Iconic, beautiful, tragic. Yes, today is Brigitte Bardot's birthday, and I would like to wish her a happy birthday if she weren't such an asshole. Sure, she only made one film that's even worth mentioning (that being Godard's
Contempt [
Le Mépris], though she does have a small cameo in Godard's lesser
Masculin féminin), she certainly had her place in the minds of men all over the world. And, I, for one, will always adore "Bonnie and Clyde" with Serge Gainsbourg. Currently (if you didn't know), she is married to an extreme-right French politician, supports animal rights, hates Muslims, thinks homosexuals are carnival freak-shows, and runs her mouth whenever possible, after retiring from film after
Don Juan, or If Don Juan Were a Woman. So, thanks, Brigitte, but no thanks. Sometimes icons really should have faded away.
I must have somehow overlooked a box-set Image is releasing of 3 Brigitte Bardot flicks, under the name The Brigitte Bardot Classic Collection. The set includes three previously released Home Vision titles (are more to come? I sure hope so since HVE stopped putting out DVDs around the time Criterion introduced their Eclipse series): Roger Vadim's The Night Heaven Fell [Les bijoutiers du clair de lune], Marc Allégret's Plucking the Daisy [En effeuillant la marguerite] and Vadim's Don Juan; or If Don Juan Were a Woman [Don Juan ou Si Don Juan était une femme...], Bardot's final film.
A few other DVD announcements that rolled by since my last post: the complete series of The Shield from Fox on 3 November; Michael Mann's Public Enemies on 10 November from Universal; and Blu-rays of Cujo and My Bloody Valentine, the original film in its director's cut, from Lionsgate on 24 November.
