Immoral Tales | |
---|---|
Directed by | Walerian Borowczyk |
Written by | Walerian Borowczyk |
Story by | André Pieyre de Mandiargues |
Produced by | Anatole Dauman |
Starring | Lise Danvers Paloma Picasso Charlotte Alexandra Fabrice Luchini Florence Bellamy Pascale Christophe |
Cinematography |
|
Edited by | Walerian Borowczyk |
Music by | Maurice Le Roux |
Distributed by | Argos Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 105 minutes |
Country | France |
Language | French |
Immoral Tales (French : Contes immoraux) is a 1973 French anthology film directed by Walerian Borowczyk. The film was Borowczyk's most sexually explicit at the time. [1] The film is split into four erotic-themed stories that involve the loss of virginity, masturbation, bloodlust, and incest. [1]
The film is separated into four stories:
By 1972, Walerian Borowczyk was known predominantly for his various short films which were made to support feature-length releases. [3] Borowczyk's feature films had made very little income from their theatrical releases while short films were not in demand as much as supporting features in cinemas. [3] At this time, Borowczyk met with producer Anatole Dauman, who suggested that because France's film censors had relaxed the laws concerning censorship, Borowczyk should make an erotic feature to gain an audience. [3]
The film's stories are taken from various sources, including surrealist writers and poets. The first story in the film is taken from surrealist writer André Pieyre de Mandiargues. The title of the second story is taken from an anonymous sacrilegious novel from the 18th century. The third story is a re-telling of the case of Elizabeth Báthory from the study of surrealist poet Valentine Penrose. [4]
A fifth story in the Immoral Tales was originally planned, but was taken out of the film and developed into the feature film La Bête (1975). [4] Arrow Films released a version of the movie on physical media with the story added as the third tale. [5]
30 gallons of real blood (from pigs) were used for the Countess Bathory's bath. [6]
Immoral Tales was screened in Britain in September 1973 as an incomplete work. [7] This version included the short film A Private Collection, The Tide and The Beast of Gévaudan. [7] Immoral Tales was released in French theaters in 1974. [3] The French film magazine Le Film français stated in 1974, 128 films that were classified as "erotic" were screened in Paris. [8] This accounted for 16% of the total French box office. [9] Immoral Tales sold 359,748 tickets, making it the second most popular release of these films, the most popular being Emmanuelle . [10]
It was shown at the 17th Regus London Film Festival held in November and December 1973. [11] The film won the London Festival Choice award at the festival. [11]
Immoral Tales was shown at the 12th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in London in May 2014. [12]
In 1974, Immoral Tales won the Prix de L'Âge d'or, an award intended to commemorate the spirit of surrealism. [3] After the release of Immoral Tales, Borowczyk began to fall out of favor with film critics. [13] New York Magazine wrote an unfavourable review, referring to the film as "episodic and disjointed, but also written with a great deal of stupidity" and describing the story-telling, directing, acting and photography in the film as "wretched." [14]
Among modern reviews, AllMovie gave the film three stars out of five, feeling that first two stories did not work as well as the second two as well as saying that it was Borowczyk's move from "art house material and toward softcore; as such, the material displays its director's characteristic intelligence but lapses into exploitation a little too often." [15] In an overview of Borowczyk's work in the film magazine Senses of Cinema, Immoral Tales is referred to as his weakest amongst his first five feature films and that "an unsensational approach to the material and detached gaze of the camera make it closer to a surrealist text than a pornographic movie." [1] Dave Kehr wrote a review for the Chicago Reader praising that the film "contains some very elegant images" but compared it negatively to Borowczyk's followup The Story of Sin, which Kehr proclaimed "avoided the trap of superficiality by adopting an ironic mode. Here, he seems entirely too sincere—and more than a little dull." [16]
In his 2014 review for The Guardian , Peter Bradshaw praises the film, citing the influence of Ken Russell and Pier Paolo Pasolini. [17]
Stephen and Timothy Quay are American identical twin brothers and stop-motion animators who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They received the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for their work on the play The Chairs.
Walerian Borowczyk was a Polish film director described by film critics as a "genius who also happened to be a pornographer". He directed 40 films between 1946 and 1988. Borowczyk settled in Paris in 1959. As a film director, he worked mainly in France.
André Pieyre de Mandiargues was a French writer born in Paris. He became an associate of the Surrealists and married the Italian painter Bona Tibertelli de Pisis. He was a particularly close friend of the painter Leonor Fini.
Immoral Tales may refer to:
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Arrow Films is a British independent film distributor and restorer specialising in world cinema, arthouse, horror and classic films. As Arrow Video, it sells Ultra HD Blu-rays, Blu-rays and DVDs online; it also operates its own subscription video on-demand service, Arrow Player. Since 2017, Arrow have had a dedicated podcast hosted by film-makers Sam Ashurst and Dan Martin. Arrow Video is considered a boutique Blu-ray label.
Ljubomir "Ljuba" Popović was a Serbian surrealist painter. He is renowned for his many erotic and unconventionally juxtaposed subject matters.
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Immoral Tales: Sex and Horror Cinema in Europe 1956–1984 is a 1994 non-fiction book by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs, that won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Non-Fiction. The book covers European exploitation cinema with profiles of Jesús Franco, José Larraz, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Rollin, Walerian Borowczyk and Jose Bénazéraf. It is notable for being one of the few books to concentrate solely on the sex/horror subgenre of cinema.
Emmanuelle 5 is a 1987 English-language French film directed by Walerian Borowczyk. It is a sequel to 1984's Emmanuelle 4 and the fifth installment in the film series of the same name. It was followed by a sequel, Emmanuelle 6, released in 1988.
Berneval-le-Grand is a former commune in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region in northern France. On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune of Petit-Caux.
The 11th Cannes Film Festival was held from 2 to 18 May 1958. The Palme d'Or went to The Cranes are Flying by Mikhail Kalatozov.
The Beast is a 1975 French erotic horror film written, edited, and directed by Walerian Borowczyk. Although sometimes compared with Beauty and the Beast, there are no parallels in the plot except that it features the relationship between a beast (monster) and a woman. The film was noted for its explicit sexual content, including teratophilia, upon its initial release. It has become a cult film.
In the film industry, unsimulated sex is the presentation of sex scenes in which actors genuinely perform the depicted sex acts, rather than simulating them. Although it is ubiquitous in films intended as pornographic, it is very uncommon in other films. At one time in the United States, such scenes were restricted by law and self-imposed industry standards such as the Motion Picture Production Code. Films showing explicit sexual activity were confined to privately distributed underground films, such as stag films or "porn loops". In the 1960s, social attitudes about sex began to shift, and sexually explicit films were decriminalized in many countries.
Severin Films is an American independent film production and distribution company known for restoring and releasing cult films on DVD and Blu-ray. It is considered a boutique Blu-ray and DVD label.
Immoral Women is a 1979 French erotic drama film directed by Walerian Borowczyk, written by Borowczyk and André Pieyre de Mandiargues and starring Jean-Claude Dreyfus, Marina Pierro and Françoise Quéré.
Housekeeping is a 1987 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Bill Forsyth, starring Christine Lahti, Sara Walker, and Andrea Burchill. Based on Marilynne Robinson's 1980 novel Housekeeping, it is about two young sisters growing up in Idaho in the 1950s. After being abandoned by their mother and raised by elderly relatives, the sisters are looked after by their eccentric aunt whose unconventional and unpredictable ways affect their lives. It was filmed on location in Alberta and British Columbia, Canada. It won two awards at the 1987 Tokyo International Film Festival.
Marina Pierro is an Italian actress, model, writer, and film director, who is best known for her artistic relationship with Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk (1923-2006). Pierro and Borowczyk's collaboration lasted approximately ten years and comprised five completed films and one foray into episodic television.
Docteur Jekyll et les femmes is a 1981 horror film directed by Walerian Borowczyk. The film is a variation on Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and stars Udo Kier, Marina Pierro, Patrick Magee, Howard Vernon, and Gérard Zalcberg.
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