Now that Halloween season is over, it feels a little empty playing eerie soundtracks and revisiting favorite nightmares. The atmosphere just isn't quite there. But that's easily fixed, and few things build atmosphere more deftly than music. I've spent improper amounts of time trying to find artists who evoke the spirit of horror and Gothic fiction, but since music isn't a narrative genre by definition, it can be a nebulous process. Some musicians just go perfectly with certain storytellers, though. Here are five performers who complement a few of my favorite authors scarily well:
Clive Barker and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Both hailing from England and rising to fame in the same decade, Barker and Cave seem like a duo destined for emotional evisceration. Barker’s stories evoke an urban landscape that's gritty and hard, but also full of transcendent wonder. His language is high, poetic, and epic...
Clive Barker and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Both hailing from England and rising to fame in the same decade, Barker and Cave seem like a duo destined for emotional evisceration. Barker’s stories evoke an urban landscape that's gritty and hard, but also full of transcendent wonder. His language is high, poetic, and epic...
- 11/25/2017
- by Ben Larned
- DailyDead
There are some authors who transcend genre so fully that classification becomes a moot point. Kelly Link is one example. Link’s writing style mirrors other authors - Angela Carter, Shirley Jackson and Neil Gaiman come to mind - but only superficially; her words are her own. The moods swing wildly, from whimsical to melancholic to deranged, though her voice always comes through. She writes as if talking in her sleep, lackadaisical and sparse, strange but deeply evocative. Yet what truly sets her apart from other genre authors is her incredible understanding of the human mind.
Though she has written some terrifying tales, Link is hardly a simple horror or fantasy writer. It’s difficult to think of a writer whose imagination covers more conceptual territory. “The Specialist’s Hat” may be her most straightforward ghost story, but even this narrative hints at melancholic truths. “Water Off a Black Dog...
Though she has written some terrifying tales, Link is hardly a simple horror or fantasy writer. It’s difficult to think of a writer whose imagination covers more conceptual territory. “The Specialist’s Hat” may be her most straightforward ghost story, but even this narrative hints at melancholic truths. “Water Off a Black Dog...
- 7/21/2017
- by Ben Larned
- DailyDead
Agnieszka Holland’s new film is a mix of forensic crime story and magical realist fairy tale that, adapted from Olga Tokarczuk’s novel, doesn’t always hang together
Agnieszka Holland, renowned Polish director of works including Europa, Europa, is back with a new film taking us on an eco-fabulist murder mystery tour deep into the central European forest, starring a beautiful ageing woman with a long grey hair and a passing resemblance to Angela Carter.
She is the eccentric Janina Duszejko (Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka) a part-time teacher and full-time mystic living alone in a village on the Polish-Czech border, loved by her young pupils but hated by the boorish menfolk thereabouts for her passionate hatred of their hunting and animal slaughter; she will disrupt shooting parties, screaming and crying, and often makes angry complaints to the lazy uncaring police when animals are killed out of season.
Continue reading...
Agnieszka Holland, renowned Polish director of works including Europa, Europa, is back with a new film taking us on an eco-fabulist murder mystery tour deep into the central European forest, starring a beautiful ageing woman with a long grey hair and a passing resemblance to Angela Carter.
She is the eccentric Janina Duszejko (Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka) a part-time teacher and full-time mystic living alone in a village on the Polish-Czech border, loved by her young pupils but hated by the boorish menfolk thereabouts for her passionate hatred of their hunting and animal slaughter; she will disrupt shooting parties, screaming and crying, and often makes angry complaints to the lazy uncaring police when animals are killed out of season.
Continue reading...
- 2/12/2017
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
"I bet you think you know this story. You don't -- the real one's much more gory." With this crisp opening couplet, Roald Dahl announced his imminent desanctification of the Grimm Brothers' "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves," one of six done-to-death fairytales given a black-comic makeover in his 1982 bestseller "Revolting Rhymes." Dahl's book was itself a tangy kid-lit response to Angela Carter's ingenious adult sexualization of that dusty literary canon in her essential 1979 volume "The Bloody Chamber"; working at opposite ends of the scale, both writers were making a concerted effort to reclaim these darkly symbolic stories, originally...
- 3/30/2012
- by Guy Lodge
- Hitfix
More Dickens and even more Shakespeare, but also new novels from Toni Morrison, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, plus exciting new voices – 2012's literary highlights
January
10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.
13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.
16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.
20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...
January
10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.
13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.
16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.
20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...
- 1/6/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Originally published in the Observer on 3 January 1982: Angela Carter reappraises Gone with the Wind
Look, if you can't see what's so irresistible about Clark "Jug Ears" Gable of the Jack o' Lantern grin, then much of the appeal of Gone with the Wind goes out the window. Furthermore, if Vivien Leigh's anorexic, overdressed Scarlett O'Hara seems to you one of the least credible of Hollywood femme fatales, most of whose petulant squeaks are, to boot, audible only to bats…
And, finally, if you can't see anything romantic At All about the more than feudal darkness of the Old South, then you are left alone with the naked sexual ideology of the most famous movie ever made. Macho violence versus female guile, bull v bitch.
The first time I saw this epic, it was the 50s, on one of the many occasions when they dusted off the reels and...
Look, if you can't see what's so irresistible about Clark "Jug Ears" Gable of the Jack o' Lantern grin, then much of the appeal of Gone with the Wind goes out the window. Furthermore, if Vivien Leigh's anorexic, overdressed Scarlett O'Hara seems to you one of the least credible of Hollywood femme fatales, most of whose petulant squeaks are, to boot, audible only to bats…
And, finally, if you can't see anything romantic At All about the more than feudal darkness of the Old South, then you are left alone with the naked sexual ideology of the most famous movie ever made. Macho violence versus female guile, bull v bitch.
The first time I saw this epic, it was the 50s, on one of the many occasions when they dusted off the reels and...
- 1/2/2012
- The Guardian - Film News
Having spent the last year sat in screening rooms and cinemas watching over 200 of 2011′s cinematic offerings, it stands to reason that I’m going to have to sit through a fair share of duds. As I had seen the vast majority of the key Oscar plays before November, I spent the latter part of the year dedicating myself to seeking out the worst, most lowest common denominator fare ripe for a skewering, and with these twenty dreadful pictures, we have what are, in my opinion, the 20 biggest train wrecks of 2011. Note that Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star is still awaiting worldwide DVD release and didn’t get distribution in the U.K., so that’s one that I was forced to avoid, but I’m assured that it’s irredeemably horrible nevertheless. Anyway, on with the list…
20. Shark Night 3D
(David R. Ellis / Tomatometer: 16%)
Director David R. Ellis...
20. Shark Night 3D
(David R. Ellis / Tomatometer: 16%)
Director David R. Ellis...
- 12/31/2011
- by Shaun Munro
- Obsessed with Film
Gifted by the author's widow, the resource includes a great deal of music writing, as well as new literary gems
A greatly expanded slang lexicon for the delinquent droogs of the novel A Clockwork Orange has been unearthed in a vast archive of the work and life of Anthony Burgess held in Manchester, alongside the libretto and score of an unseen opera about Leon Trotsky, and the script for an unmade TV series about Attila the Hun.
In preparation for next year's 50th anniversary of his notorious novel, one of the most controversial modern works in the English language, the small team at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation have been working to organise and catalogue hundreds of papers, letters and original compositions, ready for an influx of international visitors.
The extraordinary resource, which has been left to the foundation by Burgess's widow Liana, is newly housed in a renovated building...
A greatly expanded slang lexicon for the delinquent droogs of the novel A Clockwork Orange has been unearthed in a vast archive of the work and life of Anthony Burgess held in Manchester, alongside the libretto and score of an unseen opera about Leon Trotsky, and the script for an unmade TV series about Attila the Hun.
In preparation for next year's 50th anniversary of his notorious novel, one of the most controversial modern works in the English language, the small team at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation have been working to organise and catalogue hundreds of papers, letters and original compositions, ready for an influx of international visitors.
The extraordinary resource, which has been left to the foundation by Burgess's widow Liana, is newly housed in a renovated building...
- 11/20/2011
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
No, "Byzantium" is not a sequel or something to Neill Blomkamp's "Elysium" but it's the name of ancient Greek city which just happens to also be the title of Neil Jordan's next film, and the director has just settled on his male lead for. Caleb Landry Jones--last seen whizzing through the air in "X-Men: First Class" and appeared last year in the found footage horror pic "The Last Exorcism"--has come aboard the vampire film "Byzantium." Based on Angela Carter's book, the film, written by “Tamara Drewe” and “Jane Eyre” scribe Moira Buffini, involves a mother (Gemma Arterton) who, when turned…...
- 8/22/2011
- The Playlist
Red Riding Hood; The Veteran; Tomorrow, When the War Began; Scream 4
Considering the affection and admiration which I hold for Catherine Hardwicke's work on the much-mocked (but much more loved) Twilight series, it's a real shame that I can't be more positive about Red Riding Hood (2011, Warner, 12). On the surface, the subject matter – a gothic fairytale in which a feisty teenage girl has to balance the allure of buff, well-coiffed suitors against the threat of wolfish violence – seems tailor-made for Bella and Edward's first director. Having earned her genre spurs in the underrated Jennifer's Body, Amanda Seyfried seems perfectly cast as Valerie, a prototype "final girl" who finds herself trapped in a theatrical cross between The Crucible and Sleepy Hollow.
A strong supporting cast including the always impressive Virginia Madsen and a subtly sinister Julie Christie adds to the appeal, suggesting heavyweight thespian delights. As for Gary Oldman,...
Considering the affection and admiration which I hold for Catherine Hardwicke's work on the much-mocked (but much more loved) Twilight series, it's a real shame that I can't be more positive about Red Riding Hood (2011, Warner, 12). On the surface, the subject matter – a gothic fairytale in which a feisty teenage girl has to balance the allure of buff, well-coiffed suitors against the threat of wolfish violence – seems tailor-made for Bella and Edward's first director. Having earned her genre spurs in the underrated Jennifer's Body, Amanda Seyfried seems perfectly cast as Valerie, a prototype "final girl" who finds herself trapped in a theatrical cross between The Crucible and Sleepy Hollow.
A strong supporting cast including the always impressive Virginia Madsen and a subtly sinister Julie Christie adds to the appeal, suggesting heavyweight thespian delights. As for Gary Oldman,...
- 8/20/2011
- by Mark Kermode
- The Guardian - Film News
Here’s to another vampire movie. Actresses Saoirse Ronan and Gemma Arterton will star in the vampire movie “Byzantium” with Oscar winning director Neil Jordan. The story is about a vampire mother who turned her daughter into a vampire. According to The Hollywood Reporter, they formed a “lethal partnership, sometimes posing as sisters.” The script is written by Moira Buffini (“Jane Eyre,” “Tamara Drewe”). It was based on a youth theater play by Buffini, but she made the film script to be in a “more adult, darker level.” The film will also reunite Jordan with producer Stephen Woolley. They worked together on projects such as “The Crying Game” and “Breakfast on Pluto.” “I love the horror genre and we’ve been working on this for three or four years. I sent it to Neil and he liked the script,” said Wooly to THR. “We’d both recently revisited Angela Carter...
- 5/16/2011
- LRMonline.com
After being rumored to star in "The Host (2012)" and "Anna Karenina", Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan is reported joining a new vampire film, "Byzantium". The "Hanna" star will allegedly star opposite Gemma Arterton.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Ronan and Arterton will take the female lead roles as a daughter and her mother in the upcoming movie, with Neil Jordan helming the project and Moira Buffini providing the script. Stephen Woolley, in the meantime, will serve as the producer.
"I love the horror genre and we've been working on this for three or four years," Woolley commented on how the idea of "Byzantium" happened. "I sent it to Neil and he liked the script. We'd both recently revisited Angela Carter's book and it was just chance that when I called [Jordan], we were thinking along the same lines."
In addition to Ronan and Arterton, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine will allegedly take supporting roles.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Ronan and Arterton will take the female lead roles as a daughter and her mother in the upcoming movie, with Neil Jordan helming the project and Moira Buffini providing the script. Stephen Woolley, in the meantime, will serve as the producer.
"I love the horror genre and we've been working on this for three or four years," Woolley commented on how the idea of "Byzantium" happened. "I sent it to Neil and he liked the script. We'd both recently revisited Angela Carter's book and it was just chance that when I called [Jordan], we were thinking along the same lines."
In addition to Ronan and Arterton, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine will allegedly take supporting roles.
- 5/16/2011
- by celebrity-mania.com
- Celebrity Mania
After being rumored to star in "The Host (2012)" and "Anna Karenina", Oscar-nominee Saoirse Ronan is reported joining a new vampire film, "Byzantium". The "Hanna" star will allegedly star opposite Gemma Arterton.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Ronan and Arterton will take the female lead roles as a daughter and her mother in the upcoming movie, with Neil Jordan helming the project and Moira Buffini providing the script. Stephen Woolley, in the meantime, will serve as the producer.
"I love the horror genre and we've been working on this for three or four years," Woolley commented on how the idea of "Byzantium" happened. "I sent it to Neil and he liked the script. We'd both recently revisited Angela Carter's book and it was just chance that when I called [Jordan], we were thinking along the same lines."
In addition to Ronan and Arterton, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine will allegedly take supporting roles.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Ronan and Arterton will take the female lead roles as a daughter and her mother in the upcoming movie, with Neil Jordan helming the project and Moira Buffini providing the script. Stephen Woolley, in the meantime, will serve as the producer.
"I love the horror genre and we've been working on this for three or four years," Woolley commented on how the idea of "Byzantium" happened. "I sent it to Neil and he liked the script. We'd both recently revisited Angela Carter's book and it was just chance that when I called [Jordan], we were thinking along the same lines."
In addition to Ronan and Arterton, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes and Jeremy Irvine will allegedly take supporting roles.
- 5/16/2011
- by AceShowbiz.com
- Aceshowbiz
Mar 16, 2011
In 1979, the British author Angela Carter published the book The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, leading a movement of rescuing and updating common folklore and fairy tales from their homogenized fate as Disney fodder and children's bedtime reading. The following recommendations (the first one is based on Carter's works) are "adult" fairy tales in that they are unafraid to delve into darker subject matter while still maintaining a spirit of child-like wonder. So, here, in no particular order, are ten adult fairy tales that we think will entertain you a bit more than ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
In 1979, the British author Angela Carter published the book The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, leading a movement of rescuing and updating common folklore and fairy tales from their homogenized fate as Disney fodder and children's bedtime reading. The following recommendations (the first one is based on Carter's works) are "adult" fairy tales in that they are unafraid to delve into darker subject matter while still maintaining a spirit of child-like wonder. So, here, in no particular order, are ten adult fairy tales that we think will entertain you a bit more than ...Read more at MovieRetriever.com...
- 3/16/2011
- CinemaNerdz
Filed under: Reviews, Horror, Cinematical
The classic story of Little Red Riding Hood has taken on many forms and tones over the years, from the finger-wagging moralism of Charles Perrault to the feminist reinterpretation by Angela Carter in her short story "The Company of Wolves." Catherine Hardwicke's 'Red Riding Hood' is the latest film to feature our fresh-faced heroine and her basket full of goodies. Unlike the screen adaptation of Carter's story by Neil Jordan and even more radical takes on the tale like 'Freeway,' 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders' and 'Hard Candy,' 'Red Riding Hood' stays firmly in the tween fantasy camp where high Ren Faire drama is the order of the day.
In this iteration of the tale, our cape-wearing heroine is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), whose village of Daggerthorn is terrorized by a werewolf every full moon. When the beast...
The classic story of Little Red Riding Hood has taken on many forms and tones over the years, from the finger-wagging moralism of Charles Perrault to the feminist reinterpretation by Angela Carter in her short story "The Company of Wolves." Catherine Hardwicke's 'Red Riding Hood' is the latest film to feature our fresh-faced heroine and her basket full of goodies. Unlike the screen adaptation of Carter's story by Neil Jordan and even more radical takes on the tale like 'Freeway,' 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders' and 'Hard Candy,' 'Red Riding Hood' stays firmly in the tween fantasy camp where high Ren Faire drama is the order of the day.
In this iteration of the tale, our cape-wearing heroine is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), whose village of Daggerthorn is terrorized by a werewolf every full moon. When the beast...
- 3/11/2011
- by Jenni Miller
- Moviefone
Filed under: Reviews, Horror, Cinematical
The classic story of Little Red Riding Hood has taken on many forms and tones over the years, from the finger-wagging moralism of Charles Perrault to the feminist reinterpretation by Angela Carter in her short story "The Company of Wolves." Catherine Hardwicke's 'Red Riding Hood' is the latest film to feature our fresh-faced heroine and her basket full of goodies. Unlike the screen adaptation of Carter's story by Neil Jordan and even more radical takes on the tale like 'Freeway,' 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders' and 'Hard Candy,' 'Red Riding Hood' stays firmly in the tween fantasy camp where high Ren Faire drama is the order of the day.
In this iteration of the tale, our cape-wearing heroine is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), whose village of Daggerthorn is terrorized by a werewolf every full moon. When the beast...
The classic story of Little Red Riding Hood has taken on many forms and tones over the years, from the finger-wagging moralism of Charles Perrault to the feminist reinterpretation by Angela Carter in her short story "The Company of Wolves." Catherine Hardwicke's 'Red Riding Hood' is the latest film to feature our fresh-faced heroine and her basket full of goodies. Unlike the screen adaptation of Carter's story by Neil Jordan and even more radical takes on the tale like 'Freeway,' 'Valerie and Her Week of Wonders' and 'Hard Candy,' 'Red Riding Hood' stays firmly in the tween fantasy camp where high Ren Faire drama is the order of the day.
In this iteration of the tale, our cape-wearing heroine is Valerie (Amanda Seyfried), whose village of Daggerthorn is terrorized by a werewolf every full moon. When the beast...
- 3/11/2011
- by Jenni Miller
- Cinematical
Initially I read the report that Summit Entertainment were making a film of Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus and got excited at the prospect, but reading more closer I saw that Summit have committed to bring an as yet unpublished novel from a first time writer to the big screen. The novel is The Night Circus and the writer is Erin Morgenstern.
THR had the news, along with this synopsis,
the novel is set at the turn of the 19th century, telling the story of two young magicians, pawns in an age-old rivalry between their mercurial, illusionist fathers, and the enchanted circus where their competition (and romances) play out. Fates of everyone involved – from creators and performers to patrons hang in the duo’s balance.
Images of Prestige & Sons, set in some nightmarish Barnum-esque Big Top, come to mind and given Summit’s roaring success with Twilight the...
THR had the news, along with this synopsis,
the novel is set at the turn of the 19th century, telling the story of two young magicians, pawns in an age-old rivalry between their mercurial, illusionist fathers, and the enchanted circus where their competition (and romances) play out. Fates of everyone involved – from creators and performers to patrons hang in the duo’s balance.
Images of Prestige & Sons, set in some nightmarish Barnum-esque Big Top, come to mind and given Summit’s roaring success with Twilight the...
- 1/10/2011
- by Jon Lyus
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
So, while I was picking my ass today, the new trailer to Red Riding Hood came out in all its snow-covered, wolfy, awesome glory.
Ever since I first heard about this movie, I've been waiting for it with baited breath. I'm even ignoring my dog right now just to make sure you're aware of this. How could the whole day have gone by and I had no idea this was out?
Catherine Hardwicke, director of the first Twilight installment (we forgive her) has been working on Red Riding Hood ever since. It's a darker and lavish take on the original fairy tale featuring (you guessed it) sex and werewolves. Angela Carter would love to see this movie. If you don't know who Angela Carter is, go Google her and stop wasting this trailer's time.
Amanda Seyfried is the sexy young Red Riding Hood, all innocent like virgin snow, which is...
Ever since I first heard about this movie, I've been waiting for it with baited breath. I'm even ignoring my dog right now just to make sure you're aware of this. How could the whole day have gone by and I had no idea this was out?
Catherine Hardwicke, director of the first Twilight installment (we forgive her) has been working on Red Riding Hood ever since. It's a darker and lavish take on the original fairy tale featuring (you guessed it) sex and werewolves. Angela Carter would love to see this movie. If you don't know who Angela Carter is, go Google her and stop wasting this trailer's time.
Amanda Seyfried is the sexy young Red Riding Hood, all innocent like virgin snow, which is...
- 11/17/2010
- by Superheidi
- Planet Fury
That a woman created Bella's man-worshipping, abuse-excusing pathology is baffling – luckily strong heroines abound elsewhere
So. Twilight Eclipse. Wolfboy Jacob lurks nudely, rudely, buffly, looking ever-ready for some lupine tussling out yonder. Vampire Edward appears to be struggling with constipation. And Bella, how goes it with her? Do you know, I can't remember. Who is she? Nobody. What does she do? Nothing. Where is she without men? Nowhere. Want to know what Bella's secret power is? It's the power of negation. She's such a deadzone of psychic antimatter that supernatural mojo doesn't work on her. Other characters' magical skills simply dissolve when they encounter the sullen ringfence of her anticharisma.
Bella's passivity, the oppressiveness of her boyfriends (presented as protectiveness), the fetishisation of female victimhood and the unstinting justification of the guys' abusiveness have spurred a strong feminist backlash against the books – a backlash which I fully support. Part of...
So. Twilight Eclipse. Wolfboy Jacob lurks nudely, rudely, buffly, looking ever-ready for some lupine tussling out yonder. Vampire Edward appears to be struggling with constipation. And Bella, how goes it with her? Do you know, I can't remember. Who is she? Nobody. What does she do? Nothing. Where is she without men? Nowhere. Want to know what Bella's secret power is? It's the power of negation. She's such a deadzone of psychic antimatter that supernatural mojo doesn't work on her. Other characters' magical skills simply dissolve when they encounter the sullen ringfence of her anticharisma.
Bella's passivity, the oppressiveness of her boyfriends (presented as protectiveness), the fetishisation of female victimhood and the unstinting justification of the guys' abusiveness have spurred a strong feminist backlash against the books – a backlash which I fully support. Part of...
- 7/16/2010
- by Bidisha
- The Guardian - Film News
She has a love-hate relationship with her home country and specialises in sex and scandal. What made the French director opt for a fairytale?
Catherine Breillat used to be the pariah of French cinema; she even wrote an essay called The Importance of Being Hated. Controversy seems to shadow every step of her film-making career: in 1999 Romance was the first mainstream film to show an erect penis; she gave Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi his 15 minutes of arthouse fame when she cast him in the lead role of Anatomy of Hell in 2004 (its 18-certificate activities included drinking menstrual blood and penetration with a rusty garden rake). These films left her with the nickname "the auteur of porn".
In truth, although these films were sexually explicit – exploring women's relationships with desire – they were meticulously unerotic. And in the last couple of years, outrage, ridicule, exasperation – all standard responses to a new...
Catherine Breillat used to be the pariah of French cinema; she even wrote an essay called The Importance of Being Hated. Controversy seems to shadow every step of her film-making career: in 1999 Romance was the first mainstream film to show an erect penis; she gave Italian porn star Rocco Siffredi his 15 minutes of arthouse fame when she cast him in the lead role of Anatomy of Hell in 2004 (its 18-certificate activities included drinking menstrual blood and penetration with a rusty garden rake). These films left her with the nickname "the auteur of porn".
In truth, although these films were sexually explicit – exploring women's relationships with desire – they were meticulously unerotic. And in the last couple of years, outrage, ridicule, exasperation – all standard responses to a new...
- 7/15/2010
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
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