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.
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.
posted by Vanna Vechian | 1:52 AM
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