'Roland Topor was the modern enfant terrible of French art and letters. He was short and leprechaun-like, giving the impression of constant, untiring activity. He dabbled in films, produced art derived from Surrealism, and could seldom be accused of good taste. In 1962, he created the Panic Movement (mouvement panique), together with Alejandro Jodorowsky and Fernando Arrabal. Inspired by and named after the god Pan, and influenced by Luis Buñuel and Antonin Artaud's Theatre of Cruelty, the group concentrated on chaotic performance art and surreal imagery. Among the films made from Topor's written work was Roman Polanski's The Tenant (1976), which was recently reissued in 2006 with an introduction by the writer Thomas Ligotti. Topor also worked as an actor, his most famous part being Renfield in Werner Herzog's Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (1979).
'His greatest success was as a macabre cartoonist. He used his work to illustrate his novels, plays and other writings, produced many volumes of graphics, and exhibited his work widely in galleries both in France and abroad. His drawings in many ways resembled the graphic novels of Max Ernst and the similarly grim work of the Alsatian artist Tomi Ungerer, but the humour was always there in the absurd situations he depicted, many based on fantastical images of the deeper associations of sex and erotica, others on pictures that linked mankind to the world of worms and insects or reptiles.
'Although ebullient in public, it was known among his friends that he had black periods of extreme depression, and the bizarre fantasies that he drew and painted undoubtedly reflected a mind that brooded on death and decay and the many germs and viruses that live in our bodies. His novels tackled the same themes, cruelty and metamorphosis being depicted in a matter-of-fact, unemotional way, his characters Rabelaisian and his plots stretching the imagination to its limits. Coprophagy is a frequent theme and religion a favourite target in much of his work. Giving offence came so naturally to Topor that he was almost unaware of the shocked reactions he was likely to get, as for instance from the series of dialogues, accompanied by drawings, examining all the possible uses of a baby, starting by nailing one to your front door.
'Toward the end of his life, Topor wrote the screenplay for the cultishly revered film Marquis (1989), directed by Henri Xhonneux and loosely based on the life and writings of Marquis de Sade. The cast consisted of actors in period costumes with animal masks, with a separate puppet for de Sade's anthropomorphised "bodily appendage." He also co-wrote and was the production designer of the innovative and popular animated film Fantastic Planet, directed by René Laloux. At the age of 59 Topor suffered a massive stroke and brain haemorrhage in 1997, having appeared until then in the best of health.' -- collaged from various sources
Roland Topor's self-designed grave marker
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Further
Topor et moi: A Roland Topor Resource
Roland Topor Page @ Facebook
Books in English by Roland Topor
Roland Topor's books @ goodreads
A Roland Topor Photo Gallery
Roland Topor posts @ Thomas Ligotti Online
'Roland Topor, a Graphic Wit' @ The New York Times
'The Wilder Planet of Roland Topor'
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Films
'Les Escargot (1965) was a collaboration between Roland Topor and director Renee Laloux, but it is Topor’s distinctive visual sensibility that dominates. Les Escargot is apocalyptic, teeming with allegory of self-perpetuated human destruction. Like in other works by Topor, the ordinary is blown up to monstrous and absurd proportions. Fed by plants stimulated by human tears, enormous garden snails run amok, destroying the cities.' -- Ashcan Magazine
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'What is man ? Man makes war, man kills man, man hunts, man is executed. Les Temps Morte (1966) is montage film mixing original drawings by Roland Topor and direction by Rene Laloux involving both original shots and stock shots that ironically analyze what man is.' -- worldnews____________
'Roland Topor and René Laloux's Fantastic Planet (1973) is a sci-fi epic like none you’ve ever seen. A 70’s euro-funk soundtrack backs the eerie psychedelic visuals of an alien world. On the fantastic planet, humans are kept as pets by the gigantic Oms, a blue-skinned humanoid species who live for thousands of years and have a highly evolved culture and technology. Revolutionary metaphors abound, and like much science fiction literature, but unlike most science fiction movies, the film is really about our contemporary situation despite the fantastical setting.' -- Justin Allen____________
'Roland Topor and Henri Xhonneux's Marquis (1989) is an audacious rendering of the political, social and sexual manners of the ancien regime and the class division and social disruption that produced the French Revolution. Adapted from the writings of the Marquis de Sade, this witty film uses elaborate puppets in human form to act out erotic and sexual decadence. Marquis is an elegantly naughty film with wry, intellectual satire that plays out all manner of human desire.' -- J. Hoberman__________
Miscelaneous
Roland Topor in Herzog's 'Nosferatu'
Topor explains how to make art from pornographic images
'LE QUESTIONNAIRE de Roland Topor'
Roland Topor Radioscopie (1/3)
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Drawings & paintings
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p.s. RIP: Annie Girardot. Hey. ** David Ehrenstein, I'm guessing Bill was one of the very unfortunate gmail users who had his accounts wiped in that glitch I read about in the news yesterday? Ugh. Were his accounts restored? That brought back memories of when my old blog was shut down and deleted of all its imagery, and I felt much empathy. Anyway, is everything okay now or on its way back? ** Pilgarlic, Hey. Oh, I can't imagine that quoting from McCarthy with an attribution would be any problem at all unless, I guess, you used a really huge chunk of his writing or something. I've never had any issues around quoting from other texts in my nonfiction writing. Yeah, I wouldn't sweat it. ** Wolf, Hi, Wolf. That dose of far north winter was a boon. I just wish I hadn't been inside catching glimpses of it through windows for 80% of the time. And, yes, last evening Yury, who's in charge of our mailbox key, walked in with a package addressed to me, and I said it was mostly for him, and he ripped it open and gleefully downed almost all of your gift in about fifteen minutes, leaving enough for me to taste. He says thank you very much, and I have to say the morsels I got were most delicious. You are awesome! And thank you for the CD. I'm going to slide that in my laptop just a little later on. Yeah, fantastic, thank you so much! I owe you some French seitan or whatever is in my grasp that you most wish for. ** Jax, Hi, pal. I don't know who's with Gucci. I have to ask Yury. I know he isn't into Gucci, so they probably did own any designers he likes. Yeah, I saw and dug my fair share of Beckett productions when younger. They stood out. I was just always more drawn to avant-garde and spectacle type theater and to playwrights whose work leant itself to wild interpretations. I really dig the immediacy thing, but I guess I like it really immediate, which happens for me more in performance art and sometimes dance. It's the sticking to the narrative thing that turns me off in, well, most mediums, I guess. ** Polter, Hey! It really was so cool to meet you! I really think you should come visit Paris. Wow, I never would have imagined you had so much ahead of you that night. I just taxied back to the hotel and zoned out into sleep. Your later sounds to have been plenty rich. Cool. I mean, I guess except for the jealous guy, but what can you do, right? My flight was fine, two hours of magazine reading, during which I learned that Justin Bieber is scared that he's crazy, which made him just the tiniest bit more interesting to me. Paris is okay. People here are complaining about the cold, but I'm like ... give me a break. Chilly is what it is. Not cold. Anyway, yeah, awesome, and love/evol, right back at you! ** Sypha, I haven't seen the Gaga video yet. I guess I'll look at it today. That meh song definitely needs to have a big, wild video. Your February story sounds most intriguing. I really like the title. ** Tim Jones-Yelvington, Hey, Tim. Yeah, I saw it in my mailbox this morning, so it arrived without a hitch, it seems. I really look forward to reading it, man. ** David, Funnily enough, some Morrissey fansite has already noted and linked people over to the post and to that Moz slave's paean, so the guy's god might very well discover him. Perhaps I'll get a mopey, well written anonymous email asking if I can put its writer in touch with the young fella. I tend to get a couple or three emails like that after every slave and escort post. But I ain't no pimp. ** Steevee, I haven't seen any of those movies, yikes. ** Patrick deWitt, Hey. She was out of the office yesterday but will be in today, and I'll be there. News asap. ** Math, Thank you much for taking the time with my crew yesterday. I appreciate it. Actually, 'hurt me yeah's text was my favorite. It was happening in some dream realm. He himself, not so much. Yeah, I was wondering if the Moz slave's Stephen thing was purposeful. Like maybe he was trying to say Steven and sir in the same word or something to show respect? Or that he knows something we don't? Weird. ** Ken Baumann, Hey! Yeah, CB, that was sure nice. He did it his way, etc. Snow in LA? Wait, it snowed in LA? Seriously? No, seriously? ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, If I could gild your commentaries, I would. Maybe when I get my new Macbook Pro, I can. I don't get the glory hole appeal. I never have. I think I'd get it if the glory hole was higher up on the wall and bigger and people put their faces through it. I mean if you only had the guy's face and nothing else about him. But that would destroy the whole point. NOCOPS' picture was so exciting to find. When I search for slaves, I dream of finding slaves who represent themselves like that. I pray it was real, him. That humbling beginning you're amidst is good though, right? Or I always start novels very humbly. I think it helps ward off Alzheimer's. ** Allesfliesst, Hey, congrats, man! That's appropriate right? On some level? But I'm probably romanticizing the whole having to officiate something one hates to do thing given Yury's wipeouts. I don't know. Hurdle crossed, right? Hope you're rested. ** Chris Cochrane, Totally awesome to hear that, buddy. Things are looking good, yeah? ** Eli Jürgen, You interviewed Poly Styrene? That's very cool. She's not still in that religious cult or whatever, is she? Are X-Ray Spex doing the whole reunion show circuit or something? I have a note made to pick up a Death Note or two when I hit this store here in Paris that I know will stock them. You've gotten me really excited about it. Last year of school, nice. How is it going? Is it a freer and easier year where you get to make things more than mostly just take things in? ** Alan, Hey, man! I'm okay, still emotionally kind of ruined, but I'm back on track with everything else basically, I guess. Norway was cool. The winter was super serious. The people I met were impressive across the board. The drunken people there were very drunk. I really like Scandinavia. Every time I go there, I want to be able to go there and spend a lot of time exploring. It wasn't noticeably darker there than here, I don't think. Or I didn't notice any difference at all, which is kind of strange now that I think of it. How are you? What's up? ** Chris (British), My mom was a very practical and pragmatic person a lot of the time. I guess I might have gotten my pragmatism from her, although I'm not as practical on the gift-giving front. Well, yeah, you should concentrate on your writing, right? Can you get your MA? Is it possible to just can the job do that? Maybe it's different there, but I've been rejected for every single grant I've ever applied for since I started writing, and I never think it means anything other than money deprivation. Which, well, sucks. Really sorry to hear about your friend's loss. ** Creative Massacre, I hear you, pal. I think that's a big reason why I really don't want to have a pet. All my pets when I was younger died young and shockingly. It was too much. Yeah, condolences, my friend. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, I think dolphins are trippy. I guess that means I like them, but it's not like I want to swim with them or something. Hm, good question about the end of the video. I'm not sure either. I guess I liked the 'not sure' thing. Interesting, though. I'm going to watch it again and try to be all analytical. Oh, your poor friend, ugh, I understand about the dancing thing. But ... can't cysts heal or be, I don't know, removed and all that? I read somewhere a while back that some guy here in France was going to have his home taken away from him for lack of money or something, and that he got married to it, and for some weird reason that allowed him to keep his home due to some technicality in the way marriage works over here legally. I hate missing the Oscars, so I'm glad it was boring, although I'm sorry for everyone who had to suffer. Okay, I need to watch that Gaga video, don't I? I will today. My grandmother was kind of obsessed with the Pooh books, and her bedtime stories when I was a little kid were always very slight variations on the Pooh stories, and I think I was always the Christopher Robin-like character in them, and I think I was always closer friends with Eeyore than with the other animals. I remember really wanting to live in a tree when I was a kid. I think that came from the Pooh universe. And then there was a silly zen kind of book that was very popular with hippies in the late '60s called 'The Tao of Pooh'. Your day was nice. I liked it. Mine: I worked on the copyedit of 'TMS'. So far, pretty easy. Copyeditors are so 'by the book', though. Mine keeps changing my sentences to make them read normally, and I keep changing them back. I made some notes, some mental, some scribbled, about that new fiction thing I'm experimenting with. Very early stuff. Just ideas and sentence try-outs. I made a blog post and figured out a second one that I'll try to make today. I was going to go to the Apple Store to look at the new Macbook Pros 'cos I'm going to buy one soon, but I got lazy and decided to wait. I was going to start playing 'Epic Mickey' again after a week off, but I didn't. Seems like yesterday turned out to be kind of spacey and lazy in general. Last night, Arte was showing the film 'Belle du Jour', and I was really looking forward to it 'cos I hadn't seen it in ages, and Pierre Clementi is in it, and if people end up giving a shit about 'TMS', I'm probably going to get asked about Pierre Clementi a lot since he's central in the novel, and his (partly obscured) face is even on the book's cover. But the TV signal was fucked up and freezing on the Arte channel, so I couldn't watch it, which was just as well, I guess, because my show/ addiction French 'Top Chef' was on, so I watched that instead, and one of the two contestants I'm rooting for, Alexis, got voted off, which was kind of sad. He was the youngest contestant. This is/was him. Now I'm rooting for him aka Pierre. But it seems like she aka Stephanie is going to win because she's the most conservative chef and because she's featured very heavily in all the ads for the show even though she's pretty boring. So, basically, my day was so nothing that I showed you a bunch of reality show contestants' faces in a desperate attempt to give it some pizzazz. I'll seek better today. How was your Tuesday? ** Alexp336, Hi, man. I used to jog for a while years and years ago, but only at night when my sweats and sweatiness wouldn't register so heavily on by-passers' eyes. And I ended up getting shin splints and had to stop, not a moment too soon as far as I was concerned. Yeah, the Macbook Pros are pricey, but not so horribly, at least for the 13", and I've kind of talked myself into really wanting that new Thunderbolt thing on my computer, so I'm just going to bite off a little more than my finances can chew, I guess. That means no 3DS for sure, but I think that's probably the wise decision. I'm just hoping that some friend with a busy schedule and a kind heart buys one. My impression from haunting the slave sites in the name of the blog is that flirting with slaves basically involves ordering them to flirt with you. Nice racket. ** Okay, Roland Topor is cool, I think, and see what you think. I'll be back with something else tomorrow.
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