Roger Vadim

What can you say about her? I regret not seeing many movies.

I've only seen one film of Brigitte Bardot, which is And God Created Woman by Roger Vadim.

And I thought she was an absolute stunner.

She was a goddess on screen.

She was beautiful to look at.

And then, of course, that film was remade in 1988.

Once again, directed by its original director, Roger Vadim.

And that stars Rebecca de Mornay in the Brigitte Bardot character.

So we've got like the flavor of New Orleans and it's a really great setting for all of this stuff.

I'm just so glad because from what I understand, Roger Vadim at one point was going to be the director of this.

Now, I love Vadim, but he was going to lean into New Orleans and the voodoo.

And I have a real thing about voodoo where I'm just like, I'm not a big fan of voodoo.

And then he tried to foray into feature filmmaking and kind of failed.

And that one, which I haven't seen, but that was inspired by Roger Vadim.

That guy I was talking about.

Who's also a total hedonist.

French Russian guy his first film and God created woman with Brigitte Bardot his then wife and that movie is like about a guy who's like obsessed with an actress he tried to cast Roger Vadim and his then wife not Bardot his second wife in it and then she fell ill and they had to like it the whole thing kind of just like fell apart but that was that was an interesting that's something I really noted because he does seem to have this like kinship Yeah.

With this like French tradition of like libertine filmmaking.

Yeah.

Dracula's daughter wants your girl.

The next time we saw lady vampires in cinema was in 1960, Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses.

This movie was a reworking of Carmilla in which a young Carmilla is distraught when her female best friend gets engaged to her male cousin.

She becomes possessed by her vampire ancestor, a thing we're all supposed to be chill with, I guess, and claims victims while pining for her friend.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and then in 1960 is when, the '60s essentially when this kinda breaks open.

You have, uh, Blood and Roses directed by Roger Vadim, uh, and then you have some of these other lesbian films that start coming out in the '60s and especially the '70s, uh, Vampiros Lesbos being one of 'em.

A lot of, uh, Jean Rollin's films as well, uh, Jean Rollin's, French.

She went to Brown University and she formed a couple production companies, classmates.

And one of the production companies was with a woman named Vanessa Vadim, daughter of Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda.

Do I know who Roger Vadim is? I

mean, Jane Fonda's husband at the time.

Oh, okay.

I had never read the book.

I didn't know about it, but I was married to a French film director, Roger Vadim, and the book was a, a cult favorite in Europe.

And so when I got sent a script of They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, he's the one that said, "You have to do this.

I don't care." I was pregnant at the time.

And as it turned out, uh, she had an agent by the name of Dick Clayton at the time, and, um, we approached Dick and said we wanted to give the script to Jane.

This was all with James Poe, obviously.

And, uh, Clayton said, uh, he would be happy to give it to her, but, uh, it was 1968 and she was living in outside of Paris with Roger Vadim, her husband.

Uh, and the, the student strikes were taking place, and there was no way to get the script through.

Now, the other thing he was really famous for, and we'll get to, there it is, Jane Fonda in Barbarella.

For those of you who don't remember this movie, and there's probably many of you, Jane Fonda, married to Roger Vadim, French nouveau director, did space girl go sexy, and this was the launching point for Thierry Mugler.

I had from Thierry Mugler, and I think I wore it to a Parisian party, I actually think I wore it to one of his fashion shows, an all-in-one leather jumpsuit that started with the spiked heel, pointy-toe boots, went all the way up the leg into the crotch, into the waist, into the sleeves, into the high neck, in electric blue leather.

It was a very, very Barbarella moment for me.

top of her game, dude.

prime Jane Fonda probably like early mid mid 20s in this film and I don't know I just like I've said it time and time again I like films about the counterculture made by the counterculture and this is Roger Vadim in 60 I mean 68 was like the height of 60s counterculture jane fonda was in the center of 60s counterculture and late 60s

sci-fi also

is just money sci-fi and it just has like i don't know man i just think it has a good look a good feel and i i get like pretty much probably every other film on my list is better than barbarella but they don't hit me like barbarella hits me so i went with it number one