Outline of a good film about the Story of O (part 4 of 4)

After we established that no good film after “l’Histore d’O” currently exists, that is: good enough, and that a good one could have been made, certainly today, I want to be constructive and bring forward a specific idea for the film. I was talking to my friend James about the subject and the following idea has been jointly initiated.
The bulk of the film is a set of interviews with O by a series of interviewers, men and women, in differing styles and different settings, studio chat show, private conversation, outside, with and without audience. The interviews would cover the entire story, as we know it.
Some interviewers would be hard and judgemental, some soft and understanding, others sensationalist or aloof, feminist or male chauvinist. O meanwhile would be unmoved and consistent. She would answer each question, no matter how it was stated, no matter how crude, in the most natural of ways, with steady gaze. She would use coarse language, but never a coarse tone. She may show the whip or branding iron, a particular article of clothing or a marking disc. She would be candid, explicit, shameless, but never provocative, rather modest, girlish.
Visually, the film would present the various interviewers with their great variety of facial expressions and body language, uneasy, shocked, interested, fascinated, incredulous, condemning, understanding, wanting to intervene or convert etc. We would see extremely brief, 1 second, flashes of action cut in visually, the sound of the interview proceeding uninterrupted.
Between the interviews we would see played out key sections of the story, of 5-7 minutes each, such as the one I mentioned above, with the young couple visiting O at the Commander's party, and the one where she first arrives at Roissy, that where she sorts out her clothes in her apartment under orders from René, the scene in the little dungeon at the end of her first stay at Roissy, that where she is being used by Sir Stephen when Nora suddenly enters, a scene at Anne-Marie's, where she is first inspected by a fellow-woman, her branding, where she whips another woman and a number of other key scenes.
Afterwards I had to think of a film by Marguerite Duras I once saw, which I just remember as a man (Depardieu) and woman (Duras) narrating a story, with some minimalist supporting images. Fascinating, but for a very ‘elite’ audience. I am not stating that our idea goes to extremes in maximising the appeal. It will be a film for the somewhat educated mind. I am convinced meanwhile that our film has the potential to move any woman or man who appreciates the book.

Could a good film on the Story of O be made today? (part 3 of 4)

Could a worthy film on the Story of O succeed now? I am certain. I have tried to argue it could have back then, in Just Jaeckin’s 70s. It can certainly succeed now. And closer to the mainstream. (Not by Just Jaeckin, not then, not now.)
Nudity is less of an issue now than it was in the 70s. BDSM is all but acceptable now. There is no soul in the Western world below 60 years of age that has not played with S&M or or at least considered it. The feminist aspect and/ or the political correctness? Above all I think it is the extreme apparent one-sidedness of the relationship between O and her men that is the issue, not so much the nudity and whipping.
On that count, I don’t believe the film could be made in Hollywood. Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut has been made on the edge of the Hollywood system and goes fairly far on the mental level. That level is the one that counts, be sure! Still, better examples are Patrice Chereau's Intimacy and its depiction of ruthless, loveless physical action, Catherine Breillat’s Romance X and its showing a woman that wants love, but also rough sex, which her man does not supply and she has get elsewhere, Michael Haneke’s The Pianist, about a surpressed woman, who engages a young man to dominate her - all 'European Cinema.'
On the count of nudity and above all given the extreme form the relationships in these films take, loveless, obsessive, it is without doubt that the Story of O can be done justice. Perhaps the physical torture must be suggested or shown with restraint, but that should not compromise the essence. Go Chereau Breillat, or Haneke!

Bare pubes and clean underwear

My naked pubes. Still not used to the permanency. You know how your mothers always warned you to put on clean underwear in case you had an accident and would be handled by a nurse etc.? There are thoughts like that which come to me now. What will the nurse think about my pubes when I get in that situation? How about the nurse when I am old, grey and in a home? Or won't I be such an exception? Or will they all be bare themselves at that juncture in time? Will they actually be pleased with me, as bare is cleaner? At least my hair there will never become grey. (Was still dark when it went.)
I am making sure my underwear is always clean, just in case.

Extremely nude - pubic hair gone

In my 49th year I had my pubic hair go forever. Laser. I had been in two minds before. I was a pioneer to shave consistently, I think, over twenty years ago. Then came a decade and a half when I consistently did not shave. Could not bother. Just trimmed the bikini-line. After I started writing and immersing myself in the sharp end of sexuality, I started again, off and on. On, I wanted to be nude down there, to emphasise, to show availability, to invite, entice. Off, because it is all the rage, why would I look like a little girl and I am never one to follow popular trends. Quite the contrary. So why did I decide to burn my bridges and go nude forever, short of the occasional maintenance that may be required? The essential reasons are named under 'on' before. Added to that was the arousing idea it would be permanent. Nude forever. In the changing rooms of pools and gyms all would see mine as I could not longer hide. Finally, there was the once-off experience of having it done, to have to expose myself intimately to that beauty parlour assistant.
It have me a thrill, as well as it embarrassed me. Two minds, as always. Undressed at the bottom, gynecologist chair, stirrups --- she will have seen it all before, I know, and she was very efficient, as they say. At times I felt her breath as she inspected her work. Would she have smelt me? I felt she must have, or seen the swelling or even seen my wetness. The latter is likely, as she did handle me down there in her justified desire to perform perfectly. Her conversation was vivid, but 'official.' She did not say, ' Madam, I like your labia minor, I do think your juices are excessive, your smell is as different from that of the others as your face is...' Nor did I invite any comments along those lines, the chicken I was, Vanna Vechian, the erotic writer, or not! I was relatively silent, but when I did talk it was about the record benign November weather, the elections, my hairstyle and clothes, holidays etc. The pain is acceptable, but gets to one at some point. The number of hairs is so high! Even if I am not the densest I have ever seen.
Then I was done. When home, I undressed at the mirror and felt like crying. I had lost the capacity to grow hair, mine since 12, 13. I needed my mind to put me straight. The smoothness and all the 'on' reasons were now satisfied. At 49.

Did the Story of O film have to be so bad? (part 2 of 4)

Now why would Just Jaeckin’s (JJ) film be that way, aesthetically pleasing, but superficial, shallow --- bad? Did it have to be, AD 1975? JJ was a photographer and interested in beautiful images. He does succeed there, but I have tried to argue that he misses the point of the book. The book is grittier, earthier, not soft, no matter how compliant O's character is. It is certainly about a mental journey that O follows from René’s vanilla lover, to his submissive to that of Sir Stephen. Assuming JJ had wanted to do the book full justice, and that he would have been capable of doing so, could he have succeeded? I believe he could have, if he had been a different man and cunning, perhaps by being restrained on the showing and let O speak more, literally or figuratively. I grant that a mainstream film would not easily have succeeded. The JJ version as it is was banned in the UK and US, I think, no matter how innocent. There is the nudity to deal with, the whipping etc., and the humiliation, of a woman as a woman... Political correctness? Would that have been in the way? Feminists disagree on the quality or the morality of the book. But Pasolini made Salo around the same time, a quite extreme statement. True, he dealt with scores of young women and men, instead of concentrating on a single woman. Salo caused uproar, but it was shown and still is. Not that I would have recommended Pasolini to do the O film. He is not straight enough. The example of Salo merely demonstrates to me that my ideal O film could have been made at the time. My favourite would have been a Stanley Kubrick, who could have done it at the time, had he wanted.

The bad films about Story of O (l'Histoire d'O) (part 1 of 4)

Why are the two films made after the Story of O (l'Histoire d'O) that I know so bad? Perhaps I should modify my ‘bad’ and say ‘mediocre, meaningless, superficial’ etc instead. I am referring to the famous Just Jaeckin (JJ) version of 1975 and a more recent American version (Story of O – Untold Pleasures.) I will ignore the latter for now.
The JJ version was groundbreaking, perhaps, it has its visually appealing moments, Corinne Cléry is a pretty girl, but the essence of the film has little to do with the intentions and mood of the book, which, as some of you know, I adore (http://www.xs4all.nl/~outjonk/vannao.htm). The film is soft-porn, 'Emmanuelle goes slavegirl.' Cléry walks through the adventure sufficiently naively, girlishly perhaps, perhaps like O accepting all that is done to her, not resisting. Yet the mood is all too easy to my mind. I see no evidence of how hard O finds it - the embarrassment, the pain, the dedication to Sir S; the book expresses this so well. Nor indeed does the film express the deep joy she feels once she has submitted to Sir S. The frivolous love interest between Pierre and O in the film is simply ridiculous.
An example of an easy opportunity that the film chose to miss is the final scene in the book, where O is set down at the party of the Commander, in the corner of the courtyard. The actions and talk between the young couple that visit O, without involving her of course, typify all that O is in a nutshell: an object that can be ignored (or used), but that still provides fear and attraction and is a model for how that couple's relationship could be. The Story of O is about the relationship between woman and man, simply reduced to an extreme form, perhaps not viable or desirable in reality, but all the more recognisable at the end of the day. Not so in the film. The film is not about the depths, but about the surface. I call that superficial, shallow. It does not satisfy me. I call it bad, because the book deserves better.

Alison - Happy Chastity

My friend Alison is a professional woman, with a super job, great house and man, late husbands, daughters, and a curious habit: chastity. Her blog described her exploits: http://alison73.wordpress.com/. Her man is the so-called keyholder, but one can hardly say she is forced to be chaste. Keywords: chastity belt and corset. And dinner parties, nude swimming, feisty friends, who may or may not choose to wear knickers at the parties or a suit when swimming.

A glimpse of what goes on amongst the happy few. Yes, her pages are about sex, but unlike the protagonists in my erotic stories, which deal with obsession, pain, humiliation and domination, Alison and friends are a happy lot.

I envy her.

Glamorama

I have just finished reading Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis (BEE). all nearly 500 pgs. I have to call it a glorious failure; emphasis on glorious. One thing: it is highly sexy at times. It starts off as a satire on the world of clubs, fashion and film, inhabited by model-/actors, popstars etc., their lives fueled by drugs, drink, designer wear and, of course, sex. Our hero, Victor, a model/ actor/ club organiser in NYC, cannot string together one coherent sentence or express any sign of love in his communication with his girlfriend, supermodel Chloe, to save their relationship, meanwhile following his prick to a few other women. Unreality starts setting in when V is confronted with sightings of him at various places he has not been at. When the ground in NYC has become to hot to stand on, he accepts a commission to go to Europe and bring back a woman, who happens to be an old flame of his, though he is almost too thick to remember. Via London, where he meets her, he finds himself in Paris with her and a group of male and female models, who turn out to be model/ terrorists and bring about a number of high profile bombings, whilst making (sexually oriented) snuff movies on the side. Now the story is a thriller. All this brought (as if) in the context of a film that is being made, by a pair of film crews. What is real/ what is film? The end game is where Victor is entirely lost between double-crossing alies/ foes, or is it triple-crossing? His old flame whispers, whilst mortally wounded 'I am not (her supposed name.)' He finds himself stuck, as even his family in the US claim they have sighted him at breakfast that morning. All that: glorious. The 'failure' resides in the question: what is the point BEE is trying to make? It may have been lost in the amply detailed richness of the story.

The realities of submission

I have little actual experience with BDSM. I do have experience, commanding as a Domme via the virtual domain. Very significant to both parties in the equation, and very real in its way, but not the sort of actual experience I mean. I also have experience living the life through writing my stories (www.vannavechian.com, BDSM section.) There I usually take the side of the sub. Writing is a great way to act a part, but it is still not the actual experience I mean. I dream of being a submissive very often, more so than being a Domme (which I am, in the virtual domain.)

But how would it be to actually be a 24/7 slave, at all times available for sex first and last, to one or many, known and unknown. To be nude at all times - yes, I dream that - and to be observed, always. To be trained using pain and humiliation - part of my dreams. To have one's hair shorn, to have no will but the Master's? To be modified, pierced, tattood, branded, augmented and enhanced?

I dream of those realities.

welcome to Vanna Vechian's erotic scrapbook

My name is Vanna Vechian, dear reader.

I write erotic fiction, centred on woman and her body (mine!)

This is to be the companion site to my Vanna Vechian's Erotic Fiction site (www.vannavechian.com). Loose ends here, as opposed to rounded works there.

Stay tuned.

Love, Vanna