Barbarella is a 1968 science fiction film based on the French Barbarella comics created by Jean-Claude Forest. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.Plot
In the 40th century, Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is assigned by the President of Earth (Claude Dauphin) to retrieve Doctor Durand-Durand (Milo O'Shea) from the planet Tau Ceti in order to save the Earth. On her quest, Barbarella is seduced by Mark Hand (Ugo Tognazzi),
who introduces her to penetrative intercourse, something she is unaware
of, since civilized people of Barbarella's society find their sexual
release through pharmaceuticals. In turn, she seduces an angel named Pygar (John Phillip Law). She visits SoGo, a decadent city ruled over by the Great Tyrant, and powered by a liquid essence of evil called the Mathmos.
She is captured, and overloads a torture device called the Excessive
(or "Ex-sex-sive") Machine, which kills through sexual pleasure.
Fonda as Barbarella in the "Ex-sex-sive Machine"
- Cast notes
- Jane Fonda has lamented the fact that she turned down starring roles in two major hit films, Bonnie and Clyde and Rosemary's Baby to stay in France and star in Barbarella, which was being directed by her then husband Roger Vadim.
- Anita Pallenberg voice was dubbed by Joan Greenwood
- Sophia Loren was chosen for the role but she turned it down.
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Barbarella is noted for a sequence in which the title character, played by Jane Fonda, undresses in zero gravity during the opening credits.
The whole film is played in a tongue-in-cheek manner; especially when
it comes to the frequent (but not explicit) sex scenes. The most
controversial of those scenes involves Barbarella being tortured by the
use of an organ-like instrument that delivers sexual pleasure in doses
that can be lethal, although Barbarella survives the ordeal and is
visibly disappointed when it is discovered she has overloaded the
machine.
The film was simultaneously shot in French and English.
Some characters' lines were performed by the same actors in both
languages; others were not. For instance, Fonda is fluent in French and
performs her own lines for the French version, while Marcel Marceau's lines are dubbed for the English film.
De Laurentiis returned to camp science fiction, but with far less erotica, with the 1980 cult classic Flash Gordon.
[edit] Soundtrack
The songs in the film were written by Bob Crewe and Charles Fox. Stylistically, the sound brought together a lounge music aesthetic with psychedelic pop.
Bob Crewe himself provided the vocal for the memorable film closer "An
Angel Is Love," and several songs were performed by The Glitterhouse, a
New York-based psychedelic pop group that was produced by Crewe and
recorded for his DynoVoice label. During his first European tour in 1967, Frank Zappa had flown from Copenhagen to Italy to meet Vadim and Fonda in order to discuss the possibility of composing the music for the film, but this did not happen.
[edit] Special effects
The psychedelic "blob" patterns that form much of the special effects in the film were created using an oil wheel projector, a popular visual effects device which was widely used for psychedelic light shows at rock concerts in the late 1960s and was also used in many other '60s movies, as well as in many anti-drug educational films.
[edit] Reception
The film was both a box office and critical failure on its release. Variety's
review stated that "Despite a certain amount of production dash and
polish and a few silly-funny lines of dialogue, Barbarella isn't very
much of a film. Based on what has been called an adult comic strip, the Dino De Laurentiis
production is flawed with a cast that is not particularly adept at
comedy, a flat script, and direction which can't get this beached whale
afloat."[1] Despite this, in the years since its initial release, Barbarella has garnered a cult following. The film has garnered a 73% 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes.[2]
[edit] In popular culture
- Duran Duran
The band Duran Duran took its name from the mad scientist
in the film, Dr. Durand-Durand. Milo O'Shea, who played the part,
repaid the compliment by appearing as an older version of the character
in Arena, the band's 1985 concert film.
Some of the band's early appearances were at a nightclub called Barbarella's, in their home town of Birmingham, England. The band has frequently used sound clips from the film in their songs, most notably 1989's "Burning the Ground" and the remixes for 1990's "Violence of Summer (Love's Taking Over)". The band continued the homage to its roots with their 1997 US single, "Electric Barbarella" (released in the UK in 1998).
Stephen Duffy, an original member of Duran Duran, released a solo song titled "Barbarellas" on his 1998 I Love My Friends album.
- 1980s
- When the 1980s girl group Fuzzbox could not get permission to use the Thunderbirds for the music video for their single International Rescue, they spoofed Barbarella, with the video's director Adrian Edmondson playing the Durand Durand character. They also featured their faithful cover version of the theme song on the single's B-side.
- The American pop band The Bongos
recorded a song called "Barbarella" on their RCA EP "Numbers With
Wings". It became a college radio favorite and dancefloor hit in 1983.
- From 1988 to 2002, a nightclub in downtown Orlando, Florida was called "Barbarella", inspired by the film.
- 1990s
- Prince renamed his then-keyboardist Tommy Elm as Tommy Barbarella after the film in 1990 and sampled dialogue from the movie in the song 'Live 4 Love' from Diamonds & Pearls in 1991.
- Another famous singer to use the iconography of Barbarella in a pop video was Kylie Minogue, who recreated the infamous zero-gravity strip-tease in her award winning 1994 video for "Put Yourself in My Place". It was again recreated in the European video for Jem's 2005 single "They".
- In 1998, front man Scott Weiland of the bands Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver released a solo album entitled 12 Bar Blues. The hit song from that album which spawned a music video was titled "Barbarella". The lyrics of the song pay homage to several science fiction television shows and movies.
- The band Matmos takes its name from the underground fluid creature in the film.
- The Finnish rock band The 69 Eyes also recorded a song called "Barbarella" released in Bump 'n' Grind album in 1992. The song's intro starts with Barbarella speaking; that was taken from the original movie.
- The U.K. funk band Jamiroquai mentions Barbarella in the song "Cosmic Girl" on their Travelling Without Moving album, with the lyric "Like some baby Barbarella, with the stars as her umbrella, she'd asked me if I'd like to magnetize."
- The German duo of Sven Väth
and Ralf Hildenbeutel recorded under the alias Barbarella and released
an album in 1992 entitled "The Art Of Dance" which featured numerous
samples from the film.
- 2000s
- The manga artists collectively known as CLAMP parodied Barbarella in the TV no Kuni no Miyuki-chan (Miyuki-chan in TV Land) chapter of their Miyuki-chan in Wonderland. It shows several of the characters, including some female versions, trying to seduce the main character.
- In 2008, the indie pop singer Lights made a Barbarella-themed music video for her song "Drive My Soul".
- In the first episode of the anime F3: Frantic, Frustrated & Female,
Hiroe finds herself strapped to a chair by a mad scientist in order to
test out a sex machine, parodying Barbarella's situation with
Durand-Durand.
- 2010s
[edit] Remake
A remake of Barbarella has been planned for years. Some of the
planned remake were talked about not long after plans for a sequel with
the original Fonda fell through in the mid to late 1970s.
The most serious planning of the long proposed remake began in early
2008. This remake to have been produced and released by Universal
Studios, and was stated to have been written by one time James Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and produced by Dino and Martha De Laurentiis.[3] It was announced that Sin City director Robert Rodriguez would direct the remake for Universal Studios.
Earlier less prominent attempts at the remake of Barbarella included a 1990s revival with Roger Vadim as director, with actresses Sherilyn Fenn and Drew Barrymore considered for the title role.[4]
As of May 2007, it was announced that actress Erica Durance of the WB's Smallville was a front-runner for the Universal 2008 remake. However, subsequent reports identified British actress Sienna Miller as the favorite to take the role, along with Rodriguez's Grindhouse star Rose McGowan. According to Elle magazine, and McGowan was to been cast in the title role.[5]
According to the New York Observer,
Universal Studios had backed out of funding the movie because of
Rodriguez's insistence to cast McGowan in the title role. Executives
reportedly do not think that she can carry a movie with a budget close
to $100 million. Once Universal learned of Rodriguez's decision to cast
McGowan they slashed the budget significantly. Rodriguez denies this,
saying, "Universal had initially signed on for $60 million, but then
when we were done with the script it wound up at closer to $82 million."
With Universal insistence on lower costs (and removal of McGowan from
the lead), Rodriguez had presented the remake to other studios in the
hopes of getting more money. He has cited the fact that most of the
movie takes place in outer space as the reason for the rise in budget,
and that "we don’t want the movie to look like the original."[6]
In May 2009, Rodriguez decided to abandon the project as his backers
did not want Rodriquez to produce the film in the USA based studios and
mostly wanted the film made for German audience. Rodriquez reportedly
did not want to make such a film and also cited the length of time
needed for filming exclusively in Germany would interfere with his
interaction with his 5 children.[7]
Since Rodriguez's abandoning of the project, the remake has been
completely shelved and no plans are active to do the remake, as of late
2009, despite an August 6th 2009 report from Entertainment Weekly[8] that the remake was still continuing and would have been released in the summer of 2010 which has since passed.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
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