Posts Tagged ‘(Le mepris)’
Brigitte Bardot. And Having Hard time remembering the previous wonderful documentary…
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 29, 2013
Hard time remembering the previous wonderful documentary…
For the second time, I find myself spending a lot of time recollecting what was the previous movie/documentary that had grabbed my attention, and this in the same sitting period.
It is 2 am and I’m still not sleepy, but I have to get in bed since mother has this habit of trying her hardest to wake me up if I linger beyond 8 am. On the ground that the day is over by this time.
I finished watching a mesmerizing movie and I have this lingering embarrassment for not remembering the immediate previous movie or documentary that I loved watching.
And I have to remember it:
1. I loved it and I want to think about it
2. I don’t want Alzheimer to catch me by surprise
3. I have to train my failing memory, particularly the current events. Thus, keeping a diary is a must for a youthful brain…
The last movie is about a thirty-somthing astro-physicist who suffered an aneurism (a neck artery that feed the brain going bust). The man Gus (short for Gustave) survived but his “current memory” has been shattered: Every day is a new day for him to recognize people he met the previous day.
I know someone named Ghassan and he likes to go as Gus (technically, it should be GAS, but this bad smelly connotation wouldn’t do). How many names that start with GUS do you know?
Gus can remember the older part of his life, up to the ailment.
Sleep erases all the people he met and event he attended during the previous day, and he is living a day-to-day process. His sister is organizing his day by providing him with the necessary tools to start his day: a daily folder to read, a voice recognition device that has a voice recording capability for saving conversations (pen-like shaped), post-it small papers all over the apartment…
Obviously, Gus falls in love and this love is shared, otherwise the movie would turn a medical documentary.
Interesting movie. I think I have seen a similar movie, and this time around the deficient current memory is of a beautiful girl (Barrymore with Sanders in a Hawaii setting).
Now, I have watched a wonderful documentary prior to this movie, and I can’t recall what it was about.
And it was about Brigitte Bardot (about 78 of age now), this famous French actress that showed her nudity in almost every film, and has been living the life of a recluse since 1980 after she retired at the peak of her glamorous life, surrounded by a bunch of animals of all kinds, sort of a private zoo.
This wonderful documentary is a biography of Brigitte since childhood and relies also on Bardot autobiography. I had this opportunity to see portions of Bardot’s movies and videos of all her relationships with her ex-lovers and husbands.
Bardot loved dancing ballet and acting was not her vocation. Somehow, friends of her mother got her photos in a Woman magazine and one of the issues displayed Brigitte on the cover.
Brigitte suffered from this feeling that her mother ignored her in favor of her second sister and did her best to attract her mother attention. Her father never ceased taking videos of Brigitte on all occasions and since she was a toddler.
Her first love affair was with the French movie director Roger Vadim at the age of 15. Her family refused that she marries him until she is 18.
Bardot fell in love with her co-actor Jean Louis Trentignant in “And God created the woman” and spent the best 10 days on Christmas 1958 in a shack. This is the same Trentignant who played the old music composer in “Amour”, taking care of his bedridden old wife.
She married a second time with (Jacques Charrier?) while on tour in London, and had a son from him. She adamantly refused to take care of her son, though she posed in front of the camera holding her 6-month old son, and her husband wearing dark glasses to hide his tears.
She fell in love with another co-actor Sami Frey where Brigitte has the role of facing a jury in the trial for crime committed. It is related that Frey wooed Brigitte by telling her that his mother ordered him to hide under the bed until she returns, and his Jewish parents were taken to prison while he was hiding…
The chain-smoker Serge Ginsburg fell in love with Brigitte and composed for her two songs about “Harley Davidson” and “Bonnie and Clyde”
She acted with Michel Piccoli in The Despising (Le Mepris) and excelled in her first serious character. In this movie, the term “Do you love my ass?” was coined.
She acted with the most famous French actors, including Jean Gabin who had said: “Isn’t this girl who strolls naked in movies?”. Gabin ended up appreciating Brigitte, acting with her. Still, Brigitte’s role was to walk naked in Gabin’s movie.
One of the memorable scene is Brigitte nude in bed, lying on her stomach, her ass covered but dancing and wiggling on the rhythm of a song.
Brigitte marries a third time with Gunter Sacks in Las Vegas while on tour to New York, but the marriage didn’t last. It was reported that Gunter married her on a bet.
Bardot is one of the staunchest friend for treating animals humanly and contribute lavishly for organizations and associations that care for animals.
And for the second time, I managed to recall the previous interesting movie/documentary. So far so good.
I guess that I should restart my previous habit of writing my diaries before I go to bed, for emergency sake, like people losing their current memories.
Emilia demanded: “Take me …”, (September 17, 2009)
In the first two years my marriage was perfect. It felt that our deep and complete accord of our senses mingled with this silence of the spirit; critics of our personalities were suspended; love was the sole judge of the partner. Emilia was absolutely without any defects; I wanted to believe that my behavior was shared. Certainly that we had plenty of defects but they were transformed into benign, forgivable, or even particular qualities that enhanced our individualities.
The happier we feel the less we pay attention to the grace of our felicity; indeed, I might have many moments of boredom in our relationship; it seemed common and natural, nothing that special, like the air we breathe. People would envy me for my state of happiness and I would retort that I lacked the security of the morrow: I was in a tight financial predicament as a movie critic and we barely managed to go out see a movie. We lived in a rented furnished room; my wife had to use the owner’s kitchen to prepare breakfast. Never did I lament as during the first two glorious years of my happiness.
To my eyes, my wife Emilia was a beautiful secretary when I fell in love with her. She was not that tall; bared off her long heels her head reached my shoulders, but she had this supple grace and “majesty” that made her look much taller and impressive than most girls that I had met. Emilia was especially taller in bed, more packed, rounded, and powerful, though I knew very well that she had nothing of the massive. In moments of abandon her large sensual chestnut colored eyes expressed a state of loss and displacement.
Emilia came from a poor family and kept our room constantly clean and shining. She made my small study her exclusive care: my papers, desk, and books were arranged to lure me to work. Emilia was mostly silent; she barely laughed or smiled but managed to disseminate her feelings by body postures and the expressions on her face: she was barely educated and her world opinions were limited.
At the time I let my grunge and intellectual looks boast for my potential future as an illustrious artistic personality. My corrective glasses and slender high stature might have contributed to my imagination. I could not afford to buy an apartment as I felt was Emilia’s deepest wants, her own residence to furnish, maintain, and cherish. I recall now that during our engagement her eyes got wet when I told her that I barely could rent a small apartment: she was longing for a place of her own and quickly.
I managed to put down a deposit on a modern apartment of two rooms and a tiny kitchen. When we visited together for the first time our potential dusty and unfurnished apartment Emilia joined me at the window and asked me to hug her; it was a displaced tender and overt behavior on her part. We kissed passionately and then Emilia demanded: “take me now”. She promptly removed her skirt and tops and we made love on the dirty floor. I had never felt that passion in Emilia; it felt as if she was returning the gratitude for an extended expensive gift. Surely, I had the apartment in Emilia’s name.
I have never felt that despondent and miserable as the first months after we purchased the apartment: I was permanently worried about the next payment. Emilia did not help any: she increased her shopping excursion to buy furniture. She was perfectly aware of my financial predicaments but she acted nonchalant and perfectly an “egoist” to me.
Gone was the period I was lording it as a potential famous intellectual; the feeling of the harsh reality that I was an utterly penniless person, a non-entity, overtook me. I started to listen to the opinions of the opposition political parties that lambasted governments, services, and the social inequities. (More is to follow).
Note: This story is taken, with some alterations, from “The loathing” (Le mepris) by Alberto Moravia.
Adonis Diaries 