Re: RARA-AVIS: _I Spit On Your Grave_ / Film and book
Reed Andrus (randrus@home.com)
Fri, 21 Aug 1998 22:07:24 -0700
Etienne Borgers wrote:
>
> >Reminds me of _I Spit On Your Grave_ which used to
be classed as a
> >'video nasty'. A woman is raped and takes revenge
on the rapists.
> [snip]
> >ED
>
> This is most probably the B/W film made from the book
with same title
> written by Boris Vian, famous French author. He used an
alias (Vernon
> Sullivan?- and presented it as a book translated from
an American author-
> Vian liked mystification and good practical jokes) and
it was quickly
> adapted for film. Vian was treating this as a
pastiche/caricature of Noir,
> and the film itself in its form was a pastiche of the
French new wave style,
> with deliberate intention to shock.
> I cannot find my references now (I'm moving), but when
the film was issued
> in France first, it created immediately a lane of
protests, and if I
> remember correctly was banned by the censors for a
while.
> Totally Noir detail: Vian died of an heart attack when
visioning the rushes
> of this film.
> However as some of you may already know, Vian was a
very eclectic creator,
> and innovator in mainstream French literature after
WW2; he was a Jazz
> musician as well (trumpet), wrote liberal and protest
songs, was a critic
> for music and ... translator of American HB and SF. He
was an engineer by
> profession.
>
> E.Borgers
> http://www.geocities.com/Athens/6384
> HARD-BOILED MYSTERIES
Hmmm... maybe. Lentz's Index to Science Fiction, Horror, and
Fantasy
Film and Television Credits lists "I Spit On Your Grave," but
only
credits the director, Meri Zarchi. No writer or source
material is
referenced. The only other attribution I can find is in John
McCarty's
SPLATTER MOVIES, that spells Zarchi's first name as "Meir,"
and
identifies her as an Israeli. Again, Lentz lists only this
film credit
under her name.
Anyone else with a more complete filmography?
... Reed
#
# To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to
majordomo@icomm.ca.
# The web pages for the list are at http://www.vex.net/~buff/rara-avis/.