Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Looney Tunes short, the 1940 Porky's Last Standstarring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, directed by Bob Clampett.
The title refers to the last stand of General George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.
The staff of The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour was searching for something a little different today. I think they found it with this thoughtful conversation between Conan O'Brien and John Stewart :
I believe we're all glad that they are still around.
We’ve selected another entry from the excellent reference book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Jay Schneider. Today’s film is the 1991 drama La Belle Noiseuse (The Beautiful Troublemaker), directed by Jacques Rivette and starring Michel Piccoli, Jane Birkin and Emmanuelle Béart.
The film is based on the short story The Unknown Masterpiece written by nineteenth-century french novelist Honoré de Balzac.
Emmanuelle Béart had mentioned in interviews that the character Marianne in La Belle Noiseuse remains the most physically and emotionally taxing role she has ever taken in her long career. She has be quoted as saying, "It's funny, I had always sworn to myself never to play naked in the cinema, because I find that there is an overdose on the way in which the female body is exploited. And then Jacques arrived. He told me: 'You are going to play naked.' And it was exciting to exploit that nudity. Because it's a real woman playing. And the look of Jacques, that of Michel too, because for me they are inseparable, helped me a lot. But it's true that when you find yourself naked in front of the camera, it's very difficult. I had a few seconds of real discomfort. I wasn't hurt, just paralyzed. I was very scared. I was unable to move. I no longer had a shell. And then I gradually relaxed. The team was small and I never feared the gaze of people on set. Little by little, I took real physical pleasure in giving something. My body became active. Of course, there were moments of total refusal. I felt like an object. I wanted to escape this image of woman-object. But I especially wanted to transform the image of the model. I wanted this painting to be done in pairs. Between this woman and this painter, there is a clash of two gazes. She looks at him and provokes him. And she doesn't want to let go."
Please find a very comfortable chair (the film is almost 4 hours long,) dim the lights, and join us here at The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour as we watch this thought provoking drama: La Belle Noiseuse. (Bunkies, ask your folks if you're allowed to watch the film - it's chock-a-block with female nudity.)
The frank and extensive nudity Emmanuelle Béart did in this film seemed to extract a heavy toll on her, so much that she admitted in an interview that, ever since the release of this film back in 1991, she had been able to draw the courage to view La Belle Noiseuse in its entirety only once, which was hinted to be at the time of its premiere back in 1991 Cannes Film Festival.
Demand Euphoria!
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