Barbarella (film)

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Barbarella
theatrical poster
Directed by	Roger Vadim
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis
Written by	Comic: Jean-Claude Forest Claude Brulé Screenplay: Terry Southern Roger Vadim Writers: Vittorio Bonicelli Clement Biddle Wood Brian Degas Tudor Gates
Starring	Jane Fonda John Phillip Law Anita Pallenberg
Music by	Score: Michel Magne James Campbell (uncredited) Songs: Bob Crewe Charles Fox
Cinematography	Claude Renoir
Editing by	Victoria Mercanton
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	10 October 1968 (US) 18 October 1968 (Italy) 25 October 1968 (France)
Running time	98 minutes
Country	France / Italy
Language	English
Budget	$9 million
Gross revenue	$613,285

Barbarella is a 1968 erotic science fiction film based on the French Barbarella comics created by Jean-Claude Forest. The film was directed by Roger Vadim and stars Jane Fonda, who was Vadim's wife at the time.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Style 4 Soundtrack 5 Special effects 6 Reception 7 In popular culture 8 Remake 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Plot

In the 40th century, Barbarella (Jane Fonda) is assigned by the President of Earth (Claude Dauphin) to retrieve Doctor Durand-Durand (Milo O'Shea) from the planet SoGo in order to save the earth. On her quest, Barbarella is seduced by a human resident of SoGo (David Hemmings), who introduces her to penetrative intercourse, something she is unaware of, since civilized people of Barbarella's society find their sexual release through pharmaceuticals. In turn, she seduces an angel named Pygar (John Phillip Law), and overloads a torture device called the Excessive (or "Ex-sex-sive") Machine, which kills through sexual pleasure.

[edit] Cast

Jane Fonda as Barbarella John Phillip Law as Pygar, the angel Anita Pallenberg as The Great Tyrant, Black Queen of Sogo Milo O'Shea as Doctor Durand-Durand Marcel Marceau as Professor Ping David Hemmings as Dildano Claude Dauphin as President Dianthus of Earth Ugo Tognazzi as Mark Hand Cast notes

Fonda as Barbarella in the "Ex-sex-sive Machine"

• Jane Fonda has lamented the fact that she turned down starring roles in two major hit films, Bonnie and Clyde and Rosemary's Baby to stay in France and star in Barbarella, which was being directed by her then husband Roger Vadim.
• Anita Pallenberg voice was dubbed by Joan Greenwood

[edit] Style

Barbarella is noted for a sequence in which the title character, played by Jane Fonda, undresses in zero gravity during the opening credits.

The whole film is played in a tongue-in-cheek manner; especially when it comes to the frequent (but not explicit) sex scenes. The most controversial of those scenes involves Barbarella being tortured by the use of an organ-like instrument that delivers sexual pleasure in doses that can be lethal, although Barbarella survives the ordeal and is visibly disappointed when it is discovered she has overloaded the machine.

The film was simultaneously shot in French and English. Some characters' lines were performed by the same actors in both languages; others were not. For instance, Fonda was fluent in French and performs her own lines for the French version, while Marcel Marceau's lines are dubbed for the English film.

De Laurentiis returned to camp science fiction, but with far less erotica, with the 1980 cult classic Flash Gordon.

[edit] Soundtrack

The songs in the film were written by Bob Crewe and Charles Fox. During his first European tour in 1967, Frank Zappa had flown from Copenhagen to Italy to meet Vadim and Fonda in order to discuss the possibility of composing the music for the film, but this did not happen.

[edit] Special effects

The psychedelic "blob" patterns that form much of the special effects in the film were created using an oil wheel projector, a popular visual effects device which was widely used for psychedelic light shows at rock concerts in the late 1960s and was also used in many other '60s movies, as well as in many anti-drug educational films.

[edit] Reception

The film was both a box office and critical failure on its release. Variety's review stated that "Despite a certain amount of production dash and polish and a few silly-funny lines of dialogue, Barbarella isn't very much of a film. Based on what has been called an adult comic strip, the Dino De Laurentiis production is flawed with a cast that is not particularly adept at comedy, a flat script, and direction which can't get this beached whale afloat."^[1] Despite this, in the years since its initial release, Barbarella has garnered a cult following.

[edit] In popular culture

Duran Duran

The band Duran Duran, one of the most influential British music bands of the 1980s, took its name from the mad scientist in the film, Dr. Durand-Durand. Milo O'Shea, who played the part, repaid the compliment by appearing as an older version of the characater in Arena, the band's 1985 concert film.

Some of the band's early appearances were at a nightclub called Barbarella's, in their home town of Birmingham, England. The band has frequently used sound clips from the film in their songs, most notably 1989's "Burning the Ground" and the remixes for 1990's "Violence of Summer (Love's Taking Over)". The band continued the homage to its roots with their 1997 US single, "Electric Barbarella" (released in the UK in 1998).

Stephen Duffy, an original member of Duran Duran, released a solo song titled "Barbarellas" on his 1998 I Love My Friends album.

1980s

• When the 1980s girl group Fuzzbox could not get permission to use the Thunderbirds for the music video for their single International Rescue, they spoofed Barbarella, with the video's director Adrian Edmondson playing the Durand Durand character. They also featured their faithful cover version of the theme song on the single's B-side.
• The American pop band The Bongos recorded a song called "Barbarella" on their RCA EP "Numbers With Wings". It became a college radio favorite and dancefloor hit in 1983.
• From 1988 to 2002, a nightclub in downtown Orlando, Florida was called "Barbarella", inspired by the film.

1990s

• Another famous singer to use the iconography of Barbarella in a pop video was Kylie Minogue, who recreated the infamous zero-gravity strip-tease in her award winning 1994 video for "Put Yourself in My Place". It was again recreated in the European video for Jem's 2005 single "They".
• In 1998, front man Scott Weiland of the bands Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver released a solo album entitled 12 Bar Blues. The hit song from that album which spawned a music video was titled "Barbarella". The lyrics of the song pay homage to several science fiction television shows and movies.
• The band Matmos takes its name from the underground fluid creature in the film.
• The Finnish rock band The 69 Eyes also recorded a song called "Barbarella" released in Bump 'n' Grind album in 1992. The song's intro starts with Barbarella speaking; that was taken from the original movie.
• The U.K. funk band Jamiroquai mentions Barbarella in the song "Cosmic Girl" on their Travelling Without Moving album, with the lyric "Like some baby Barbarella, with the stars as her umbrella, she'd asked me if I'd like to magnetize."

2000s

• The manga artists collectively known as CLAMP parodied Barbarella in the TV no Kuni no Miyuki-chan (Miyuki-chan in TV Land) chapter of their Miyuki-chan in Wonderland. It shows several of the characters, including some female versions, trying to seduce the main character.
• In 2008, the indie pop singer Lights made a Barbarella-themed music video for her song "Drive My Soul".
• In the first episode of the anime F3: Frantic, Frustrated & Female, Hiroe finds herself strapped to a chair by a mad scientist in order to test out a sex machine, parodying Barbarella's situation with Durand-Durand.

[edit] Remake

A remake of Barbarella is planned. It will be penned by current James Bond writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, and produced by Dino and Martha De Laurentiis.^[2] It was recently announced that Sin City director Robert Rodriguez is slated to direct the remake for Universal Studios.^[2] The remake of Barbarella was originally planned in the 1990s with Roger Vadim as director, and actresses Sherilyn Fenn and Drew Barrymore were considered for the title role.^[3] As of May 2007, it was announced that actress Erica Durance of the WB's Smallville was a front-runner for a 2008 remake. However, subsequent reports have identified British actress Sienna Miller as the favorite to take the role, along with Rodriguez's Grindhouse star Rose McGowan. According to Elle magazine, McGowan has been cast in the title role.^[4]

According to the New York Observer, Universal Studios has backed out of funding the movie because of Rodriguez's insistence to cast McGowan in the title role. Executives reportedly do not think that she can carry a movie with a budget close to $100 million. Once Universal learned of Rodriguez's decision to cast McGowan they slashed the budget significantly. Rodriguez denies this, saying, "Universal had initially signed on for $60 million, but then when we were done with the script it wound up at closer to $82 million." The filmmaker is currently shopping the project around to other studios in the hopes of getting more money. He has cited the fact that most of the movie takes place in outer space as the reason for the rise in budget, and that "we don’t want the movie to look like the original."^[5]

Rodriguez backed out of the project, and in June 2009, Entertainment Weekly reported that Robert Luketic will be directing the remake with a different studio. Screenwriter Joe Gazzam has been hired to write an entirely new draft -- taking the film in a different direction. ^[6]

[edit] See also

• List of films based on French-language comics

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Barbarella

• Barbarella at the Internet Movie Database
• Barbarella at Allmovie
• Barbarella at the TCM Movie Database
• Barbarella at Box Office Mojo
• Barbarella at Rotten Tomatoes
• Jean-Claude Forest & Barbarella comics page
• Heavy Metal Magazine Fan Page for 1968 movie
• Overview of the development of the remake film