Hante,'' or ''The Haunted Ship,'' published by Elan. In 1950, he
became illustrator for such publication lines as Le Livre de Poche
and Voila.
Mr. Forest's last ''Barbarella'' episode was published in
1981.
After years of censorship, the French Government
rehabilitated Mr. Forest, having him represent the country's
comic strip artists abroad beginning in 1976. He was honored in
1984 with the Grand Prize of Angouleme, site of an annual
comic strip festival.
He is survived by his wife, Petra, a sculptor who lives in
Paris, and a son, Julien.
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
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