I'M IN A JESS FRANCO STATE OF MIND

Thanks to Robert Monell & Alex Mendíbil Blog Alliance Sade, Subliminal imagery, representation in the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet BELOW: L’Eden et apres (1970): I managed to capture this after several viewings. This shot lasts for less than one second of screen time and acts as a subliminal flash which doesn’t register immediately to the eye but is retained in the mind. The image is highly stylized, a depiction of a nude woman lying a bath of red liquid, signifying blood. The picture on the raised portion of the tub is of the lead actress, Catherine Jourdan.

The positioning of the pistol suggests that the woman has shot herself. But there is no realism here outside of what is arranged as a transgression. An aesthetic shock of flesh, red, white, like an abstract painting. The fact that it registers subliminally rather than as readable image completes the transgression. And it illustrates how Robbe-Grillet was an abstract painter in his writing and films. It’s also an example of the influence of Sade on his prose and cinema. When discussing Sade in cinema it’s difficult to minimize the filmography of Jess Franco. He returned to «The Divine Marquis» as an inspiration again and again, adapting his novel Justine (1791), his story Eugenie De Franval (1788); his epic «Dialogues» Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795) was filmed by Franco as EUGENIE, THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION, released in 1970, featuring Christopher Lee as the Sadean narrator Dolmance. I recently obtained N. A PRIS LES DES… an intriguing 1971 feature by novelist-filmmaker-theorist Alain Robbe-Grillet on Blu-ray. It was well worth viewing since the film is an experimental restructuring of his 1971 L’EDEN ET APRES (EDEN AND AFTER), which was also filmed in Bratislava and Tunisia with the same cast and a similar plot. But plot is not as important as image and soundtrack in ARG’s universe, where character and story are one or two dimensional pulp devices. All of his films have a pulp fiction quality which is very upfront and intentional. The Sadean imagery of women in cages is upfront as much as in Franco's WIP films.

ARG was a contemporary and kindred spirit to Jess Franco. Both were immersed in the literature, imagery and philosophy of the Marquis de Sade. Franco actually adapted several of his books, including JUSTINE, JULIETTE (unfinished), PHILOSOPHY IN THE BOUDOIR and EUGENIE DE SADE, to name a few. ARG’s films are awash in Sadean imagery, in which sadomasochism is visualized and discussed throughout. Robbe-Grillet was also Sade obsessed to the point where he filmed one scene in SUCCESSIVE SLIDINGS OF PLEASURE in an French jailcell where Sade was detained in the early 19th century.

Robbe-Grillet’s name is mentioned during the word game in SUCCUBUS/NECRONOMICON (1967) and Franco’s VENUS IN FURS is a virtual remake of ARG’s debut feature, L’IMMORTELLE (1963). Both films feature a search for an elusive women who represents and delivers death to the man who finds her. N. A PRIS LE DES… and its template both feature a woman (Catherine Jourdain) who ends up imprisoned in a Tunisian torture complex, where women are kept in hanging cages by pirates with clandestine motives. Misogynist? Maybe. Is it Art? It depends on personal definitions. What is art to one person, may be mere pornography to others. Where does eroticism end and pornography begin? What Robbe-Grillet does as director is arrange is aesthetically endowed S&M tableaux in various sequences. The key question is: can eroticism be a subject and technique in Art? I think most would answer yes to that. Robbe-Grillet never worked in the hardcore sex mode, as did Jess Franco, but he did create a series of erotic conundrums in his books and films which transgress common definitions of taste and are pornographic to some. His film SUCCESSIVE SLIDINGS OF PLEASURE (1974) actually was the subject of criminal litigation in Italy and was banned there.ARG is mainly interested in presenting films and books as experiments in anti/non/multi linear-narrative and alternate literary/film forms. Conventional representation is critiqued, ridiculed and turned inside-out. Eroticism is often a portal to a dangerous type of personal/political freedom, although his films don’t deal with specific political matters, as do those of Jean-Luc Godard. It’s all a game, to enjoy, one which allows and encourages reader/viewer participation. The meaning is provided by the reader.viewer, as the narrator assures us in the last moments of N. A PRIS LE DES, a film which directly addresses the audience with respect and conspiratorial intimacy. N…. projects the film we are watching as a game of chance, and is a separate film from EDEN AND AFTER.

In 1975 I had the chance to see EDEN AND AFTER on a double bill presented with a Q&A by Robbe-Grillet. The second feature was the even more transgressive, SUCCESSIVE SLIDINGS OF PLEASURE, which is an eyeful for the first time viewer. I was somewhat shocked by the intensity of the sadomasochistic imagery in the latter, and it had trouble finding wide release in France or any release in North America at the time. Robbe-Grillet was teaching in New York at the time and was a charming host for these films, appearing bemused and answering questions politely and at length.

I had the chance to ask him about his frequent use of mirrors and mirror imagery in his films. He answered by mentioning that Marguerite Duras had just completed a film totally shot through a mirror (INDIA SONG, 1975). Jess Franco also seemed very obsessed with mirrors and reflective surfaces, as did Douglas Sirk did before them and as did Sirk's famous student Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who also made a Lili Marleen story a decade before Franco's underrated FALL OF THE EAGLES. Also consider looking into Jaques Lacan's concept of the "stade du miroir" in psychoanalysis in THE LANGUAGE OF THE SELF.

So, how does Jess Franco, generally considered a commercial hack with a penchant for arty pornography, fit into this dangerous game? Alain Robbe-Grillet's films are a unique melding of literary sophistication with pulp imagery from films, posters, police procedural crime novels, sadomasochist imagery found in specialized magazines. Franco's films are sometimes credited as being based on "David Khunne" novels which never existed. Perhaps they were from a synopsis of several pages which are elevated to novel status. (2026, Robert Monell)