My Life and Times With Antonin Artaud [VHS] | ![My Life and Times With Antonin Artaud [VHS]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5110G5VX3PL._SL160_.jpg) | Director: Gérard Mordillat
Actors: Sami Frey, Marc Barbé, Julie Jézéquel, Valérie Jeannet, Clotilde de Bayser
Studio: Fox Lorber
Category: Video
List Price: $19.98
Buy New: $14.75
as of 7/30/2010 10:57 MDT details
You Save: $5.23 (26%)
New (5) Used (7) Collectible (2) from $3.99
Seller: myrons_movies
Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 36255
Format: Black White, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Subtitled)
Rating: Unrated
Media: VHS Tape
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 90 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.3 x 4.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 6304074832
UPC: 720917012131
EAN: 9781572520462
ASIN: 6304074832
Theatrical Release Date: November 1995
Release Date: November 24, 1998
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Tell A Friend
Add to Wishlist
Add to Wedding Registry
Add to Baby Registry
| | |
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Set in the bohemian Paris of 1946, this jazzy but dark feature stars Sami Frey (who played Theresa Russell's almost-murdered lover in IBlack Widow/I) as Antonin Artaud, the actor, writer, and founder of the infamous Theater of Cruelty. Newly released from a mental institution, Artaud--who is dying painfully of cancer--befriends Jacques Prevel (Marc Barbé), a young poet who wrote to him during Artaud's confinement. Penniless, self- absorbed, and sexually involved with two women, Prevel provides Artaud with pain-killing drugs, for which the legendary artist favors him with money, encouragement, and his most desperate insights into the horror of living. Tyrannical, generous, maddeningly oblique, terribly vulnerable, Artaud in his final days becomes a figure lost in a forest of misery, comforted only--so this story tells us--by Prevel's words. Shot in black and white and directed by Gérard Mordillat (IBilly Ze Kick/I), the film is a haunting evocation of post-war moral exhaustion among artists set against renewed urban energy, the French equivalent of America's nascent Beat movement. Frey and Barbé are both very good, though a little background knowledge about each might be helpful before seeing this film. I--Tom Keogh/I
|
| Customer Reviews:
Superb - but not for everyone December 20, 2004
Erstwhile (Boston, MA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
If you like the thought of Paris cafes in black and white in the 1940s and 50s, philosophy students drinking black coffee and chain smoking, and in walks ... ARTAUD!! ... this is the movie for you. If you like standard American movie fare, don't bother.
br /
br /Historically, poet Jacques Prevel met and befriended Artaud when the latter was released from the madhouse in the late 1940s. This movie is fiction, based on Prevel's journals and notebooks. Sami Frey (Artaud) is absolutely convincing. Great perfs by the other actors as well. Shot in 1993, the movie faithfully recreates the atmosphere of bohemian Paris 50 years ago. You almost expect Sartre to walk in.
br /
br /Very French, very cool. I'm watching it over and over.
Life of a Genius December 2, 2004
Oslo Jargo (FINLAND)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
This film is a wonderful piece devoted to one of the 20th century's greatest literary figures, Antonin Artaud, who in his short life, attempted to create an outrageous and cruel theater which would leave spectators dazzled. Artaud is just released from a mental asylum and is sought out by pretentious bohemians in cafes of Paris, a struggling poet, Jacques Prevel, wants to be introduced to him since he is his hero and he also needs Artauds help in becoming known. What follows is a relationship that develops out of need, the poet Jacques needs Artaud's mentorship and perhaps a handwritten introduction to his poetry and Artaud needs opium to fuel his pain so that he can write before the cancer he has can consume him. "I've survived my own death," Artaud says, and we already understand that Artaud is on the verge of dying a physical death. Sami Frey, who plays Artaud, is simply extraordinary and there is no hint that this man is an actor, this man IS Artaud, everything he says, whether it be random missives on the nature of evil in a fly or movements with his hands, eyes and intense caricature of the face, realizes Artaud's living frenzy. The scenes are bleak, and the whole film is in black and white with a grainy quality which is simply perfect for the mood. We don't know if Artaud inspires the poet but at the end, Jacques writes, "I knew Antonin Artaud, he is the only man I loved . .. " and with that we realize that one of the greatest figures of man had such a supreme power of words that he will be sorely missed. Long live Artaud.
br /
Artaud: As He Would Like It April 21, 2001
rebecca whetstine (Portland, Or)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
As a performance artist who has used the principles of Grotowski, Artaud, The Living Theater and others... this film was a pleasure. It may not be gripping art to those who are not aficionados of Artaud... it's a specialty item. pMoody, grainy, black and white, emotionally scarifying scenes of the uncompromising reach for the outer edges of soulforce work... the film is good for those of us acquainted with the horror of living and the stark siren quality of having to work... continuing in your work because that is how you mostly do live. pSo few films exist about Artaud... most prolly my gratitude comes from the parched lover's place. This is definitely performance devoid of artifice... reality acting as opposed to top dollar inflected storytelling. The Bandit Queen is a good reference point, and Vincent and Theo: the emotional intensity is thready like the tubercular's last glow, as it never disappears wholly, but, rather, goes subterranean at times, taking you down with it.p:)...pRebecca Whetstine
|
|
|
