Barbarella (film)

This article is about the 1968 film. For other uses, see Barbarella.

Barbarella
French theatrical poster
Directed by	Roger Vadim
Written by	Vittorio Bonicelli Clement Biddle Wood Brian Degas Tudor Gates
Screenplay by	Terry Southern Roger Vadim
Produced by	Dino De Laurentiis
Starring	Jane Fonda
Cinematography	Claude Renoir
Edited by	Victoria Mercanton
Music by	Maurice Jarre (score) Bob Crewe & Charles Fox (songs)
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release dates	18 October 1968 (1968-10-18) (Italy) 25 October 1968 (1968-10-25) (France)
Running time	98 minutes
Countries	France Italy
Languages	French English
Budget	$9 million

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

The film was not popular at its release, but received greater attention afterward with a 1977 re-release. It has since become a cult film.

Plot

In an unspecified future, Barbarella is assigned by the President of Earth to retrieve Doctor Durand Durand from the Tau Ceti region. Durand Durand is the inventor of the Positronic Ray, a weapon that Earth leaders fear will fall into the wrong hands. Barbarella crashes on the 16th planet of Tau Ceti and is soon knocked unconscious by two mysterious girls, who take Barbarella to the wreckage of a spaceship. Inside the wreckage, she is tied up and several children emerge from within the ship. They set out several dolls which have razor sharp teeth. As the dolls begin to bite her, Barbarella faints but is rescued by Mark Hand, the Catchman, who patrols the ice looking for errant children.

While Hand takes her back to her ship, Barbarella offers to reward Mark and he suggests sex. She says that people on Earth no longer have penetrative intercourse but consume exaltation transference pills and press their palms together when their "psychocardiograms are in perfect harmony". Hand prefers the bed, and Barbarella agrees. Hand's vessel makes long loops around Barbarella's crashed vessel while the two have sex, and when it finally comes to a stop, Barbarella is blissfully humming. After Hand repairs her ship, Barbarella departs and promises to return, agreeing that doing things the old-fashioned way is occasionally best.

Barbarella's ship burrows through the planet and comes out next to a vast labyrinth. Upon emerging from her ship, she is knocked unconscious by a rockslide. She is found by a blind angel named Pygar, who states he is the last of the ornithanthropes and has lost the will to fly. Barbarella discovers the labyrinth is a prison for people cast out of Sogo, the City of Night. Pygar introduces her to Professor Ping, who offers to repair her ship. Ping also notes that Pygar is capable of flight but merely lacks the will. After Pygar rescues her from the Black Guards, Barbarella has sex with him, and he regains his will to fly.

Pygar flies Barbarella to Sogo and uses the weaponry she brought with her to destroy the city's guards. Sogo is a decadent city ruled over by the Great Tyrant and powered by a liquid essence of evil called the Mathmos. Barbarella is briefly separated from Pygar, and meets a one-eyed wench who saves her from being assaulted by two of Sogo's residents. Barbarella soon reunites with Pygar and the two are taken by the Concierge to meet the Great Tyrant. Pygar is left to become the Great Tyrant's plaything, while Barbarella is placed in a cage, to be pecked to death by birds.

Barbarella is rescued by Dildano, leader of the resistance. Barbarella eagerly offers to reward him, but he says he wants to experience sex the Earth way. Dildano offers to help Barbarella find Durand Durand in exchange for her help in deposing the Great Tyrant. Barbarella is captured by the Concierge and placed inside the Excessive Machine, which the Concierge says will cause her to die of pleasure. Barbarella writhes in ecstasy, and the machine overloads, unable to keep up with her. Barbarella then discovers the Concierge is none other than Durand Durand, aged thirty years due to the Mathmos.

Durand Durand traps Barbarella, and, as he prepares to crown himself lord of Sogo, Dildano launches his revolution. Durand Durand uses his Positronic Ray to decimate the rebels. The Great Tyrant then releases the Mathmos, which consumes all of Sogo and Durand Durand with it. Barbarella and the Great Tyrant are protected from the Mathmos by Barbarella's innate goodness. They emerge from the Mathmos to find Pygar. Pygar flies Barbarella and the Tyrant away from the Mathmos. When asked by Barbarella why he saved the Tyrant after everything she had done to him, Pygar responds, "An angel has no memory."

Cast

File:Fonda3.JPG

Fonda as Barbarella in the Excessive Machine

• Jane Fonda as Barbarella
• Ugo Tognazzi as Mark Hand
• Anita Pallenberg (dubbed by Joan Greenwood) as The Great Tyrant, Black Queen of Sogo
• Milo O'Shea as Durand Durand / Concierge
• Marcel Marceau as Professor Ping
• Claude Dauphin as President Dianthus of Earth
• David Hemmings as Dildano
• John Phillip Law as Pygar, the angel
• Fabienne Fabre as the tree woman

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." Despite this, in the years since its initial release, Barbarella has become a cult film. After the blockbuster success of Star Wars, Barbarella's original "Suggested for Mature Audiences" theatrical version was re-edited to remove or mask any nudity, and re-released in 1977 with a PG rating and advertised as "Barbarella: Queen of the Galaxy"; the re-release found a bigger audience.. The film has garnered a 74% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film earned $2.5 million in North American theatre rentals in 1968.

Remake

A remake of Barbarella has been planned for years, starting soon after plans for a sequel with Fonda fell through in the mid to late 1970s. Original screenplay writer Roger Vadim said that he would be open to making a sequel with actresses Sherilyn Fenn or Drew Barrymore in the title role, but nothing came of it.

The most serious planning of the long proposed remake began in early 2008. This remake would have been produced and released by Universal Studios, with one time James Bond screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade penning the script, and Dino and Martha De Laurentiis heading as producers.

Sin City director Robert Rodriguez was soon after announced as the slated director for the remake. Early candidates for the role of Barbarella were actresses Erica Durance of the WB's Smallville, Sienna Miller, and Rodriguez's Grindhouse star Rose McGowan. Later news articles confirmed that McGowan had been cast as the title role. Universal Studios eventually backed out of the movie with some news sources speculating that it was due to studio executives doubting McGowan's ability to carry a big budget movie and that the studio had slashed the budget after learning of McGowan winning the role. Rodriguez denied this, stating, "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."

Due to Universal insisting on lowering the cost of the film and on recasting the role of Barbarella, Rodriguez shopped the remake to other studios in the hopes of gaining a larger budget allowance and retaining McGowan as Barbarella. Rodriguez has stated that the large budget needs stem from the fact that the majority of the movie takes place in outer space, and that "we don’t want the movie to look like the original." Rodriguez said he abandoned the project in May 2009 after he turned down a $70 million budget that required shooting in Germany. Expressing regret for the undone film, he thought he could not be away from his five children for as long as it would take if shot in Germany.

Although later news articles would attach director Robert Luketic to the project, the film had not met its projected release date of summer 2010 and there are no active plans to produce the film.

Director Nicolas Winding Refn is currently attached to the project.

Video releases

Barbarella was first released for the home video market on VHS, Betamax, CED disc, and Laserdisc. The early video releases are the "Queen of the Galaxy" 1977 edit. Later video release versions on VHS, Laserdisc (Widescreen version), DVD and Blu-ray disc, although using the 1977 artwork, the "Queen of the Galaxy" name, and the 'PG' rating on the packaging, the film in those releases is the original 1968 version.

The DVD and Blu-Ray releases currently available are identical, featuring the film and the 1968 theatrical trailer as the disc's only bonus feature.

Trivia

• The name of 1980s music group Duran Duran was inspired by the name of Dr. Durand Durand in this film.
• In the Absolutely Fabulous episode "Schmoozin'", Patsy Stone acted in a sexploitation film 'Boobarella' in a satiric film evoking elements of Barbarella.
• In Pretty Little Liars, Emily dresses up as Barbarella for the Halloween episode, "This is a Dark Ride."
• In the Doctor Who serial The Unquiet Dead when the TARDIS arrives in the Victorian era, Rose Tyler is about to leave the ship in her anachronistic 21st century clothing, the Doctor stops her by saying "go outside like that and you'll start a riot, Barbarella..."
• Mathmos is the name of a company specializing in the design and manufacture of lava lamps.
• The electronic music duo Matmos also take their name from the Matmos slime.
• The music video of Kylie Minogue's 1994 song "Put Yourself in My Place" is similar to the opening scene of Barbarella, where she slowly removes her space suit while floating in zero gravity. Likewise, the music video of the 1997 Bee Gees song "Alone" echoes the same scene.
• The video to Fuzzbox's 1989 hit, "International Rescue", partly spoofs this film with lead singer, Vicki Perks, dressed as Fonda's Barbarella.
• The Arctic Monkeys song "Arabella" from their fifth album AM describes the space age lover Arabella: "She's got a Barbarella silver swim suit"

See also

• List of films based on French-language comics

References

Notes

External links

• Barbarella at IMDb
• Barbarella at the TCM Movie Database
• Barbarella at AllMovie
• Barbarella at Rotten Tomatoes