View allAll Photos Tagged decency
Many of you will be going to bonfire parties this weekend as we mark the failed terrorist attack of 5/11.
It must be comforting for Guy Fawkes to know that although he didn't manage to despatch any of the 300 nobles in the Palace of Westminster that night, many more people have subsequently been killed and maimed by the festivities that celebrate his failure. Hes possibly the most successful serial killer of all time.
And surely the real reason this festival is so enduring is that we have a sneaking admiration for the Gunpowder Plotters. They were just hours away from wiping out every aristocrat and politician in the land. Although you can never condone mass murder, occasionally you can quietly admire it by exploding thousands of pounds worth of fireworks while cheering your lungs out.
Guy Fawkes is my second favourite character from British history after Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the throne of Henry VII (who I only like because hes got such a funny name). The British love heroic failures and Fawkes is certainly one of those. His capture was satisfyingly comic. When he was challenged in the cellars of the Houses of Parliament, Fawkes unimaginatively claimed his name was John Johnson. What a terrible pseudonym. He couldnt even come up with two different names. When asked his address did he say: Er... 1 John Terrace, John Street, St Johnstone?
Another reason to love Fawkes is that he cheated the hangman by jumping off the scaffold before he could be executed. He broke his neck and died. Now this might seem like a rather Pyrrhic victory, to cheat a horrible death by dying horribly, but Fawkes managed to avoid the rather gruesome fate of also being drawn and quartered. In case you dont know, being hanged, drawn and quartered involved being fastened to a wooden panel, then dragged by a horse to the place of execution. Then, youd be hanged for a bit until you were nearly dead but werent quite dead because they wanted you to be alive to see them cut off your meat and two veg and slice open your stomach so all your guts fell out. Next, youd be beheaded, which would probably be quite a relief, and then rather pointlessly after all that have your body chopped into four bits that would be displayed across town, like something dreamed up by Damien Hirst.
Wikipedia reports that for reasons of public decency, women convicted of high treason were instead burnt at the stake. And how they must have appreciated such chivalry. Thank goodness the public didnt have to see anything indecent, just a woman being burned alive. The past was horrible.
So by leaping from the scaffold, Fawkes not only took his fate in his own gunpowder-encrusted hand, he also hung on to his little John Johnson. He went to the other side with his Perkin Warbeck intact.
Recently, I went to the British Museums excellent Shakespeare: Staging the World exhibition and was surprised and amazed to see what is claimed to be the very lantern that Fawkes was holding when he was apprehended. I have never felt more in awe of a historical artefact. Ive seen the Bayeaux Tapestry, the tomb of Elizabeth I and the Crown Jewels (I mean the actual ones this time), but this battered silver lamp says more about our land and history than all of them put together. Go and see it and marvel at how close he got.
Take care out there this weekend. Dont let Fawkes add you to his list of victims.
From here:
www.richardherring.com/journalism/6554/metro_38.html
Further reading:
A report of the final visit by Dr R Koch, 2-5 March 1948 (appendices omitted):
“Object of Visit:- General Survey
Strength: Off[icer]s: 2. O[ther] R[anks]: 905. Total: 907, of which:
393 at HQ; 186 at Bury Hostel...; 31 at Penketh Hostel...; 49 at Golborne Hostel...; 80 in Billets; 168 Various Detachments.
Screening figures: A 2. B 905. No. of Hostels visited: 3. No. of PsW repatriated to date: 2200
Personnel: O.C: Lt Col Glendinning. Interpreter: none. Camp Leader: St/Fw. Kaesler (20). Deputy CL: O/Fw Schweppenhauser (26). German MO: Dr Kobbert, Dr Mayenfels (at Bury). Hostel Leaders: Bury – SS/O/Jun. Schmidt (20; Penketh – Rottf. Till (29); Golborne – Fw. Ehmke (23).
RECEPTION: The Cdt and his officers give every possible assistance. The camp will close on the 1 April, when the men will be sent to 189 Camp [Dunham Park, Altringham].
PW OUTLOOK: Intelligent and re-educated men emphasize that a general judgement on “the” British cannot be passed, no more than on “the” Germans or “the” Jews, but that each individual must be judged according to his or her merits. However, the average PW has formed an opinion about “the British people”, based mainly on his own experiences with individuals. The men of this camp have had the advantage of close contact with the civilian population... I have interrogated 5 different repatriation-groups, which have certain opinions in common:
The lower classes, the ordinary British workman in Lancashire, has been friendly and hospitable towards the PsW. The upper classes, the “capitalists”, are unfriendly and cannot be trusted. If they meet or invite PsW, they do so only in order to find out what the Germans are thinking. If members of this class appear friendly towards the Germans, they do not show their genuine feelings. The general attitude of the farmers has been to exploit the PsW as much as possible, though many exceptions are admitted. Professional soldiers of the British army are not popular. Men who have been in various parts of the UK emphasise the difference in attitude between the population of one county and another. The attitude of the Midlands is much praised. Some men, particularly youngsters, have not forgotten their treatment in Belgium in 1945/46* and in some camps in the UK after their arrival in 1944/45 (Oldham for instance). The use of the word “Nazi” for “German” in newspapers and the showing of “anti-German” films years after the war is criticised. Differences between the British and German way of life are noticed and there seems to be a feeling of superiority in some respects towards the people of this country, particularly in so far as efficiency (farming), cleanliness (they see miners leaving the pits unwashed) and cooking are concerned. Social differences and distinctions between classes are criticised. Intelligent and older PsW seem to be more pro-British than the uneducated and young. Answers given varied accordingly. Voting averaged as follows: Hate: 0%; Dislike: 1% or less; Distrust: 20%; Indifference: 20%; Like: 59%.
RESTTLEMENT PROBLEMS: No resettlement lecture has been given in this camp.
OUTSIDE CONTACTS: a) Wigan Mining & Technical College: 3-5 men attended. b) Lancs Education Committee Evening Classes: English & Commercial Courses are attended. c) Wigan Police Court: PsW are allowed to attend. d) Elementary School at Earlestown & Grammar School Upholland: Groups of 3-4 men visited these and other schools, to study British education. e) Approved School Newton-le-Willows... f) Youth Clubs Ashton and Haydock: PsW take regular part on their activities , discussion groups etc. g) YMCA Canteens & Clubs: Up to 30 PsW pay regular visits. h) United Europe meeting: 12 men attended the meeting in Manchester on the 20th Feb. i) Lancs Standing Conference of Youth Organisations: Meeting in Manchester on the 13th March will be attended. k) Rotary Club Tyldesbury [Tyldesley?]: PW Broeg (ex TC) attended the Luncheon on the 4 March, lectured on Germany, and answered questions during the discussion...
CAMP FACILITIES: Adequate.
SWISS AND DUTCH LECTURERS: A Dutch lecturer, Van Hessen, was announced and supposed to lecture from 29 Feb to the 2 March. He only arrived on the 1 March. His lecture was fixed for 17 hrs, but he only appeared at 20.15 hrs. His next lecture on the 2 March could also not take place, as the lecturer had left Wigan in the meantime. This information was supplied by the Study Leader of camp 50.
FINAL IMPRESSIONS: The men from the Russian Zone who have to return for family reasons are very uneasy. Youngsters from the Western Zones, who belonged to the Waffen SS, receive information that they will meet with difficulties if they wish to complete their studies (Teachers Training Colleges, Universities etc) in spite of the so called “Youth Amnesty”. There are rumours that the French have deported most SS men and paratroopers.
CONCLUSIONS: Organised re-educational activities in this camp have impressed but few. Lectures become more and more unpopular. The men who attended the TC returned much impressed and remained active. Since the beginning of 1947, re-education has passed into the hands of the population of Lancashire, whose friendliness has proved a great help. The ordinary workmen [of the district are] responsible for the fact that the majority of the PsW in this camp is pro-British. A first class Commandant with a thorough knowledge of Germany, the German mentality and language has exercised a beneficial influence on the camp. The intelligent men have made full use of the valuable outside contacts and have certainly learned a great deal. The harm done to re-education by political segregation cannot be overemphasized**.”
[From National Archives ref. FO 939/132 “Prisoner of War Camps: 50 Working Camp, Garswood Park, Ashton in Makerfield, Lancashire”]
*Of his own experience at St Forte, a disused brick-factory on the outskirts of Ostend where he and thousands of other German POWs had been detained for a fortnight in March-April 1945, Bert Trautman recalled: “Life was grim... The accommodation was totally inadequate, the sanitary arrangements were almost non-existent and the amount of food we had wouldn't have kept a child alive. Occasionally we had soup, but the basic ration was a small piece of bread every twenty-four hours and this you guarded with your life. It was in this camp that I first saw the black market in operation, and I was thoroughly disgusted with what I saw. I used to believe that even in the lowest grade of human being there was some sort of pride and self-respect, but hunger drove the last vestige of decency from some of my countrymen during those ill-stared days...” (in “Steppes to Wembley”, Robert Hale Ltd 1956).
**In the USA, the interests of maintaining camp harmony and making cost-effective use of POW labour had led the Americans to segregate German POWs according to their political beliefs. The practical arrangements for this were left to individual camp commanders (Andrew Streeb, “Political Segregation of German Prisoners of War in America 1943-1946”, in Historical Studies Journal, Spring 2009). How and to what extent similar practices were followed by the British authorities is unclear. There is no suggestion of political segregation at -or affecting the allocation of POWs to- Camp 50 in the earlier PID reports, and Dr Koch does not elaborate on what, in his view, were the negative consequences for re-education.
Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam, Dutch licence holder for Ufa, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. 3649. Photo: Cinepress / Stempka / Ufa.
French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist and made vegetarianism sexy. In the coming weeks, we will post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modelling career and found herself in May 1949 on the cover of the French magazine Elle. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 195,7 and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career
Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Today I felt it was more important to watch Obama's inauguration through the magic of live streaming video from my bed than to get up get to work on time. (Oh future, you are so magical.)
My early morning head muzzy on time differences, I missed most of the show, but as the speech drew to a close, I could feel my eyes stinging with a rich mix of emotions. Pride, wonder, worry... but most of all relief.
Congratulations on your recent transformation, U.S.A. On your recent return to morality, decency, and fair play.
We've been waiting for you. It's going to be a good day.
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Chrystia Freeland.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
West German postcard by Ufa/Film-Foto, Berlin-Tempelhof, no. FK 3320. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation. Brigitte Bardot in Doctor at Sea (Ralph Thomas, 1955).
French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career
Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
*****These charts are not to be used or reposted elsewhere without permission and reference back to the source. I am so beyond tired of seeing my stuff ending up in random places and people not having the decency to simply ask before taking something. Please do not repost these on your blogs, twitter, tumblr, instagram, facebook orca pages, etc...****
I also have some Behavior charts that i made for another friend, and i might put those up at somepoint, but if i do, those will be for friends and family only.
All of the individual photos have my copyright on them. The only ones that don't are photos belonging to www.flickr.com/photos/joyousorca/
Excerpt nr 13 from ‘A special night', a story that I wrote about a night that Paul and I did a reportage on SHRIMPING.
...We looked at each other, and as so often on the same wavelength, we burst out laughing, unable to stop, drunk with fatigue and mirth. We hugged, then crawled back into our berths.
The cadenza changed, waking me. I listened, Paul was in deep sleep. Faint light filtered in through the hatch. I felt around for my stuff, tried to put some decency into my appearance, and, oh so quietly, I felt my way up.
What I saw was stunning. The promise of sun, early rays illuminating the last darkness of night, the sea a pregnant black mass of lapping water-peaks.
It felt as if the iodine scented air was sucked deep into my brain, triggering memories of earlier summers.
As the sun rose in orange glory, offsetting the blue ever more, I saw all the other trawlers on the horizon.
...In our foaming wake, a shrieking battle was going on between hungry seagulls, their agility never ceased to amaze me.
I retrieved my camera and eternalised these beautiful moments.
Well, morning was upon us, we were heading back to land, I'll take you all the way, three more images, hope you enjoy.
Difficult light conditions, still too light for the one, too dark already for the other, c'est dure la vie de photographe, hihi.
Thanx, Magda (*_*)
Not strictly a Finsec event, but here's a few photos of the Service and Food Workers' Union Nga Ringa Tota rally in Wellington on International Cleaners Day.
The 'Fair Deal for Cleaners' campaign that this rally is part of aims to provide a voice to the low-waged largely immigrant female workforce, in cities across Australia and New Zealand, who are calling on big property owners to support decency in their workplaces.
Join here..... I already did, years ago. Glad I did. How prophetic indeed, even though I did not realise it at the time, one of the first exhibits I cam across was this immaculate Austin 8cwt van, turned out in AA colours.
A little over 96 hours later while driving on the M25 I got an offside puncture. If I has set out to pick a worse spot I could not have done so, I was near Gatwick, heading anti- clockwise, in a sort of a ravine, and came to grief at a point where there was no hard shoulder. As it would have been madness to change an offside wheel it was game up. Being an AA member I phoned via an nice orange S.O.S. box.
Administrative difficulties arose with my membership. Not a resident of the U.K. the lad on the S.O.S. phone failed to connect me with the A.A. because "he did not recognise my number" .... A valid and up to date number. Seems U.K. policy numbers are different from European ones?
More concerned with tyre debris on the road than my situation, he hung up and left me to my own devices!!!! I am glad I was not suicidal.
Most tragicially for somebody else, but fortunate to my situation was a serious crash on the clockwise M25. This backed up traffic for miles and lead to scores of broken down cars.
A passing AA patrol stopped looking for another, and in an act of sheer decency changed my wheel, unconcerned by the beaucratic mumbo jumbo which caused my so much difficulty in getting past go!
My thanks expressed to the decency of the AA man, and my annoyance at the S.O.S people I was underway.
It seems Irish AA members are part of AA Europe, in Lyon, so a call must be placed directly with AA in Lyon. The nice M25 S.O.S. man was unaware of this. Given the amount of traffic heading toward the M20 and the likely number of European motorists this was poor to say the least.
This is one of the photos from a Power Point presentation explaining a study in Augusta, Georgia about a street named for Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The “Claiming A Street Named King” Project is the brainchild of Rev. Terence A. Dicks of Augusta, Georgia.
These photos depict homes, building and abandoned structures along Martin Lutheran King, Jr. Boulevard in Augusta, Georgia.
It began with research in Athens and Augusta (Georgia) through the University Of Georgia School Of Environmental Design.
Research was led by Dr. Mary Anne Akers in collaboration with Georgia Legal Services Program, Georgia State Trade Association of Non-profit Developers (G-STAND) and Neighborhood Works America, INC.
“Claiming A Street Named King” Project study in Augusta, Georgia – conducted along Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard - shows areas that need economic assistance – and that’s the same issue in many American cities that have streets named for civil rights leaders
For more information:
claimingastreetnamedking.wordpress.com/2012/01/24/Claimin...
The name of the movie is " Shareef Bay Na Cheeray " . I have no idea what that means Iam guessing its something in Pushto. But Iam sure it has something to do with decency well that's what shareef means ...... ironical isnt it ??
Truffoire is a famous skin health management brand set up with the point of offering a spa-quality involvement with the solace of home. The items have been figured with the decency of truffles and other gainful fixings that fulfill the fantasies of people who fight against the maturing cycle consistently. Every item utilizes truffle as a mark fixing and takes clients closer holding a revived appearance. The brand offers the White Collection which is included white truffle removal and the Black Collection which contains dark truffle separate.
Taken after sunset, so the lighting was a challenge for my camera when trying to capture a moving animal. But he had the decency to pose nicely. (Interior Alaska)
Some of you will already be aware of what I am about to write. For others it will come as a complete shock.
I have been wondering for some time how I can even write these words.
My wonderful husband John Charles Dyer who I went to Florida to be with in 2010 and married in 2012 was diagnosed with an inoperable, aggressive brain tumour in July of this year.
In August he underwent a short course of radiotherapy to regress the tumour. Since then he has been at our home here in Lytham St Annes and enjoying his very English adventure.
Until very recently that included trips to Costa for his fix of coffee and to Zest for their delicious lunches as well as taking in the local scenery here on the Fylde coast. He also enjoyed visits in September from his son Ed Dyer and daughter Jessica Dyer.
He continues to be comfortable and happy. It is my intention to nurse him at home with support from the local Hospice for as long as I am able.
Meanwhile I would ask you all to hold him and his family back in the US in your thoughts and prayers.
The universe in her goodness brought us together and gave us the gift of deep and abiding love and happiness. I am thankful for the time we have shared up 'til now and look forward to the sweetest of memories in the future.
We never know what we are destined for when we set out on this great adventure of life, but I do know that throughout his life my husband always lived up to the highest standards of decency and hard work. He has always loved and cared deeply for his children, his grandchildren, his friends and for me and I know he will continue to do so until his very last breath.
Oh my! The defamers have their claws out. A set of photos from Upfish
Robert Lederman wrote the following letter to the New York Times. I don't know if they published it. He asks the question "What can one person do?" This is what I can do: make a graphic (above) and publish Lerman's letter.
What can one person do?
Most people I've spoken with in recent years feel they have no power, no
ability to affect the dreadful course of events unfolding around them,
especially world or national events. Cindy Sheehan shows what one person can
do.
Whether you agree with her position on Bush and Iraq or not, there can be no
doubting the magnitude of the effect that has followed her actions. By
standing along a dusty road in Texas with a sign she has done more to
successfully challenge the neo-con New World Order than the entire worldwide
anti-war movement and the entire Democratic Party combined. If more people
dared to individually stand up for what they believe in this way the police
state would wither on the vine.
During a war normal life is suspended. We are in a war, but it's not the
fake war on terror we see on Fox and CNN.
The real war is being made all over the Earth against average everyday
people like Cindy Sheehan. Right now most of the casualties are overseas but
the real focus is still right here in the US. Unless the American people can
be subjugated, intimidated, disinformed and made willing to give up their
rights those making this war will ultimately lose it.
The real war is a war against free speech, against the bill of rights,
against freedom, against conscience and against human decency. It's a war
against life, against nature and against the Earth itself. As Americans we
are uniquely both the perpetrators and the victims of this war -
perpetrators because this is all being done in our names and victims because
it is our freedom that is the ultimate target.
Deny the corporate police state what it wants and you will deny it power. To
defeat such an enemy, we must use the weapons that are most effective, the
weapons they most fear.
What are these weapons? Certainly not bombs or bullets or suicide attacks.
They are the manufacturers, distributors and perpetrators of most of the
violence we see in the world today. Using the techniques of advertising,
propaganda and human psychology, they manipulate young Americans to go to
war as readily as they brainwash young Muslims to become suicide bombers.
What they fear most are not weapons of mass destruction but sincere words.
Cardboard signs. Acts of conscience. A refusal to go along with the
propaganda of fear. A determination to not let them get away with it.
It all comes down to one person at a time non-violently standing up for what
they believe in. Anyone can refuse to be intimidated into silence or passive
acceptance. Sometimes, defending your country means fighting against it.
Like the power within a single atom, we all have this power right now freely
at our disposal.
Freedom is the gift given to all Americans. Use it or lose it.
Robert Lederman
201 896-1686
Not strictly a Finsec event, but here's a few photos of the Service and Food Workers' Union Nga Ringa Tota rally in Wellington on International Cleaners Day.
The 'Fair Deal for Cleaners' campaign that this rally is part of aims to provide a voice to the low-waged largely immigrant female workforce, in cities across Australia and New Zealand, who are calling on big property owners to support decency in their workplaces.
Cineaste365 (February 6, 2014 - DAY 117) - “Jules and Jim: is perhaps Francois Truffaut’s most beautiful film ever made. The film showcases its fun and vibrant nature on the opening credits but don’t be fooled, this is not a film that is about three people having an open relationship, this is a film about friendship and relationships over the years and the finality of ones love when one really loves someone but knowing that they can’t be with that person. What else can you do?
For the most part, “Jules and Jim” is definitely the antithesis of Eric Rohmer’s “Six Moral Tales”. In fact, “Jules and Jim” was criticized for its amorality by the Legion of Decency. But I am not surprised. You have three people with a woman having a relationship with both men. Adultery is a theme and conservatives can only be sickened by Catherine’s free-spirited ways and wonder about her daughter Sabine. While others can see this film and not focus much about the amorality but three people who care for each other but are torn by the way of life that they are used to. The film was not made to showcase amorality, the film was to showcase Henri-Pierre Roche’s life with his best friend and a woman that he cared about. It is a love story but in Truffaut’s film, it’s a tragic love story.
Jules is a man who loves Catherine but has not been the man to please her through marriage. Very well reserved, she is his life but is not the man to tame her wildest desire. That is where Jim comes in. Catherine and Jim are sexually connected but unlike Jules, can not have a family with her. Thus a conundrum as she loves both men for different reasons and these men happen to be great friends with each other.
Aside from the story’s conundrums, one can’t help but enjoy the setting of when this film takes place. Although shot in the ’60s, this is France during the teens. Featuring an artistic style with three intriguing characters, “Jules and Jim” shows us a different side of Francois Truffaut, outside of Antoine Doinel but showcasing a woman that embodies nouvelle vague. If Godard’s muse Anna Karina showed that free-spirited style in “Pierrot le fou”, Jeanne Moreau shows another free-spirited style through Catherine who has lived on through the decades with people still entranced by the song “Le Tourbillon”.
Overall, "Jules and Jim" is a classic film that can definitely be appreciated by the new generation of movie fans who have discovered French nouvelle vague but most importantly, wanting to discover the wonderful films in Francois Truffaut oeuvre. Highly recommended!
On our arrival, our rep greeted us with the news that a 'German athletics team' was staying in the hotel - and he'd been enjoying their antics.
We didn't realise at that point that it was a mixed team.
Decency - or, more likely, availability of a camera - prevented me from snapping the young ladies bouncing up and down with their skipping ropes.
Marian Rivera and Dingdong Dantes
[Regine Velasquez' "You Don't Know" Music video shoot
-Society Lounge (French Fashion Food), Makati City]
* ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
** TO THOSE WHO GRAB MY PHOTOS THROUGH 'PRINTSCREEN' OPTION, PLEASE DO HAVE THE DECENCY TO AT LEAST CREDIT ME PROPERLY OR ASK MY PERMISSION (I suddenly find my pictures of celebrities on various sites, NOT COOL)
*** I HATE USING WATERMARK, SO DON'T BE SUCH ASSHOLES, AND IF U EARN FROM BLOGGING OR POSTING MY PHOTOS IN ANYWAY, I WILL KILL YOU (BE GRATEFUL I CAN'T BE TOO LITERAL ON THIS)
British promotion postcard. Caption: "I'm a woman from a man's point of view', says Bardot. ...If you want to find out why, read 'The Secrets of A Sex Kitten', with Bardot's own intimate pictures only in Sunday's Empire News.
French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career
Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
I have decided to use this new setup as my primary for taking pictures, what do you guts think - i for one think it's a lot better than my old crappy one... I hope you guys enjoy these 3 tests...
If you favourite then please have the decency to comment, I don't mind if you don't but I would much like it :) This guy is just a test, so it's not for anything important...
The reaction of the three wise monkeys to the policies of the Campbell Newman LNP government in Queensland (Australia).
That shameful government has walked away from every decent policy. Gone is help to the homeless. Gone is help to hungry families living in poverty. Gone is the fairness of a justice system now replaced by a punishment mindset. Gone is help to those struggling to find a job. Gone is all mercy and fairness. Gone is all decency in government.
"And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother."
— Genesis 38:9
My Subject is Masturbation
Inspiration is provided by what I sense to be a universal condition, which manifests in my own personal feelings of impotence. Mentors, deserving of particular mention, are Goya, Duchamp and Marcus Simon Sarjeant. I have spent the last years in pursuit of mutually onanistic release with these three men. There have been others.
Of the three, I have given to Goya most of my time. Duchamp has won my greatest affection and Sarjeant has my understanding and empathy.
Goya, at least in his later years, had the good grace to withdraw and act out his urgency in private. Duchamp made no bones of making a public performance of his tendencies from an early age. Sarjeant ejaculated defiantly, if prematurely, and faced the consequences.
My Subject is Bachelor Machines
Onanism breeds desperation, arrogance, contempt and a perverse independence. Arrogantly, I do not intend to try to forge links between these three men. There is no need to do so as these links already exist in me and my obsessive interest. Creation is, after all, the union of two (or more) disparate elements to engender a new. So I will attempt to expose, rather than manufacture; reveal rather than produce.
My Subject is Exhibitionism
Thus, I realise that any two or more elements could be combined and any suggestion for coupling is as fecund (or as barren) as the next, or as chance allows. The 'choice' of constituents is purely subjective and perhaps says more about the writer than the written about. To elucidate, or to restrict conjecture slightly, I should like to state that my personal interest lies in non-reproductive coupling. My goal is an exposition and celebration of sterility.
My Subject is Autoeroticism
The Observer, Sunday 14th June 1981: ‘Shots at Queen — Treason Charge’
A seventeen-year-old youth was charged under the Treason Act yesterday after six blanks were fired only yards away from the Queen on her official birthday.
Marcus Simon Sarjeant, unemployed of Folkestone, Kent, was charged that "at the Mall he wilfully discharged at the person of her Majesty the Queen, a blank cartridge pistol with intent to alarm her".
My Subject is Desperation
My introduction to the Bachelor Machine phenomenon coincided with my first really considered exposure to the work of Marcel Duchamp. This cathartic 'Road to Damascus' conversion occurred on board a 'Laker' aircraft whilst returning from New York. I was 24.
The catalyst took the form of a book by Octavio Paz entitled Marcel Duchamp: Appearances Stripped Bare. As with any 'conversion' the initial response manifested itself in an outburst of enthusiasm but with very little understanding. However, the damage had been well and truly done. Stretching this conversion metaphor even further, this attempt at coherence is a presentation of a possible 'New Trinity': Goya is the omnipotent Father, Sarjeant is the wayward 'Sacrificial Son', and finally Duchamp is the Holy Ghost, the overseer.
A Purple Passage
(A socio-religious, psycho-philosophical, art-historical exposé!)
In the beginning was the word, and the word was Bot, and Art seeing that Bot was good didst venerate him. And Art begat a son in his own likeness, after his own image, and did call his name Duccio. All the days that Duccio lived were numbered seventy years. And he begat many sons, the eldest of whom was Giotto. And all the days that Giotto lived were seventy-one years and he did also bring forth issue and Art did smile upon his sons, Piero della Francesca and Botticelli, who in their turns did engender Michelangelo and Leonardo, and many less well-endowed progeny. And it came to pass that Art, now seeing the beauty of mankind, forsook its veneration of the omnipotent Bot and didst venerate Humanity.
Bot saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented Bot that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. Thus, Bot, recognising his redundancy, didst scarper. But humanity finding favour in the eyes of Art did prosper.
Art, venerating man, begot and engendered many sons (and the very occasional daughter) each of whom did venerate man in their turn. Raphael didst know Michelangelo and he didst conceive and bore a school and they spoke of 'Harmony' and they venerated the 'Ideal' and thusly they engendered 'Mannerism'. And Art, seeing that this was good, smiled upon Raphael, who begat a son called Titian. Likewise, to him was born a brother, and his name was Correggio. And they both did play with light.
Art saw fit to cause a division and to set an enmity between the schools of Parmigianino and Holbein. Sensing that competition was lucrative, Art didst encourage it. And so were engendered El Greco and Bruegel, and both prospered. Art encouraged their difference due to the diversity of their produce. But, eventually, Art growing tired of excess did give preference, for a time, to the Northern School, which bore much fruit. Rubens didst conceive and brought forth Van Dyck who in turn did engender Frans Hals, the father of Rembrandt. But Rembrandt did venerate the formerly omnipotent (and previously made redundant) Bot of his ancestors and behold the wrath of Art fell upon him and he did perish in penury. Rembrandt begat a son, however, and called his name Vermeer.
Vermeer was a true son of Art and put no Bot before Art, and he did flourish. However, Art, tiring of Northern Severity (and who could blame it?), did turn again to the South, where it engendered Bernini and Tiepolo. The South too did forsake its humanistic Bot and did engender the deity of 'Decoration'. In this spirit Art prospered and engendered the brothers Watteau, Fragonard and Boucher, in the Gallic lands, and they didst attempt to re-create Eden by disporting themselves freely in Elysian bowers. The brothers proved to be momentarily fertile and together venerated sensuality.
Jacques-Louis David issued forth having been begotten as an unforeseen by-product of Boucher's decadence. David deciding that man could be excellent did idolise this possibility whilst rejecting man's squalid 'reality'. David was also fertile and did generate the 'Hero', and in doing so encouraged Art to venerate War. And Art, seeing that War was lucrative didst raise David to a position of great power... twice.
In the Hispanic Peninsula art didst visit Velázquez, as if in a shower of gold, and he did find himself with child. Goya issued forth from this lineage. But Goya, seeing that War was not good, did not believe in Bot, he did not believe in man, he did not believe in Art, and thus Art in a hissy fit didst frown upon Goya and didst smite him with impotence, saying:
"Thou shall forever be unto me as a witness to the people, and they shall point, crying 'Behold a Godless man' and your issue shall be as a manifestation of the impotence of a man without faith, and generations shall misunderstand and curse thee saying 'behold the unhappy composer of pictures' and many shall waste their time telling anecdotes about the deafness that I shall visit upon you, and thy name shall be numbered amongst the damned. Outside the schools and movements of Art shall thou be forever exiled, and the lot of the 'Bachelor' shall fall to thee."
And Goya, going out alone, was smitten with a blight of compassion for all that he did see, for at that time the peoples of his land were suffering a great travail visited upon them by the Napoleonic 'Hero' generated by David. Goya withdrew in solitude and didst spread his seed on the plaster walls of his house. Thus doing, Goya exorcised his demons.
My Subject is Parthenogenesis
Oscillating back and forth dramatically between arrogance and a guilty conscience, guilt is the hidden weakness inadequately masked by arrogance. I am discovering the extent of my own vanity and my own insecurity. Together they combine to form the nourishment for my obsession. They are just different aspects of the same thing. They are the complementary opposites which chemically unite to form a 'love gasoline'.
They are also manufactured by the disrobing Bride to create and satisfy her own needs. They meet and deny each other on the jaded plains of Onan. They combine not through acceptance of each other but blindly and desperately. They exhaustively pretend they have never met before, but their meeting is as constant as their inability to acknowledge each other. A confrontation is absolutely essential. To continue, insecurity must be sufficiently overcome (not ignored), to give the vanity of opinion free rein.
There is an exposition. I am not writing about Bachelor Machines. I am attempting to construct one.
"THE BACHELOR GRINDS HIS CHOCOLATE HIMSELF"
— Duchamp
•Bachelor: Unmarried man; (hist.) young knight serving under another's banner.
•Machine:
1.Apparatus for applying mechanical power, having several parts each with definite function.
2.Person who acts mechanically and without intelligence or with unfailing regularity.
3.Instrument that transmits force or directs its application.
Already these dictionary definitions begin to suggest hitherto unconsidered possibilities. Initially, there seems to be the germ of an idea which could perhaps be summed up as relentless and mindless solitary servitude. However, as with every word combination, the riches of this union go far beyond what a mere joint definition might suggest.
The Bachelor Machine is, of course, much more than this. Duchamp somewhat defined the limits of its legend when he constructed The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, which must remain the Bachelor Machine par excellence. It might seem logical that it would be best to use this one example to further discover and elaborate on the defining peculiarities of the subject of this particular investigation.
Duchamp's 'Machine' is probably the most complete, as well as being the most conscious example of a 'Bachelor Machine', being as it is the conceptual projection of an intense awareness of the machine-age myth. However, it would be a mistake to believe that this was purely a post-Industrial Revolution phenomenon. The recorded machinations of war, property, money, state and finally even death itself have produced excellent examples of complete and partial 'Bachelor Machines' strewn throughout the history of myth and mankind. After an in-depth consideration of the Large Glass, I would like to deal with Goya as an originator of imagery of this nature and Sarjeant as a recent manifestation of the Bachelor Machine drive.
"The Large Glass"
The initial problem encountered with a description of the Large Glass is knowing where to begin. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even cannot be considered as a separate and complete work. For it to be fully appreciated, a study of earlier Duchamp pieces is imperative to understand his developing iconography. "Indeed, in my whole life, as you rightly point out, I have done but one work."
When Duchamp made this statement to Pierre Cabanne, he was not negating all his other pieces but was including them in his magnum opus. Unknown to Cabanne, he had already spent many years working on Étant donnés, a work which was not to be revealed to the world until after Duchamp's death.
The full title of this last piece is:
Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas
This title first appeared in 1912 amongst the earliest notes for the Large Glass. This would suggest that they are both parts of the same work. Traces of what were to become obsessive recurring motifs can be found in many of his earlier drawings, most markedly in his 'hanging gas-lamp' of 1903, drawn when Duchamp was 16 years old.
What was later to manifest as the 'cemetery of uniforms and liveries' had its initial expression in a group of drawings of 1904–05 in which he portrayed tradesmen and public servants such as 'Policeman back view', 'Knife-grinder', 'Gasman', 'Road-Sweepers' and more especially 'Funeral Coachman' and 'Undertaker'. The importance of these early manifestations of recurring motifs will become more apparent later.
Duchamp's work presents a complicated, some might even say convoluted, machine. I believe though that Art has provided us with very few pieces of equal penetration and metaphorical ingenuity. His subject was constant throughout his lifetime, and besides the pieces already mentioned above, I believe that Standard Stoppages, R. Mutt, Why Not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? and even his obsessive interest with chess are all part of his Large Glass and constitute not only his work, but his life.
Duchamp always expressed indifference to effect. His oeuvre dealt obsessively with its opposite, i.e., cause. The sagacious stoicism of some of his statements is devastating. For example: "Given, that I suppose I suffer a lot." This is a Given, i.e., as in a mathematical equation or chemical theory, it is just understood, accepted as being the case, immutable. It is an effect to which we must develop an 'indifference' because of this immutability. But, at the same time, Duchamp wishes to recognise, understand, and expose the source of that suffering.
His tools to aid his discovery are humour, irony, and indifference. His was a constant quest to discover the cause, that is the real, and then to give this a concrete expression through an extended metaphor describing his/our inability to combine the cause and the 'given' because of our fascination and fear of the effects. To discover the elements is not enough; to combine them remains the problem. Creation must be, and is by its nature, an act of transcendence.
Duchamp dealt with our inability to transcend due to our lack of acceptance of ourselves; our self-involvement blinding us to self-knowledge. In Duchamp's art we are eventually reduced to the role of voyeur without any real understanding, and even with little choice as to the subject of our gaze. Man as the voyeuristic, narcissistic, onanistic specialist is the desperate subject of Duchamp's relentless study. It was this situation, or view, which caused Duchamp to attack the retinal specialists of the Art world. The recognition of his own inability to overcome this impotence must have formed the unalterable aspect of Duchamp's suffering.
The driving force in the Large Glass is, as will be seen, towards unity. However, the animal instinct is towards individual survival which causes fear due to the instinctual realisation of corporeal decay. This is a very basic Eros-Thanatos conflict and is very much the seedbed of the Bachelor Machine. It is the 'architectonic base' of the piece. The pathos of the piece and its accompanying humour is embodied in this failure to unite.
Duchamp remains for me the most humanistic artist of the 20th Century. His considerations were never retinal, visual, aesthetic, plastic (or whatever the 'art-term' in vogue) but were purely involved with the contemporary human condition and the causes thereof. This would make Apollinaire's early prediction strangely prophetic:
"It may be the privilege of an artist as free of aesthetic preoccupations and as concerned with energy as is Marcel Duchamp to reconcile Art and the people."
The Large Glass is composed of two principal elements. The upper half being the domain of the Bride whilst the lower is that of the Bachelors. This 'separation' is an essential aspect of all Bachelor Machines.
'The Bride' is "a sort of apotheosis of virginity, i.e., ignorant desire, blank desire (with a touch of malice)." We see her as she hangs down from shiny metal gallows which "could simulate the maiden's attachment to her girlfriends and relatives" — a strange form of strangling security which provides what Duchamp terms a "solid base on firm ground."
"The Bride is basically a motor, but before being a motor which transmits timid power she is this very timid power, itself."
So it would appear that the Bride preserves a degree of autonomy, as she is self-motivated, self-driven:
"This timid power is a sort of auto-mobiline, love gasoline that, distributed to the quite feeble cylinders, within reach of the sparks of her constant life, is used for the blossoming of this virgin who has reached the goal of her desire. The whole graphic significance is for this cinematic blossoming."
The Bride has many appellations all of which are of extreme significance and tell us about the properties and aspirations of the Bride. The most significant of these names is probably "Arbor-type"; the others are: "steam engine", "skeleton", "Pendu femelle", "the plough", "agricultural machine", "Virgin" and "Pendulum".
The "cinematic blossoming" has its graphic description as a greyish cloud with hints of flesh-colour tints (in fact the only truly amorphous shape on the glass) hanging from above. This aspect of the Bride also has many names including "Halo of the Bride", "Top Inscription", "Milky Way" and "Title".
This becomes, in a way, the "hanging out of flags" of the Bride, so that her having achieved stripping and orgasm is made apparent. It is through this "top inscription", which acts as a sort of scoreboard, that she communicates her desires and successes to the Bachelors. However, this does remain a one-way communication as the males have no such organ of communication. This Halo also contains "elements of this blossoming, elements of the sexual life imagined by her, the Bride, desiring." It exists more to reveal the Bride to herself rather than to be of erotic stimulation to the Bachelors.
The Bride reveals herself nude twice:
"The first, that of the stripping by the Bachelors; the second appearance, that voluntary imaginative one of the Bride. On the coupling of these two appearances of pure virginity, on their collision, depends the whole blossoming, the upper part and crown of the picture."
So, it would appear that the actual act of being stripped would not suffice to facilitate blossoming and that without the narcissistic/onanistic stimulus of the Bride's seeing herself, the orgasm would not be possible. Duchamp calls this "mixture, physical compound of two causes (bachelor and imaginative desire)" and tells us it is unanalysable by logic. This might suggest that the situation could be instinctively understood or sensed. The blossoming is not in fact the orgasm but the "last state of the nude Bride before the orgasm that might make her fall."
The "Milky Way" contains the "three nets" or "pistons" which form a "sort of cipher through which the Milky Way supports and guides the said commands." These nets contain an alphabet of communication. According to H.P. Roché, these nets form "the original mystery, the cause of causes, a trinity of empty boxes."
Duchamp makes another important differentiation between the domain of the Bride and that of the Bachelors in that he states that the principal forms of the Bachelor Machine are imperfect; rectangle, circle, parallelepiped, symmetrical handle, demi-sphere, i.e., they are measurable, whilst in the Bride "the principal forms are more or less large or small" and "have no longer, in relation to their destination, a measurability."Here Duchamp is introducing a new unknown dimension. This reduces the Bachelor to the purely diagrammatic, the predictable, as in a mathematical equation, or in architecture, where with the aid of a measured diagram, one can construct a 3-dimensional reality of which the diagram is a mere, but faithful, representation.
Duchamp then tells us that "the pendu femelle is the form in ordinary perspective of a pendu femelle for which one could perhaps try to discover the true form" — a direct challenge. However, with this more or less, large or small, non-measurability, we find ourselves beyond the confines of mere geometry and therefore a discovery of the true form (meaning) which is "unanalysable by logic" must be reached by some other method. Duchamp has given us a glimpse of a reality which is beyond our understanding, a reality of which we ourselves are a mere projection or shadow.
The "wasp" or the "sex cylinder" controls the "spark of desire magneto" which causes the "motor with quite feeble cylinders" to run. It draws the automobiline from the "reservoir" or tank of love gasoline. This would equate the desire magneto with the spark plug of a car engine and the reservoir with a petrol tank. Although the language is quite explicit, the representation is more amorphous and the exact placing of these particular aspects of the Bride's mechanics is not always possible.
Directly below the Bride on the far left, above the line indicating the horizon that breaks the Large Glass into two halves, is the Bride's fallen transparent garment. To the right of this invisible garment is the similarly invisible "Wilson-Lincoln System". This was a visual trick invented by Duchamp but never plastically realised. The idea was that when looked at from one position one could see an image of Wilson and from another only Lincoln was visible. In other words, what we see depends on our point of view. The Wilson-Lincoln system's function will become more obvious later on. Finally, in the region of the Bride, just below the tail of the Milky Way, is the region of the "shots pulls". These become the target or goal towards which the malic moulds aspire.
The Bachelor Domain
As has been already stated, the 'Bachelor Domain' has a measurability and follows geometric or physical laws. The "Given" relates to this secondary domain. "The Waterfall" and the "Illuminating gas" are aspects of this domain. As they are "given" or understood, there is no explanation of from whence they might have come. We are told that the "Waterfall, a sort of waterspout coming from a distance in a half circle over the malic moulds" activates the mechanism. It is akin to breath, it supports basic life, causing the chariot to come and go, the "Bottle of Benedictine" falls and returns to its place, the wheel of the Water Mill turns, and the chariot intones its litany.
"Slow life. Vicious circle. Onanism. Horizontal. Buffer of life..." this litany is the bachelor's theme, the leitmotif of the celibate life and is relentlessly intoned by the chariot, which we are told is made of "emancipated metal" which makes it "free of all gravity in the horizontal direction". This causes the chariot to slide back and forth on runners at a jerky pace. Hidden within the bosom of the chariot is the "landscape of the water mill".
In the centre of the bachelor's realm we find the "chocolate grinder". Its constituents are a Louis XV chassis, three rollers and a necktie provided at the four corners with very sharp points and a bayonet which holds up the Large Scissors. The opening and closing of the Scissors manifests a constant in response to the sliding of the chariot which in turn causes the gyrating of the chocolate grinder. This continuous, relentless, life-long masturbatory action is summed up in the statement that "The Bachelor grinds his chocolate himself."
To the right of the grinder, we can see the "oculist witnesses" who are represented by three circular discs similar to diagrams used on optical charts. Above these three is a smaller disc which "ought to have been a magnifying glass".
Having thus somewhat surveyed the topographic elements of the Large Glass, it now remains necessary to further consider its machinations. There are "unseen elements" within the glass. Aspects which remain invisible, but which become important in its working process. I shall try to deal with these considerations when I arrive at the point of their interrelated existence. It must not be forgotten that Duchamp left his Large Glass finally "unfinished" in 1923 and this is the state in which it still exists today. However, its completion, I believe, coincided with Duchamp's death, his infrathinning, on October 2nd, 1968.
The Blossoming of the Bride I
The Bride has at her "life centre" a "pulse needle" which is "mounted on a wandering leash" and has "the liberty of a caged animal." The pulse needle's task is to "promenade in balance the sex cylinder which spits at the drum the dew which is to nourish the vessels of the filament paste." At her base is a tank of "Love Gasoline". This gives the Bride autonomy, and therefore sovereignty, over the Bachelors. This tank is part of the "Wasp" and the gasoline is stated to be her secretion which she draws from her tank by osmosis. The Bride lubricates herself.
This love gasoline is the motivating force of the Bride's life and desire. In fact, life and desire are inseparable; desire is the essence of the Bride. It is both a sexual lubricant and nourishment and is kept in a reservoir: "contained in the oscillating bathtub (Hygiene of the Bride)." The Wasp even regulates the "Atmospheric pressure of her domain" as the filament substance is extremely sensitive to "differences of artificial atmospheric pressure". This filament substance resembles a "solid flame" at the moment of blossoming. This seems like an obvious clitoral metaphor.
The Bride initially works herself up. She contains a built-in ventilation system in the form of an "interior draft" which is partly the mechanism for controlling atmospheric pressure, but it also is the expression of a "vital breath" which Duchamp compares to a car which: "wants more and more to reach the top (of a slope), and while slowly accelerating, as if exhausted by hope, the motor of the car turns over faster and faster, until it rears triumphantly." It is through this striving which is transmitted via the three pistons of her halo that the Bride awakens desire in the Bachelors below.
The 'Bachelors' do however not really exist. They are just a "cemetery of uniforms". But as in Genesis, God's breath instils life into Adam, so in this "creative" act the breath of life in the form of illuminating gas coming from "who knows where" enters the "malic moulds" and the 'Bachelors' come to life. "The cemetery of uniforms and liveries" is a very apt title for the malic moulds. Duchamp assigns to each one a role, they are:
1.Priest
2.Department-Store Delivery-Boy
3.Gendarme
4.Cuirassier (armourer)
5.Policeman
6.Undertaker
7.Flunkey (liveried servant, footman)
8.Busboy (waiter's assistant)
9.Station-master
These form a collection of public servants to meet all the needs of the Bride. What we see, however, is only the moulds into which the gas passes; we do not see the 'Bachelors' themselves. "The moulds were rather a sort of catafalque or coffin. A coffin does not have the shape of the dead person inside it, likewise the moulds are standing-up coffins of each form."
[Catafalque: Decorated structure to carry coffin or effigy of a distinguished person during funeral service, or for lying in state.]
Part II
To look upon this cemetery of liveries is to look upon the supreme achievement of a de-individuating civilization. These nine pre-fabricated slots—the Priest, the Department-Store Delivery-Boy, the Gendarme, the Cuirassier, the Policeman, the Undertaker, the Flunkey, the Busboy, and the Station-master—are not merely occupations; they are the architectural straightjackets into which humanity is poured and solidified. Society, in its mercantile anxiety, demands that the fluid expansiveness of the individual be tamed, measured, and reduced to a predictable social utility. Duchamp explicitly isolates this mechanical entrapment in his notes: “The cemetery of uniforms and liveries is a group of 9 empty husks... inert and powerless, which wait stupidly for the signal to perform the basic function that is required of them here.” It presents a man with a livery, and in the very act of donning that uniform, the living, breathing being is evacuated. The motor is ripped out of the chassis, leaving only an empty hood that performs its functions with an unfailing, mindless regularity.
Here is the ultimate plight of the militant bachelordom of the state. Each character is frozen within his own specialized paranoic cage, a caricature of masculine authority that is masking an innate, systemic impotence. The Priest is severed from his instinct by the rigid dictates of ecclesiastical dogma; the Gendarme and the Policeman are cast as the passive, unseeing guardians of an artificial decency; the Undertaker is trapped in a permanent, professional rehearsal of the very mortality he fears. They are public servants designed to meet every conceivable structural need of the Bride, yet they remain permanently blind to her suspended reality. They are cogs in a legal and social machine that operates without intelligence, bound to a world of geometric reason and law from which all vital grace has been banished.
They are, as the notes designate them, the “matrices of Eros,” but they are matrices that produce only their own negative—a sterile containment.
By calling this collection of living public servants a "cemetery," Duchamp delivers a devastating, humanistic satire against the institutional straightjacket. These bachelors are ghosts long before they hit the dirt. They are the flat, cardboard cut-outs of a castrated universe, and their tragic condition mirrors the very entrapment that Goya recorded when he painted the Spanish court. Just as the Marquesa de Pontejos is squeezed to perverse proportions by her courtly whalebones and satin fetters, so too these nine bachelors are bound within the constricting coils of their societal uniforms. They are the blind, deaf, and dumb Chinchillas of the industrial age, stupidly waiting for an external command to trigger their non-productive, solitary servitude. The absolute artificiality of their state is underscored by Duchamp’s note regarding their physical composition: “And for moulding what? Gas.” They are literal vessels of vapor, inflated by the hot air of status and position, yet fundamentally empty.
But we will also get there later through Goya. This is part of the trajectory of this essay.
The tragedy of this configuration is that the bachelors are completely unconscious of their own redundancy. They cling to the authority of their uniforms while the ground beneath their elliptical runners is systematically turned into quicksand. Like the crowned heads of Europe trembling before the Napoleonic myth generated by David, these public servants are trapped inside a closed loop of appearances, completely oblivious to the fact that their institutional authority is an impossibility in the face of infinity. They are empty husks, hollow containers that have forsaken their own creative autonomy to become the predictable components of a calculation of suffering.
Duchamp explicitly reinforces this isolation through his architectural calculations of their domain, writing that “the principal forms of the Bachelor Machine are imperfect; rectangle, circle, parallelepiped, symmetrical handle, demi-sphere, i.e., they are measurable.” This measurability reduces their entire existential horizon to a diagram. They are locked into a three-dimensional prison of reason and law, unable to comprehend the higher-dimensional, unmeasurable reality of the Bride who hangs suspended above them. For this automated theatre of despair to perform its onanistic function, it requires a vital breath to disturb the equilibrium—a primal force to shatter the paralysis of the catafalques and drive the celibate apparatus toward its inevitable, fragmented execution.
Part III
The gas from "one knows not where" enters the malic moulds. These malic moulds are, by the way, "cut by an imaginary horizontal plane at a point called the point of sex." This is the first of four castration allusions relative to the male apparatus and its functioning. From the start, the impotence of the Bachelor is insinuated by merely geographically locating the moulds. As the gas fills the moulds:
"The casting so obtained would hear the litanies sung by the chariot, that 'Slow life, vicious circle, onanism refrain' of the whole celibate machine, but they will never be able to pass beyond the Mask = they would have been as if enveloped, alongside their regrets, by a mirror reflecting back to them their own complexity to the point of their being hallucinated rather onanistically."
After filling the moulds, the gas begins to emit from the top of each malic mould. "The gas passes along the unit of length in a tube of elemental section and by a phenomenon of stretching in the unit of length the gas finds itself (congealed) solidified in the form of elemental rods." To put it bluntly, the 'Bachelors' achieve erection. What then follows could be interpreted as the second of the aforementioned four castration allusions.
"Each of these rods, under the pressure of the gas in the malic moulds, leaves its tube and breaks through fragility, into unequal spangles, lighter than air... retaining in its smallest parts the malic tint, liberated at the mouth of the tubes, tends to rise. The spangles are stopped in their ascent by the 1st parasol."
It would seem that the reason for the elemental rods breaking into spangles is the pressure put on them by the onrush of gas, or their own enthusiasm. Their great need is also their downfall. The greater the need the more intense is the fear of failure, which in turn leads to impotence — the "vicious circle" of the chariot's litany.
Thence follows a most amusing description as to how the spangles fare in their journey through the seven parasols or sieves. Initially they are "straightened out" and lose their sense of up and down and of their "position". This sounds akin to a military academy training. They are straightened out to such a degree that "necessarily there is a change of condition in the spangles". The re-conditioning is successful and "they can no longer retain their individuality and they all join together at B" (the last sieve). So, it seems that having been thus trained they are now ready for the passing out ceremony, so they get in uniform line.
"The spangles splash themselves each to itself." i.e., change their condition from "spangles which are lighter than air with a determination to rise" into "a liquid elemental scattering, seeking no direction, a scatter suspension on their way out of B, vapour of inertia, but keeping its liquid character through instinct for cohesion, the only manifestation of the individuality (so reduced) of the illuminating gas in its habitual games with conventional surroundings — what a drip!"
This desperately funny description of the confusion of the 'spangles' reminds me of a Woody Allen movie entitled Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask). The particular sequence was one in which Allen, as one of the multitude of spermatozoa, was preparing himself to enter the race to reach the ovum. They each individually had the tendency to rise, to reach that goal, each recognising that only one would actually make it. This was the moment for which they had been trained/conditioned/prepared.
Eventually the time comes for the launch and they link up holding hands in mutual support (congeal). As they run up the tube Allen quips that he hopes the man isn't masturbating as he doesn't want to end up splashed across the ceiling. As Allen flings himself into the void, he screams "well at least he's Jewish." The sense of confusion pre-ejaculation though is pure Duchampian. Luckily for Allen, his bachelor was not grinding his own chocolate!
It is whilst passing through the sieves that there is a third allusion to castration which manifests itself in the crossing back and forth of the scissors at sieves 4 and 5, which is activated, as we have seen, by the movement of the sleigh to the onanistic chant. It is at this point that they are "straightened out" and lose their sense of direction etc. The gas here becomes a liquid rather like as in a distillery as used in the manufacture of brandy (Eau-de-vie).
They end up on "the slopes of flow in the form of a toboggan but more of a corkscrew," which causes the drops to splash to the bottom to form the "region of the three splashes." This region with the toboggan is, we are told by Duchamp, invisible. At the end of the corkscrew the splashes explode and are fired upwards in a last desperate attempt to reach the domain of the Bride. But the role of the scissors is to cut the wings of the flying splashes and send them back to the region of the weight with nine holes (also invisible), which collects the dazed drops and carries them upwards.
They seep into the oculist's hideout, where they are metamorphosed into the 'sculpture of drops' — art — which in turn are projected upwards towards the upper half to "meet the nine shots." However, the 'sculpture of drops' are not real drops but an image of them. Each drop "acting as a point and sent back mirrorically to the high part of the glass to meet the 9 shots = mirrorical return each drop will pass the 3 planes of the horizon. Here on the horizon they traverse the 'Wilson-Lincoln system' (i.e., like the portraits which seen from the left show Wilson and seen from the right show Lincoln)."
The Horizon is also the region of the Bride's Garment.
The Blossoming of the Bride II
To consider the Large Glass as purely a sexual metaphor or an allegory of sexual impotence and frustrated procreation would be a gross over-simplification of the situation. If it were read thus one would be forgiven for believing that Duchamp felt a romantic attachment to the idea of paternity and was mourning the absence of unhindered genital caress leading to procreation. This is in no way the case.
In 1954 Duchamp married Alexina (Teeny) Sattler and during an interview soon after stated: "I carefully avoided all this until I was 67 years old. I married a woman who, because of her age, could not bear a child."He also made an anti-family statement in the same interview saying he rejected "the family which forces you to abandon your real ideas and exchange them for something accepted by itself, society and the whole show."
So, it would appear that the two-dimensional representation, which is an obvious mechanical metaphor for a sexual situation in our own known dimension, is itself a metaphor for yet another reality, imperceivable at first, but which becomes more lucid if one picks up on the clues Duchamp scatters throughout his work.
The role of the male apparatus in the 'cemetery of liveries' exists only as a reflection of the Bride's desire, in that it is totally lacking in autonomy or personal motivation. It exists, but it can only act at the instigation of the Bride. The Bride appears to have autonomy or power. But, what if the actions of the Bride were but a reflection of a separate and invisible/inconceivable other reality? Perhaps another mirror exists and shows us a reflection of the Bride as she in turn has seen a reflection of herself in the excitement of the malic moulds. Duchamp suggests this in his notes in the Green Box:
"The Pendu femelle is the form in an ordinary perspective of a Pendu femelle for which one could perhaps try to discover the true form. This comes from the fact that any form is the perspective of another form according to a certain vanishing point and a certain distance".
"Perhaps make a hinge picture (folding yardstick, book…) develop the principle of the hinge in the displacement 1st in the plane 2nd in space. Find an automatic description of the hinge. Perhaps introduce it in the Pendu Femelle"
Duchamp spent much of his life's work on experiments involving this hinge principle. For example, there is the Glider Containing a Water Mill in Neighbouring Metals on hinged glass. He constructed hinged doors and windows through which vision was obscured, such as Fresh Widow of 1920, and The Brawl at Austerlitz of 1921. This matured into the hinged but un-openable Spanish doors of Étant donnés through which one could not possibly hope to see (being made of heavy oak) but which further confounds our expectations by revealing to us the Bride in all her naked glory. There is an aspect of this very contradiction in his Door, 11 rue Larrey, of 1927. This piece deals with the ambiguity of "fact" or that which we believe we know. A door cannot both be opened and closed at the same time—or can it?
This hinge principle is also at work on the horizon line of the Large Glass where the Lincoln/Wilson syndrome confuses our senses by changing the image we perceive into something else as we change our point of view. This aspect of the piece never achieved a plastic representation on the glass, and Duchamp somewhat justified himself when he stated in an interview that the Art produced in any age was its mediocrity, and that the greatest ideas never achieved plastic representation. It is through the "invisible ingredients" or the incommunicable that Duchamp expresses his sense of failure and inherent impotence.
Stretching a metaphor (which itself is a metaphor), having spent some time considering Lincoln, I would now like to turn my attention to Wilson, i.e., to change my point of view. Wishing to leave the realm of the sexual, I want to explore the ambiguous terrain of the Alchemical and, thus doing, I close one door to find another has opened.
Now there exists a different "reality." The Large Glass is no longer concerned with frustrated sexual desire, but instead deals with alchemical potency. Alchemy, of course, deals with the harmonious union of opposites, the combination of base raw materials to produce precious metal... gold (non-literal). The Human alchemical symbol is that of the Androgyne. In Jungian terms this is considered to be the union of man with his "anima" and/or woman with her "animus." Duchamp's works abound with Alchemical references.
"To attain his truth man must not be tempted to dissipate the ambiguity of his being, but on the contrary accept its realisation."
— Simone de Beauvoir, ‘The Ethics of Ambiguity’, 1947
At this point I feel a need to quote Gilles Deleuze and a statement he made relative to Sacher-Masoch in his book Masochism. This statement could easily be about Duchamp. I would like to suggest there seems to be a strong masochistic element in the work of Duchamp. I believe this could be a rewarding area for further in-depth investigation.
"He does not believe in negating or destroying the world nor in idealizing it: what he does is to disavow and thus to suspend it, in order to secure an ideal which itself is suspended in fantasy. He questions the validity of existing reality in order to create a pure new ideal reality."
This indifference of not negating nor idealising reality is central to all of Duchamp's work. This creation of an "ideal reality" through indifference to apparent reality is pure alchemy. In Sacher-Masoch's ideal world the apparently autonomous dictators were to receive no better treatment than their "underlings."
"The unconscious is an orphan, an atheist and a bachelor."
— Gilles Deleuze
Alchemy: An Individuation Process
"Individuation, becoming a self, is not only a spiritual problem, it is the problem of all life."
— Carl Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944
In the spring of 1911 Duchamp painted Young Man and Girl in Spring. This painting deserves close scrutiny as it contains evidence of his interest in Alchemical processes. It is no coincidence that he chose in 1914 to paint Standard Stoppages over an enlarged version of this painting whilst working on the Large Glass. The Young Man and Girl in Spring is a symbolically loaded metaphor about the struggle to attain individuation (i.e., alchemical union with self) or to discover the Philosopher's Stone.
There is minimal sexual differentiation between the pair as both stretch with uplifted arms forming two Y-shaped figures. They are seen stretching towards the branches of the central tree, which in alchemical iconography is the 'Tree of Life.'
The Alchemical symbol for the androgyne is the letter Y, which also signified to the Naassene Gnostics the intimate nature of being, which they considered to be both male and female and also eternal.
The two young people are seen to be standing on separate spheres striving upwards but also towards each other. This would seem to signify the Brother/sun, Sister/moon incestuous yearning which is at the root of alchemy.
Arturo Schwarz, in his Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, deals with this incestuous propensity on a personal level, relative to Duchamp and his sister Suzanne. He theorises that the Narcissistic and therefore onanistic drive is just a successful re-routing of this drive towards incestuous unity. On the back of the painting is inscribed: "A toi, ma chère Suzanne, Marcel" which would seem to give some support to this theory.
It must not be forgotten that the 'tree of life' remains central both to this painting and is also carried over to the Large Glass, to the Bride's description where she is called the "Arbor-type", which supports her halo and is attached to her motor. This 'Arbor-type' is the Bride's backbone or axis. This 'Arbor-type' also "has its roots in the desire gears." In the earlier painting the tree is seen to emerge from a circle.
Within this circle, which strongly resembles an alembic (or alchemical vessel), stands a sexless personage whose situation and position is reminiscent of Mercurius, who is usually represented in an alembic in the same pose in alchemical iconography.
Mercurius was a hermaphrodite. He seems to be offering something with outstretched arms to the male figure. This is interpreted as a piece of pink cloth by Schwarz. Pink is traditionally a female colour. This might refer to the alchemically related custom on Cos of the husband dressing in women's clothing to receive his Bride. There is also a tradition on Argos that the Bride would wear a false beard on the wedding night.
This becomes even more interesting when it is considered that in 1919 Duchamp drew a false beard on the Mona Lisa and in 1921 had himself depicted as Rrose (pink) Sélavy (C'est la vie) on the front of a perfume bottle entitled Belle Haleine, Eau de Voilette (Beautiful Breath, Veil Water). Is Duchamp showing us the waiting "Bride" in her "Veil"? Is the "veil water" synonymous with the "waterfall" of the Large Glass and Étant donnés? Does the "veil water" / "waterfall" hide more than it reveals, as the fall of a "veil" could mask an act of transvestism? Is the bearded Mona Lisa a projection of the Bride's animus or is she using a mask to "veil" her identity? Does she use "Beautiful Breath-water" to "veil" the stench of cigars or a fellatial aftertaste? Need I go on?
She/he embodies all the questions, contradictions and paradoxes which have been attributed both to the original enigmatic Mona Lisa and the equally enigmatic and sexually androgynous St. John the Baptist. Leonardo had a lifelong passion for Alchemy. He also had a heightened sexual duality. The fruit of the 'tree of life', which is also called 'The Fount of Youth', is ideal androgyny.
Below the alembic in Duchamp's painting is yet another figure. This figure is seen to rest both on the female (moon) and male (sun) spheres, participating in both. This figure is a representation of the possibility or the ideal unity towards which both figures are straining—the androgynous entity which is endowed with eternal youth, the triangle within which the circle and square are combined.
Duchamp continued to develop this theme right through to the Large Glass. The Passage from the Virgin to the Bride and The Bride, both of 1912, show us the gradual development of the prototype for the Bride's apparatus in the Large Glass. She is a direct descendant of the young girl reaching a form of maturity.
However, following the young man through to the Bachelor apparatus we discover his dejection and eventual decentralisation/disintegration into a sort of multiple paranoia lacking in unified identity. Initially he is seen as the Sad Young Man in a Train, and in Nude Descending a Staircase he achieves a multiplicity which he carries with him into the Bachelor's realm where he appears as multiple images of solitary servitude.
All is not so completely clear-cut, however. There exists within the Large Glass another inherent contradiction which still must be considered. If the moon is the alchemical female symbol and the sun the male, how is it possible for the Bride to have autonomy and the malic moulds to act as mere reflections of the Bride's power when, in actual physical sun/moon terms, the opposite would be the case?
As in his Mona Lisa, Duchamp has endowed the female element of the Large Glass with male/sun qualities. He chooses to make the female rather than male the autonomous element, thus making the sun a female symbol or, by inversion, the Bride becomes a male retaining his/her "sunness" autonomy whilst recognising his/her own reflection in the animus/anima figure of the malic moulds; this suggests the possibility.
The malic moulds do contain within themselves the possibility of unity. This is suggested by the 'Eros Matrix' title, which is another name by which they are known. 'Eros' being love and 'Matrix' being the oven or the 'Womb of Love.' However, the possibility is denied when the Bachelor begins to grind his own chocolate. As the cast is the negative of the mould, so too the 'Eros Matrix' or 'Womb of Eros' produces Eros' opposite. Eros, the god of unselfish love, has his opposite in Narcissus—the self-loving human. Eros is commonly represented as being androgynous. So, the androgynous Eros mould produces the Narcissus cast.
Self-love triumphs and denies the possibility which is mirrored in the Bride's desire. Rrose Sélavy is left waiting at the altar wearing a "veil" to hide his masculinity. The Bachelor Machine cannot overcome its apparent maleness through fear and therefore loses its "sun" characteristics and ends up reflecting a possibility back to the autonomous Bride.
"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Matthew 26:41
"I want to grasp things with the mind the way the penis is grasped by the vagina."
— Duchamp
Arturo Schwarz states that "malic" is a neologism coined by Duchamp. This may be true for the French original "malique", but I cannot help but wonder if his choice of the word was somewhat influenced by the English/Latin form of the word through which an allusion might be made to the androgynous roots of the Christian Adam and Eve myth.
Malic. Malum (Latin) apple, as in malic acid (i.e., acid derived from unripe (not ready) apples). This is too much of a coincidence, surely. In Christian myth the apple exists as the symbol of division, that is division from God and from each other. The apple becomes the bitter (unripe) fruit of experience which serves to cause the fall. The apple is also the fruit of the tree of life. The onanistic devil is the protagonist who offers the fruit.
Adam and Eve are unashamedly one, as Eve has issued parthenogenetically from Adam's rib. This is further alluded to in the piercing of Christ's side by the centurion to hasten his death, and with it our (the descendants of Adam and Eve) rebirth. Our rebirth is facilitated by the opening of Jesus's side as Eve was engendered from Adam's side. Adam and Eve lived in a paradise east of Eden until they were made aware of their differences by eating the apple of the tree of knowledge: "And they were ashamed by their nakedness." In other words, they only became cognisant of their diverse sexual characteristics through their curiosity. In losing their androgynous innocence they were driven from paradise, and thereby lost eternal life.
The alchemical drive is a conscious attempt to re-enter into that androgynous state of grace. In the light of this statement lovemaking, coital union, could be seen as the desperate strivings of diverse elements violently attempting to storm the walls of Eden. What futility!
The stance of the "Bachelor Machine" is both that of failure and choice, impotence, and defiance. It is this apparent failure of the procreative act which drives the 'Bachelor Apparatus' to masturbate, both in fear and loathing. This bachelor apparatus comprises 9 bachelors, as described by Duchamp. It is the total lack of autonomy and the recognition that he is being manipulated which causes the 'Bachelor' to despair. There is no visible or measurable evidence of any other state existing. The only possibility is an instinctually felt one. The 'Bride' is a creature of instinct, as is her realm one of instinct, being un-measurable also. The 'Bachelor' is caught in his limited world of geometric reality and reason.
Hence his condition remains more wretched than that of the Bride. The 'Bride' could achieve coition if the 'Bachelor' had the courage to see beyond the "evidence" of appearances. It might be this once-bitten, twice-shy attitude of the 'Bachelor' which is responsible for the Christian belief that it was Eve who ate of the apple first and coerced Adam into taking a bite. Having acted on instinct once, the male apparatus, having failed, is incapable of acting on instinct again. This is the plight of the 'Bachelor Machine.'
Then along came Rrose.
Rrose didn't usher from a wound; Marcel simply moulted.
Given this description of Duchamp's machine, perhaps some statements could now be made about Bachelor Machines generally. A 'Bachelor Machine' would appear to be a fantastic machine that transforms love into a technique of death. It is also an improbable machine in that it remains useless, semi-incomprehensible and non-productive. In other words, it appears to have no reason for existing in itself as a machine governed by the physical laws of mechanics, or by the social laws of utility. It merely adopts certain mechanical forms to simulate certain mechanical effects.
It is governed by subjective choice, and only when the signs of this subjective determination are accepted and understood does the fog of absurdity begin to rise. The progenitor of such imagery expects a suspension of disbelief from his viewers just as a good storyteller would expect the same from his listeners when he intones his "once upon a time." The fact that Aesop's fables are not grounded in the reality we can initially perceive does not in any way obscure their relevance.
So, the creator of a 'Bachelor Machine' chooses a system, or a catalogue of images, which in this case is composed of two elements. Element one being sexual. This is split into the male and the female, but either of these aspects can achieve multiplicity as the male does in the Large Glass. The reverse is equally possible. The second element is a mechanical unit which is also split into two elements, which correspond to the sexual male and female units. This distinction is made in the Large Glass by separating the 'Bride' apparatus from the male mechanics. The division is not always as clear-cut as this.
In Lautréamont's Maldoror we encounter just such a fusion: "He is beautiful... like the chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissecting table." Instead of communion on a love bed (seedbed) which would signify life, the union of the umbrella (a male symbol) and the sewing machine (female symbol) is realised on the dissection table. This expresses the Bachelor Machine's specific function, which is solitude and death.
Lautréamont's statement was somewhat predated by Baudelaire when he wrote: "In the act of love there is a close resemblance to torture or a surgical operation" , Journaux Intimes, 1851, and even by Delacroix in his journals. The specific entry to which I refer was penned on the 3rd August 1855, and it relates to a visit made by him to the Palais de l'Industrie where the Exposition Universelle was mounted as a celebration of the machine age. Delacroix exclaims: "The sight of these machines saddens me deeply. I do not like this matter that seems, quite alone and abandoned to itself, to do things worthy of admiration." This was the heartfelt cry of a true Romantic spirit against the inhumanity of the mechanical and its incipient dangers and pitfalls.
On the evidence produced so far it would seem that the 'Bachelor Machine' could only be a product of the industrial revolution, which would make my inclusion of Goya under the same heading a trifle awkward. I could argue that the industrial revolution had begun towards the end of the 18th century, but this argument could not support Goya's iconography as he was a particularly Spanish artist and Spain was extremely retarded mechanically even up to the start of the 20th Century.
I do believe that Goya's Bachelor Machine manifestations are products of the machinations of power and class difference, in the less extreme cases, and of war and death in the more fully realised examples of this phenomenon in his work. I would not suggest a completely conscious understanding of the mores of the B.M. exists in Goya's work, but I do believe that when a study is made of recurring iconography, subject matter, and obvious obsessions, it will become clear that Goya sensed his impotence instinctively but nonetheless obsessively.
It must be stated here that it would be a mistake to equate the Bride or the Bachelor apparatus with specific and constant gender. As previously suggested, there is an innate ambiguity and ambivalence in the Large Glass even to giving to the 'Bride' the power of autonomy, or activity, which is traditionally a male attribute. The Bride manages to penetrate into the region of the bachelors, whilst they fail to enter her domain. The Bachelors become the passive victims, or just a certain reflective quantity, so that the question of pursuer and pursued is confused. This could be construed as the militant bachelordom of both sexes and the bachelor machine's renunciation of procreation.
There is an inherent schizophrenia in all Bachelor Machines. Perhaps it would help if this were considered as an autonomy/dependency conflict rather than a straight male/female one. This ambiguity is at the root of all the forms and significations of Bachelor Machines. For example, I shall try to show later how The Family of Charles IV by Goya is a manifestation of such an onanistic machine in which the dual gender elements of male and female in the group are actually aspects of the same Bachelor tendency.
Aspects of Impotence Made Manifest in the Works of Francisco Goya
Given:
"NADA" — "NOTHING" the semi-putrescent cadaver groans as it attempts to disengage itself from the greedy earth. It scratches its urgent message into a plate with an etching needle. The word inscribes itself automatically as the corpse turns away in its striving to escape. The earth holds it whilst the night sky torments it.
There is no escape from this nothingness.
In Nada, man's impotence achieves its most horrific manifestation. This flight from death is both the outcome and reason for war and its disasters. It is a depiction of the life and death of Godless man. Man, who has already died to discover that there is nothing beyond, least of all hope. Nascent man who recognises his own death in the birth pangs of his mother.
The scales cannot even promise compensatory justice; all is black. This son of the soil pulls against an incestuous union with his earth mother. He aspires towards the sky, which taunts him in return. He engraves his solitary protest, desperately intoning his epistle of one word, his leitmotif, whilst the litany of his tormentors assails the porches of his ears. Death even, in this instance, holds back its sweet oblivion. Goya's given: "That I suppose I suffer a lot," shared with that of Duchamp and all of humanity. "O that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw and resolve itself into a dew," presented as release withheld.
Given:
Saturn Devouring His Son
The Saturn myth is one of the oldest and most fundamental of Bachelor myths known to mankind. Saturn, a Roman deity, is identifiable with the Greek God Chronos. Chronos is the God of time carrying his scythe with which he had castrated his own father, Uranus, and then thrown his genitals into the sea. The black blood from the wound seeped into the earth and engendered the furies.
When Uranus had been thus reduced to impotence, Chronos usurped his throne. An oracle predicted to Chronos that he would be supplanted by one of his progenies, and it was this prediction which was the cause of Chronos' action.
Goya's Saturn is the most ghastly of all his Black Paintings, which were executed in his later life. These paintings adorned the walls of the septuagenarian's house. This painting in particular needs placing alongside an historical phenomenon, namely the Auto-da-Fé or Inquisition. The Inquisition could be seen as the consumption of the wayward sons of the church by their 'holy fathers.' Clerics being supposed celibates, or bachelors, destroying the illegitimate or aberrant produce of their metaphysical loins to preserve their own celibacy myth. Saturn attempts to assure his own continuity by devouring the very products of that natural continuance urge. He causes his own 'impotence', born out of fear of his issue, or the products of his own potency.
The face and protruding eyes of Goya's Saturn express the depths of his self-enforced desperation and impotence. Fortunately, there exists a photograph of the original, prior to its removal from the wall of Goya's house and its transfer to canvas. Evidence suggests that the restorers took many liberties "in the public interest" whilst negotiating this tricky manoeuvre.
Nigel Glendinning tells us in his The Strange Translation of Goya's Black Paintings that:
"The photograph seems to suggest that the painting originally showed an erect or partially erect penis, with a highlight on the foreskin. Gimeno's etching of the painting implies a similar interpretation."
So, the product of the union between Saturn and his Bride is devoured in an anthropophagic orgy whilst the God's obvious potency mocks his fear and desperation. His is a lust which can never realise fulfilment, a need which devours itself.
"To drink blood, to swallow sperm, and to eat children, means appeasing desire through destruction of its object. Pleasure requires neither exchange, giving, reciprocity, nor gratuitous generosity. Its tyranny is that of avarice, which chooses to destroy what it cannot assimilate."
This statement by Simone de Beauvoir is not relative to Goya but rather appears in a book entitled Must We Burn Sade?, 1952.
I have already suggested a connection between Duchamp and Sacher-Masoch; now I would like to make an equally tentative connection between Goya and de Sade.
I have somewhat jumped ahead of myself to make an initial dramatic statement. Having done so, I now plan to back-track and try to present a picture of Goya's complete 'bachelor machine' fixation and its development throughout his work.
First, I must more emphatically state the fact that my current attempt at exposing a coherent connection between Goya and my subject cannot include a methodical exposure of the 'Life & Times' of Goya. It is necessary that to make the proper connections, liberties be taken with the chronological order of some of these works. I will include an appendix which will somewhat position Goya relative to the major historical movements of his day, i.e.: The French Revolution, The Auto-da-Fé, Majaism, The Corrupt Court of Maria Luisa and Godoy etc. This appendix will end with the invasion of Spain by Napoleon in 1808. I did not feel the need to continue in such a relentless fashion from then on as the ensuing works, i.e., The Disasters of Wa
Not strictly a Finsec event, but here's a few photos of the Service and Food Workers' Union Nga Ringa Tota rally in Wellington on International Cleaners Day.
The 'Fair Deal for Cleaners' campaign that this rally is part of aims to provide a voice to the low-waged largely immigrant female workforce, in cities across Australia and New Zealand, who are calling on big property owners to support decency in their workplaces.
After the shock of Donald Trump’s inauguration day, when millions of Americans (and visiting foreigners like me) felt understandably distraught, bereft, dismayed, as the grotesque, narcissistic, predatory, corrupt fraud that is Donald Trump delivered a bleak and graceless inauguration speech, it was nothing short of a delight on Saturday, Jan. 21, Day 2 of the aberrant Trump presidency, when, across the country and around the world, millions of women (plus large numbers of supportive men) marched in protest against Trump and all he and his administration stand for — his disdain for women, his racism, his xenophobia, his adherence to intolerant white Christian fundamentalism, and, last but not least, his opaque, but very obviously corrupt business practices. Two US academics have estimated that between 3.3m and 4.6m people marched in total across the US, with New York’s turnout estimated at between 400,000 and 500,000 people.
Stepping out of Grand Central Station into a river of protest, with more clever, witty and insightful handmade posters than you could imagine, and with chants and cheers punctuating the general hubbub at regular intervals was to feel that perhaps this dystopian vision of America can indeed be overthrown before it wreaks untold havoc at home and abroad. And with no beginning or end of the protest in sight, it was easy to believe that the number marching was much larger than even the academics’ estimate.
It will take more than one day, of course, as the people of America need to unite like never before — everyone who didn’t vote for Trump, everyone threatened by Trump, everyone appalled by Trump, including, of course, those who voted for him but might already be having second thoughts. This could be a disastrous presidency, or it could be even worse than that, but people need to put aside any notions of complacency, and work out how to resist. This was a great start, and a historic moment that everyone there will remember, but now there needs to be much more action and organizing.
As you look at these photos, however, I hope they are a reminder of a day of hope across the US and around the world, when ordinary people demonstrated that fundamental decency will not be silenced, and that a tolerant, multi-racial society, featuring, at its heart, equality between women and men, and between people whatever their race, creed or color, has humour, intelligence and compassion that throw into even sharper relief how troublingly miserable, negative and ungenerous Donald Trump and his advisors are.
For an article by US Uncut about the numbers attending the protests, see: usuncut.com/news/womens-march-largest-protest-us-history/
For the turnout estimates, see: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1xa0iLqYKz8x9Yc_rfhtmSOJQ2...
For an article in New York Daily News, which ran a front page devoted to the protests, under the headline, “See them roar,” see: www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/women-march-washington-...
For my website, see: www.andyworthington.co.uk
For my Facebook posts after Trump’s inauguration, see:
www.facebook.com/andyworthingtonUK/posts/1015497574252380...
www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154975238073804&set...
For my most interesting photos, see: www.flickriver.com/photos/andyworthington/popular-interes...
Dutch postcard, no. 861. Brigitte Bardot in Mio Figlio Nerone / Nero's Big Weekend (Steno, 1956).
French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist and made vegetarianism sexy. In the coming weeks, we will post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modelling career and found herself in May 1949 on the cover of the French magazine Elle. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 195,7 and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career
Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
i am not feeling tired or exhausted or anything like that at all. just that, as soon as i have my head positioned horizontally, i would simply doze off, fall asleep, drift into oblivion or any descriptives of your choice, in a dreamless yet peaceful suspension. then, out of the blue like a lightning strike, i would open my eyes to a buzzing head, and it is at this stage/point/state when i would imagine ant-load of electrical impulses worming across the surface of my cerebral cortex, not unlike surreptitious flies exposed to bright scathing fluorescent light or illicit lovers scampering back into their decency, these electricities wash along the shallows of my brain in tides of disorganised hastiness, and there i would be, my eyes almost always level on the intersection between two walls and a ceiling, slightly intoxicated still with this lethargy without a name, i would imagine scenes. not like an active and vivid imagination of a child on the drier side of the window during a rainy day, but rather, inconsequential scenes where shadows fall on secretive stolen glances or my feet in shoes i never owned running away from echoes of their very own footsteps, or my personal favourite, a drop of water falling and splattering, over and over again, in utter silence;
earlier today, my mom reminded me once again that i am not that young anymore. a bit wiser, hopefully, she added.
unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world :-) Dinesh D'Souza
Today, all Americans are Bostonians, and all who respect decency and life are Americans. Our thoughts are with those who were affected by yesterday's horrific events in Boston.
variegated eastern redbud, 'Floating Clouds', j c raulston arboretum, ncsu, raleigh, north carolina
[c. 1969]
oil on board
49.5 x 69.5 cm
not signed
Originally part of Wep's 1950 Archibald Prize finalist portrait of Prime Minister Menzies
Exhibited
2012 May, "William Edwin Pidgeon Retrospective", Artarmon Galleries
Arrangements were made by Ian Fitchett (R.G. Menzies's Press Secretary and a former journalist and friend of Bill's) to have Menzies sit for the painting. Initially completed in 1950 and entered into 1950 Archibald. Was touched up and finessed over the years and eventually dated as 1969.
“This entry for the Archibald prize has created a lot of interest and keen and favourable comment. ‘Wep’ is regarded by fellow artists and the soundest critics as one of the best contemporary portrait painters. He is, of course, a great cartoonist with a style which is inimitable. ‘Wep’s’ work truly reveals the Prime Minister’s qualities of loyalty, efficiency, regard for decency and truth and, in times of stress like the present, trustworthiness and clear thinking.” – Liberal Opinion, Feb 1951, Vol. 4, No. 4, p1
Wep was never happy with the original portrait submitted to the Archibald (the right hand was awkwardly placed) and a second almost identical version was painted with an improvements to the right hand and a slightly altered position. The background was also slightly softened. The original version ended up with a nude painted on Menzies lap; Menzies appeared to have a wry 'Mona Lisa' type smile on his face.
In 1988 when Charles Hewitt reframed a number of Wep's works, the original version was cut in half making a separate painting of the nude and the upper half was cropped closely to Menzies’ head. This head has since been acquired by the National Library of Australia as part of Wep’s archives. The lower half nude remains in the personal possession of Peter Pidgeon
Charles Hewitt Frames Invoice #25492, 12/9/89
Nude on Menzies lap
34.5" x 26.5"
Small linen bevel
MAG 440-1263 moulding
$508.80
Cleaning & restoration
$240
West German postcard by Ufa-Foto, a supplement by Film Freund, no. 15, 1956. Photo: Cinepress / Stempka.
French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped elevate Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career
Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Union Square, Manhattan, New York City, New York
The Everett Building is a sixteen-story commercial structure located on the northwest corner of East 17th Street and Park Avenue South. Named for Union Square's nineteenth-century Everett Hotel, and built in 1908 for the Everett Investing Company, it was designed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck, a firm known for its commercial architecture.
It is a quintessential example of a building type defined by A. C. David (writing in Architectural Record in 1910): functional, fireproof, speedy to construct, while also demonstrating a concern for "architectural decency;" as such, this building is a uniquely American architectural expression. In its design, the Everett Building synthesizes classical elements with key aspects of both the New York and the Chicago styles; Goldwin Starrett was familiar with the Chicago style as a result of his years in Daniel Burnham's Chicago office.
The building reflects its structure in its cladding, while employing a design vocabulary that includes classical motifs. The Everett Building is prominently located on a site on the north side of Union Square and, together with the monumental Germania (now Guardian) Life Insurance Company Building directly across the avenue, forms an imposing terminus to Park Avenue South.
The Development of Union Square
The Commissioners Map of 1807-11, which first laid out the grid plan of Manhattan above Houston Street, allowed for certain existing thoroughfares to retain their original configuration. Bloomingdale Road, (now Broadway), and the Bowery intersected at 16th Street.
The acute angle formed by this "union" was set aside by the Commissioners and named Union Place.
Initially Union Place extended from 10th to 17th Streets, on land owned by the Manhattan Bank:
It then presented to the eye of the tourist and pedestrian a shapeless and ill-looking collection of lots, where garden sauce flourished — devoid of symmetry, and around which were reared a miserable group of shanties.
In 1815, the state legislature reduced the size of Union Place by making 14th Street its southern boundary. As the city expanded northward and land use intensified, the need for open spaces became apparent. A report drafted by the street committee in 1831 states the need for public squares "for purposes of military, and civic parades, and festivities, and ... to serve as ventilators to a densely populated city."
Designated a public space in 1832 at the urging of local residents, additional land was acquired so that the area could be regularized.
Graded, paved, and fenced, Union Place was finally opened to the public in July, 1839. Throughout much of its history, the square has been used for public gatherings, political rallies, and demonstrations.
By the 1850s, Union Square (as it came to be known) was completely surrounded by buildings including some of the city's most splendid mansions; but, "already by 1860, the dramatic march of commerce had begun." Theaters, hotels, and luxury retailers predominated in the 1870s. By the 1890s, the vestiges of the fashionable residential area, as well as the elegant stores and theaters, had been supplanted on Union Square by taller buildings that catered to the needs of publishers and manufacturers who had moved uptown.
The land on which the Everett Building stands was originally part of Cornelius Tiebout's farm. From 1853 on, the site was occupied by the Everett House, a hotel frequented by the singers and musicians performing at the new opera house, the Academy of Music (1854, architect Alexander Saeltzer).
Like the Belvedere and the Clarendon, hotels which were also demolished to make way for 'modern' office and loft buildings, the Everett House was razed to clear the site for the Everett Building.
The Everett Building is prominently situated on the northwest corner of East 17th Street and Union Square North, at the base of Park Avenue South (then called Fourth Avenue). Stations for major subway, surface, and "El" lines were close to the site, which was characterized by Real Estate Record & Guide in 1908 as "one of the most accessible locations for modern office buildings in the city."
Although when built, the Everett Building was associated with a possible transformation of Union Square to be effected by the construction of a new courthouse, the building was later seen as evidence of the concentration of the silk, woolen, cotton, and dry goods trades on Fourth Avenue, the area around the Square and lateral streets.
By September, 1910, about seventeen new loft and office buildings (generally restricted to office and salesroom needs, as opposed to manufacturing) had been erected, conveniently located near hotels and transportation.
In October 1911, Real Estate Record & Guide noted that "the Everett Building and those along the avenue, in which dry goods people are tenants, are all filled up."
Larger than the late nineteenth-century buildings on Union Square West, the new loft and office buildings, such as the Everett Building, altered the scale of structures on the Square's northern and southern ends and formed the core of a new mercantile district developed as an economical alternative to the commercial district along lower Fifth Avenue.
Notice of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck's selection as the recipients of the commission to design the Everett Building appeared in Real Estate Record & Guide for August 1, 1908.
The Everett Building was built for the Everett Investing Company; included among its early tenants were a wide variety of businesses and occupations, including William Skinner & Sons, an operating establishment "in the broad silk end"; the firm of W. G. Cornell, which was responsible for the plumbing for the new Gimbel Building and the offices of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck.
Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck
The firm was founded in 1907 by Goldwin Starrett (1867-1918) and Ernest Allen Van Vleck (1875-1956). Starrett was one of five brothers, all active in the construction and architectural fields. Born in Lawrence, Kansas, his family later moved to Chicago. Starrett attended the engineering school of the University of Michigan, graduating in 1894. He then entered the architectural offices of D. H. Burnham & Co. , as had his two older brothers, Theodore and Paul. He remained in Burnham's employ for four years, rising to be one of Burnham's principal assistants.
In 1898 Goldwin entered the New York offices of the George A. Fuller Construction Co. as superintendent and assistant manager, joining his brother Theodore.
In 1901, along with Theodore, and his brothers, Ralph and William A., he formed the Thompson-Starrett Construction Company; he remained with the firm for four years, during which time he designed the Algonquin Hotel, a designated New York City Landmark, for Albert Foster of the Puritan Realty Company. Goldwin then entered into a four-year association with the E. B. Ellis Granite Company, which had its quarries in Vermont. In the construction business, Goldwin was associated with many important buildings, including Union Station in Washington, D.C. and the Woolworth Building in New York, a designated New York City Landmark.
In 1907, Ernest Allen Van Vleck joined Starrett to form the firm of Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck. A native of Bell Creek, Nebraska, Van Vleck received a degree from the Cornell School of Architecture in 1897. He then traveled to Europe on a fellowship.
About 1908, Orrin Rice was admitted to the partnership, and in 1913, William A. Starrett joined the firm, which then became known as Starrett & Van Vleck, with Goldwin Starrett becoming the senior partner.
Starrett & Van Vleck specialized in commercial buildings and schools but also designed many other structures. Among the firm's ma j or commissions were the Lord & Taylor department store, a building that was termed "frankly commercial as well as dignified" in contrast to the residential nature of most other contemporary commercial designs; Saks Fifth Avenue, a designated New York City Landmark; a major expansion of Bloomingdale's; the facade of the Curb (now the American Stock) Exchange Building; the Downtown Athletic Club; the La Salle & Koch store in Toledo, Ohio (1916); the Court & Remsen Street Building in Brooklyn; The Equitable Life Assurance Society Building, and the Royal Insurance Building.
The firm was also responsible for designing the Hale Publishing Co. Building, the Berkeley Building, and the twelve-story neo-Italian Renaissance apartment houses at 82 0 and 817 Fifth Avenue, within the Upper East Side Historic District.
Other works by the firm include the Mills-Gibb Building, a mercantile building at Fourth Avenue and 22nd Street; a building for John T. Underwood, president of Underwood Typewriter Co. located at Church and Vesey Streets; the Mercantile Building at Fifth Avenue and 38th Street; 28-30 West 38th Street, a twelve-story building for Capt. W. H. Wheeler; and the twelve-story Sixteenth Street Building, at Irving Place and 16th Street.
Loft and Commercial Building
The Everett Building is a quintessential example of the new commercial style of architecture built around 1910 in New York and concentrated on Fourth Avenue from Union Square to 30th Street.
Its design was considered innovative when it was illustrated in the Architectural Record (Dec. 1910), as part of a tribute to the new corridor of commercial buildings in what is now Park Avenue South.
These buildings termed "thoroughly contemporary" and "strictly commercial" were erected with exceptional rapidity; the Everett Building "was ready for occupants within four months from the time the first column shoe was set."
In "The New Architecture," A. C. David specified a tall order for architects of these loft and commercial buildings, one which Starrett & Van Vleck fulfilled. Tenants required a maximum amount of clear, preferably square or rectangular, floor space so that large numbers of employees could be supervised by a floor manager.
In order to secure the greatest amount of natural light, a corner site, large windows, and high ceilings were imperative. In addition, the planning of building services affected the amount of "clear and available" floor space. These new structures had to meet the specifications of the insurance companies and of the building laws for fireproofing, in order to obtain the lowest insurance rates (as the Everett Building did).
Combining the stairway and fire escape provisions of the building law and omission of power plants in the building were additional ways to cut costs. At the same time, the building must be economical to operate. Speedy construction, a goal facilitated by granolithic or concrete floors, the use of metal trim, the omission of ornamental plastering, and the standardization of detail, was also essential.
In his article, David also suggested that attention to the building's design was necessary because "a structure which presents a good appearance sells better."
The Everett Building fulfilled these specifications as well. Like the Everett Building, the ideal loft and commercial structure was to consist of "a frame work, usually about sixteen stories high of piers and floors, the lines of both of which are separated by fixed distances, and both of which cannot be disguised by much ornamentation."
An ornamental cornice was not merely permitted but encouraged, even if the natural light on the top floor was impaired. The employment of glazed orange and green terra-cotta panels and medallions brings this desired attention to the Everett Building's crown.
According to David, windows should be grouped in order to emphasize the corners and to convey an impression of solidity; a building could thus be made to resemble a tower rather than a cage.
Face brick, laid in patterns, and architectural terra cotta were recommended for the cladding of the shaft. In other instances, exemplified by the Everett Building, "white glazed terra cotta decorated with superficial ornamental patterns has been effectively employed."
David continues that these buildings were a specific and original American type, "the only genuine commercial architecture in the world." These characteristics constitute what may be called a New York style.
Classical Aspects of the Building's Design
The Everett Building incorporates many classical elements in its design. As in other nearby skyscrapers including Bruce Price's Bank of the Metropolis, a designated New York City Landmark, the tripartite skyscraper elevation inspired by the parts of a classical column is employed in the Everett Building. A rusticated base is surmounted by a decorative transitional story; an eleven-story shaft leads to yet another transitional story, which is capped by a two-story attic crowned by an elaborate bracketed cornice.
The two-story base is articulated by rusticated piers which carry a classically-derived entablature that is embellished with stylized triglyphs and metopes. The building's two-story crown evokes a giant order; the elements of the pilasters are articulated and embellished by abstract terracotta elements. The doorway as built was pedimented with acroteria at center and sides.
William H. Jordy has observed that such commercial buildings retain "something of the blocky quality of the Renaissance palace format" which permitted the anonymity and interchangeability of functions.Real Estate Record & Guide concluded that the building "an investor might expect for $900,000," would be a structure "not — gaudy ... the whole with its straight, Renaissance architecture giving the impression of commercial utility."
Influence of the Chicago School
Goldwin Starrett's years working in Daniel Burnham's prestigious office (in the 1890s, the largest in Chicago, with branch offices in New York and San Francisco) are of clear influence to the design of the Everett Building which frankly expresses function. Starrett doubtless knew such monuments of Chicago architecture as Burnham & Root's Rand McNally Building (1888-90) and Burnham & Atwood's Reliance Building (1895).
Starrett's Chicago connections also would have insured his familiarity with the Carson, Pirie, Scott Store (the first two parts designed by Louis Sullivan, 1899, 1903-04; third part designed by Daniel Burnham, 1906). All three buildings contain innovations later incorporated in the Everett Building. The Rand McNally by Burnham & Root was formed of a consistent steel frame with facades "of terra cotta produced specifically to fit the frame."
The steel and terra cotta combination introduced in the Rand McNally was further refined after Root's death by Burnham and his designer Charles Atwood in the Reliance Building (1895).
Terra cotta, which although lighter, less expensive, and more solid than masonry, had heretofore been employed only as a fireproof undercoating to masonry and for ornamental embellishment. Its use as sheathing for the skyscraper was a precedent followed by Goldwin Starrett & Van Vleck and in many contemporary office and loft buildings in New York City.
By creating the appearance of a grid on the elevations, Starrett incorporated a major tenet of the Chicago School: the articulation on the exterior of interior structure. In this building, verticals are juxtaposed against horizontals and thus serve as visible surrogates for the concealed skeletal frame; such a system is one of the most important characteristics of the Chicago School.
The panels which emphasize the spandrel beams, the use of textured, ribbed moldings to articulate the panels themselves, and the vertical alignment of the windows is, in some respects, reminiscent of Carson, Pirie, Scott's structural expressiveness.
In Carson, Pirie, Scott, the terra-cotta panels and the fenestration create the impression of a grid and of horizontality; like the Chicago structure, the Everett Building can be viewed as both grids "expressing the frame" and as bands of horizontals.
The Everett Building, however, is more overtly classical than Carson, Pirie, Scott. In contrast to the receding two-story loggia which originally capped the two portions of the store designed by Sullivan, Starrett's design articulates the top two stories (which do not recede) with terra-cotta moldings.
Starrett topped the building with an avowedly classical cresting that features acroteria (as did the pedimented portico over the doorway as originally completed) and rests the building on rusticated piers.
Starrett and Van Vleck also render the Chicago idiom more traditionally. For example, the tripartite "Chicago window" with wide central pane and two narrow sash windows has here been translated into a bay containing three equally sized one-over-one windows. Although the end piers of the Everett Building are of the same width as those between bays, an additional textured molding has been added to their outer edges. Moreover, at the intersection of the Park Avenue South and Union Square elevations, the rusticated pier emphasizes the effect of the corner.
Description
Prominently located at the corner of East 17th Street and Park Avenue South, fronting on Union Square, the Everett Building is a sixteen-story, steel-framed office and loft building. A seventeenth story is concealed beneath the cornice and is evident only on the north and west walls. The building is sheathed in white terra-cotta panels and has applied green and orange architectural terra-cotta ornament. It is rectangular in shape with a rectangular light-court in the northwestern portion.
There are six bays on the Union Square side; the Park Avenue South elevation consists of eight bays. Each bay is divided into three parts, (with the exception of one bay on the Park Avenue South side which only contains two), each of which contains a window; above each first story window (with the exception of the second from the right on the Park Avenue South elevation which contains only two) and framed by the rusticated piers are three narrow, rectangular panels.
A two-story base with rusticated piers (each resting on a pink polished marble base and topped by a geometrical molding) is set off from the rest of the building by a cornice embellished with stylized triglyphs and metopes. Mullions separating windows in the bays of the second story resemble pilasters; they are set on blocks and feature consoles supporting pyramid-shaped blocks that reiterate the rustication on the piers and serve as capitals. A cornice with mutules completes the frieze above the second story. On the Union Square facade, atop the aperture of the bay on the extreme left, the original overdoor consisting of several thin moldings (two of which are embellished by small applied bosses in the shape of flowers) remains. On the Park Avenue South elevation, the bay to the extreme right contains the original transom treatment: above the shop windows and entrance (which are new), the transom area is divided into three panels each consisting of twelve lights, arranged in three rows of four. Two faciae separate each group of twelve lights; directly above these faciae, on the beltcourse, two dark bezants appear, serving both to embellish and to link the dark frames of the glazed panels below and the windows above.
The third story consists of ornamented piers (which separate the bays) demarcating the transition from the two-story base to the eleven-story shaft above. Set atop a plain base, the shaft of each pier is ornamented by borders with foliated and ribboned embellishments and palmette accents set diagonally into the corners.
Pilasters between the windows are also set atop plain bases; they are ornamented by long, thin recessed panels. The capitals of both piers and pilasters are both embellished by palmettes. A frieze embellished by garlands draped over bezants completes the transitional story and signals the beginning of the shaft.
On the eleven-story shaft, the crossings of the ribbed mullions and the outer textured edges of the panels which cover the spandrel beams establishes a grid, which reflects the building's construction and underscores the grid created by the intersection of windows, spandrel beams, and piers. On the Union Square facade, spandrel bands below each window are three panels wide and two panels high; each such group "of six panels is outlined by raised moldings.
Each bay consists of a total of three such groups. On the Park Avenue South elevation, each group is two panels wide and two panels high; each such group of four panels is outlined by raised moldings. On both elevations, the moldings which separate each group of panels are both continuations of the window mullions and indications of the window's outer edges. Piers are also indicated (when they intersect with the spandrel beam) by outlined terra-cotta panels, one panel wide and two panels high.
The intersection of the horizontal spandrel demarcation and the window's mullions and outer edges sets up a grid motif. The regularity of the grid deflects attention from the bay (second from the right on the Park Avenue South elevation) which consists of only two windows and from the change from a width of three panels for each subsection of each bay on the Union Square facade to two panels for each subsection on the Park Avenue South elevation.
A beltcourse tops the eleven-story shaft and sets off the two-story crown, which corresponds to the "capital" of the "tripartite column," from the body of the building. The piers are transformed into abstract pilasters by the application of applied reiterating polychrome terra-cotta ornament.
Within raised borders of white terra cotta that extend the length of both stories, orange rectangular panels embellished at their midpoints by applied green circles appear.
The spandrel beams between the two stories are covered with white terra-cotta panels within which are rectangular orange panels. Mullions (and their extensions) which abut spandrel beams are also embellished with recessed panels. The two-story section is topped with several moldings including one incorporating applied polychrome geometric motifs: in this scheme, paired and single green and orange rectangular lozenges alternate with green circular motifs. An elaborate dentilled cornice crested by acroteria tops the building.
On the west elevation, a brick wall pierced by four-over-four sash windows is visible from the ninth story upward; two windows indicate the seventeenth story. Bands demarcate borders that correspond to the terra-cotta spandrel beam covers on the facade. This elevation features interpretations of the stringcourse separating the top two stories and of the polychrome panelling and cornice treatment on the Union Square facade. To the right of and above the seventeenth story windows, a substantial amount of replacement brick appears.
On the north elevation visible above the ninth story, a buff brick wall features eight windows per floor; the remaining originals have four-over-four sash. From the visible base of this elevation through the fourteenth story, a terra-cotta border appears; above this, the border continues as panels. On this elevation, windows indicate the presence of the seventeenth story. A significant portion of the top two stories appears to be resurfaced. With its essential architectural features unchanged, this building continues to function as an office building with retail spaces at the ground story.
- From the 1988 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
I actually found this book in school one year when I was alittle girl- my teacher said if noone came to claim it in a weeks time I could have it- this person didn't even have the decency to take care of it.I'll upload a video of me flipping through the pages so you can see the inside
A Disney-decency somewhat undermined.
La bienséance Disneyenne quelque peu battue en brèche
(photo précédemment parue en format réduit sur geo.fr)
I'm so glad I've still got this brief movie, taken with my first little digital camera (a Canon IXUS 300). Our beloved Mogs died at a ripe old age years ago now, and the movie deleted itself from the camera somehow. In his retirement, profJohn is getting round to little tasks like getting old movies off his non-Windows system onto my monitor and onto Flickr. Thanks profJohn!
Vintage card.
French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) died on 28 December 2025, at the age of 91. In the 1950s, she was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she became an animal rights activist. In the coming weeks, we will continue to post a BB postcard every day to remember her as she once was.
Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father, and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying to launch a modelling career and found herself on the cover of the French magazine Elle in May 1949. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, and Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand / Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953, she attended the Cannes Film Festival, where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956, she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as an ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. In 1953, she made her first US production, Un acte d'amour / Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.
Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smash success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. The immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the filming of Et Dieu créa la femme / And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956), directed by her husband, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star, Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at the time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.
Et Dieu créa la femme / ...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped Brigitte Bardot's international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten', and fascination with her in America consisted of magazine photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theatres like lemmings. BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (Ralph Thomas, 1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne / La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957), which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur / Love is My Profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "This Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defence attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre can shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous and deadly side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960, postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.
Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957, and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre / Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career
Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée / Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle, has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at French Films: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the high point of her career when she agreed to make this film with high-profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess, and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot, and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names was based on an actual incident, and is a resonant image of celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterwards, Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.
Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire Playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men, including Samy Frey, her co-star in La Vérité / The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Jean-Luc Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris / Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963) opposite Michel Piccoli. She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres / Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires /Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses / Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.
Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973, just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976, she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewellery and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990s, she was also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal was a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularising bikini swimwear, in such early films as Manina / Woman without a Veil (Willy Rozier, 1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photo shoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."
Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (French Films), French Films, Wikipedia and IMDb.
And please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.
Catching up on some back shots from the beginning of the year
On a walk around the Addington Cemetery with a wonderful Flickr friend. February 13, 2016 Christchurch New Zealand.
There is so much damaged in the cemetery because of the earthquake we have had. It is such a pity as I don' think it will ever be fully repaired.
The Addington Cemetery was established in 1858 when the Scottish Presbyterians of St Andrew’s Church purchased land for a cemetery in Selwyn Street. Although not the first cemetery in Christchurch, Addington was in fact the first “public” cemetery, “being open to all persons of any religious community” and allowing the performance of any religious service “not contrary to public decency”.
The first burial took place on the 10th of November 1858. The cemetery has several persons of note buried within its grounds including activist Kate Sheppard, Christchurch Mayor Tommy Taylor and members of the pioneer family, the Deans.
For More Info:http://my.christchurchcitylibraries.com/addington-cemetery/
The name of the movie is " Shareef Bay Na Cheeray " . I have no idea what that means Iam guessing its something in Pushto. But Iam sure it has something to do with decency well that's what shareef means ...... ironical isnt it ??
Arctic Council Ministerial Dinner at Artikum Glass Hall. Minister for Foreign Affairs of Finland Timo Soini and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Chrystia Freeland.
Finland hosts the 11th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting on 7 May in Rovaniemi. Minister-level representatives from the eight Arctic States will convene to review and approve work completed under the two-year Finnish Chairmanship to improve sustainable development and environmental protection in the Arctic.
Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides photo material for media representatives, participants and organisers of the meeting. Please feel free to use the photos, considering the following restrictions: Not for commercial purposes nor reselling. When publishing the pictures, the name of the photographer and organization shall be mentioned as the source. No picture manipulation is permitted. The holder of the picture rights and/or the organisation shall at all times retain the copyright to the picture. When publishing the pictures, the publisher shall ensure the legality of the context where the pictures are used, obtain the permissions and consents required for their publication, and observe the generally established practices and decency. The publisher shall ensure that publication of the pictures does not insult anyone’s privacy or dignity.
Photo: Jouni Porsanger / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland
ICE Out of the Bay!
Thurs Oct 23, 2025
Coast Guard Island, Oakland
At dawn on Thursday, hundreds of people from around the Bay Area came together at the base of Coast Guard Island Bridge in Oakland to stand up for their Bay Area communities and against the promised surge of ICE to SF by Trump. Coast Guard Island is where ICE agents were starting to deploy and where a force of over 1000 was expected.
When we arrived around 7:30am, we were told that about 15-20 minutes earlier, several ICE vehicles had raced toward the crowd of interfaith leaders, grandmothers and community members and proceeded to dispense several flash bang grenades and chemical agents into the crowd... in one instance, aiming directly and quite intentionally ("with direct eye contact" is what we were told) into the face of a clergyman - Jorge Bautista, at very close range. Someone else's foot was run over.
As the very peaceful (except for ICE thugs!) rally proceeded, organizers got word that Trump had changed his mind about surging ICE and federal troops into San Francisco, at least for now. This was cause for very limited celebration at the rally. Which federal forces was he referring to? ICE? CBP? Coast Guard? Natl Guard? Was he only referring to San Francisco? What about all the other Bay Area communities? Organizers remain on high alert and extremely vigilant and will continue to actively engage with communities at risk all around the Bay for the foreseeable future. Surge or no surge, ICE is still in our communities and continues to brutally kidnap non-citizens and citizens alike with no regard for due process and human decency.
1912 postmarked postcard photograph of the RFD (Rural Free Delivery) Route No. 8 mail carrier at Plymouth, Indiana. The carrier was posing in his horse-drawn vehicle for a photo that he used as a Christmas card for the patrons on his route. This copy was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Eli Silvius.
The carrier didn’t identify himself, but an undated document at the Indiana Genealogy Trails website provides information about the Marshall County post offices. That document includes a list of the rural route carriers for Plymouth as of 1908 and identified Roller Kleckner as the carrier for Route No. 8. The postcard owner has also found additional documentation showing Mr. Kleckner was still the carrier on Route No. 8 in 1910. Although the carrier in this photograph was probably Mr. Kleckner, that remains to be confirmed.
Postmasters were political appointees in those days and, prior to Mr. Kleckner’s appointment, there was some controversy regarding the examination and employee selection process at Plymouth. In 1905, F. M. McCrory had resigned as a Plymouth rural route carrier. In a November 15, 1906, letter to the editor of the Plymouth Tribune newspaper, Mr. McCrory took issue with Postmaster Yockey’s handling of the selection process for the new RFD carrier for Route No. 8.
“I desire to call attention at this time to a condition existing in rural route matters, to make a few predictions and the dear people can figure out the balance. A year ago Oct. 1st I resigned as carrier on rural route No. 1 and an examination was held of applicants for the place at which the postmasters prospective son-in-law was given highest grade and the place from which I had resigned. Roller I. Kleckner won second place and Ora Jacox fifth place there being nine applicants. This year Mr. John Nye decided to withdraw from the service and purchased the restaurant of Mr. Cripe taking possession Oct. 10th. Mr. Kleckner wrote the department stating the facts, making formal demand for his rightful place.
“At this time another letter was sent the department stating the facts more fully than Mr. Kleckner felt warranted in doing and reply was received that ‘there was no vacancy on route No. 8 and as soon as a vacancy occurred, if the Civil Service Commission recommended Mr. Kleckner, he would be appointed at once.’
“Now instead of sending his resignation to the department, Mr. Nye placed it in the hands of Mr. Yockey, who held it up until the department was notified by outsiders and demanded it at once, and it was sent in about Oct. 17, so we are credibly informed. Now why all this jockeying? First Mr. Kleckner is a Democrat. Second the mother and brother of Mr. Jacox we are informed are sureties on Mr. Yockey's bond and Mr. Yockey asked' permission for Mr. Jacox to drive the route from Oct. 10 on instead of sending in the resignation of Mr. Nye and asking that his successor be appointed at once. A notice is pasted in the lobby of the postoffice for examination for rural route carriers, since the commissions of those examined a year ago expire Nov. 16. Now we predict Mr. Jacox will be given first place and the route, at once after the examination, for which we will wait and see. Now let us moralize a little. When those men took that competitive examination a year ago Mr. Jacox virtually agreed to take his place according to what he won. If he entered into such machinations as above stated, is he the party the people on route 8 desire to trust to carry their mail? What do you think of a postmaster who will be a party to such scullduggery which amounts almost to a crime. My dear people this is the class of political scavengers and their methods against which Mr. Hendricks and his friends have waged war during the past ten months and will continue, if they so continue, for the next ten years. People who will lend themselves to such work would enter an orphan asylum and rob the baby of its nursing bottle and jaw the nurse for having allowed it to drink some of the milk. Nothing remains of h6nor and common decency but the grinning skeleton and they envy even that the little space it occupies. F. M. McCrory.
The following individuals served as Plymouth postmasters during those years.
Joseph A. Yockey, appointed June 6, 1901 and reappointed December 16, 1905
Monroe Steiner, appointed January 19, 1910
Francis E. Garn, appointed August 19, 1911
L. G. Hurley, appointed July 23, 1915
From a private collection.
The full postcard image can be seen here.
www.flickr.com/photos/hoosier_recollections/5418578839/
Copyright 2008-2018 Hoosier Recollections. All rights reserved. This creative JPG file package is an original compilation of materials and data. The package is unique, consisting of a wide variety of related and integrated components. Neither this package in its entirety nor any of the individual components may be downloaded, transmitted or reproduced without the prior written permission of Hoosier Recollections.
More tea, you ask?
Well, yes. Mostly because this is the only tea set my mother had the decency to purchase despite my affection for them, which therefore means I will make time to visit a thrift shop and purchase some lovely ones.
At least the hibiscus was free, hurrah!
© 2010 Yu-Jie Yu. All rights reserved.
Malevolent Daisy
© 2013 Kristine Jabbour
Daisy falls from the sky unannounced
Uninvited
Specks of sherbert overlay
My field of vision
Objects lose their hard edges
Subway interior
Through a Monet filter
Petals flap gently
Then bounce and float
Its stem pierces the water’s surface
Vision turns monochrome
Then fades away, pixel by pixel
Fighting blindness
The flow of people
Pull me out of the train
Up the flight of stairs
Determined to reach work
I clutch the handrail
Splash
Roots have developed
Needle punctures the pupil of my left eye
Petals pirouette
Clouding my sight with grace and saccharine
Roots plunge deeper and release their poison
Capillaries bulge
Eye visibly pulsates
Nausea
Need to get home!
I creep back on the train
Need mint tea, menthol gel, wet washcloth
A bucket, just in case.
Above all, I need darkness
The daisy needs light to grow
So I intend to starve it.
I stumble home from the station
Squinting and wincing
Home at last!
Heaving sigh
Throw thick blankets over the windows
Slivers of light sneak in with each gust of wind
The plant quivers with sadistic joy
Wildly spraying its venom
Abandoning decency
Searing knife in my pupil
I recoil and cry aloud
Sensitivity to smells heightens
Compensating for impaired vision
A whiff of bacon or baked beans
Kicks me to the feet of the porcelain god
Who doesn’t smell good either
Vomit compounded
Until nothing is left
And then some
I languish on the bathroom tiles
My mind is crystalline amidst the searing pain
I am a captive audience to my thoughts.
I consider the meaning of life and pain
God, what am I doing with my life
Good things to consider in moderation
Often neglected in the rush of mundane tasks
But the smug inner prosecutor is over the top
Playing scenes of my supposed crimes
Before I collapse in resignation and exhaustion
After 2 or 3 days of darkness
Soft music and tea saturation
It usually relents
Pulls up as suddenly as it came
But sometimes it lingers, languid and limp
Until it slowly deliquesces
When it’s finally gone
I blink, sigh, offer copious thanks
And resolve to cherish life and love