The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Miss Osbourne + Rebirth + Angel's Games
Renaissance
Walerian Borowczyk
- 1963
- France
- Animation
- 10mn
- Color
Brand new master
Borowczyk's signature work, Renaissance, features wrecked, handmade objects gradually reconstructing themselves into a still life composition before exploding once more.
Dedicated to Hy Hirsh (the American photographer, cameraman, and abstract filmmaker who died prematurely of a heart attack in 1961), those objects – a doll, a stuffed owl, a trumpet, etc. – serve as a microcosm of a larger, off-screen drama. A frequently humorous and sometimes ominous soundtrack (not to mention a brief flash of color) makes Renaissance one of Borowczyk's most perfect films.
Credits
- Screenplay : Walerian Borowczyk
- Photography : Guy Durban & Umbert Pieri
- Editing : Claude Blondel
- Music by : Avenir de Monfred
- Production : Les Cinéastes Associés
Angel’s Games
Walerian Borowczyk
- 1964
- France
- Animation
- 11mn
- Color
Brand new master
Arguably Borowczyk's masterpiece, Angel's Games is, according to the artist, a reportage in the city of angels. Based on a series of abstract, metaphysical gouaches that evoke Giorgio de Chirico and René Magritte – but which could only have come from Borowczyk's paintbrush –Angel's Games evokes the horror of what Czesław Miłosz described as the concentration universe of both death camps and the Gulag. These unforgettable images, combined with an astonishing soundtrack by Bernard Parmegiani, result in Angel's Games being one of the most affecting films in the history of cinema.
Credits
- Screenplay : Walerian Borowczyk
- Photography : Francis Pronier & Gérard Cox
- Editing : Claude Blondel
- Music by : Bernard Parmegiani
- Production : Les Cinéastes Associés
The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Miss Osbourne
(Docteur Jekyll et les femmes)
Walerian Borowczyk
- 1981
- France, Germany
- Fantasy / Horror
- 1h32mn
- Color
In 19th century London, a sex maniac crashes Henry Jekyll and Fanny Osbourne’s engagement party, and turns the event into a chaos of flesh and blood.
When the herald of literary erotica takes on Stevenson’s masterpiece, he delivers an ambitious, morbid and experimental work, whose cruelty Georges Bataille himself might have endorsed. The confrontation between Bernard Parmegiani’s unsettling soundtrack and Noël Very’s dreamy photography amplifies the fantasy and contributes to a loss of all bearings in this carnal nightmare in which the filmmaker doesn't omit to dismantle the workings of the aristocracy. Behind the orgy: a variation around mad love, sexuality and primal impulses in which Udo Kier and Marina Pierro brilliantly stand out.
Credits
- With : Udo Kier, Marina Pierro, Patrick Magee, Gérard Zalcberg, Howard Vernon...
- Screenplay : Walerian Borowczyk (based on the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson)
- Photography : Noël Véry
- Editing : Kadicha Bariha
- Music by : Bernard Parmegiani
- Production : Jean-Pierre Labrande, Ralph Baum, Robert Kuperberg
Stephen Sayadian