Offscreen Notes
Jesus Franco (May 12, 1930 - April 2, 2013)
The passing of prolific (over 200 films, an apparent Guinness Book of World Records for most films) Spanish director Jesus Franco, revered by some, reviled by others, marks the end of a wonderful era of Euro-horror, of which he was one of its prime movers and shakers. Euro horror is hot right now (with the first ever dedicated book just out by Ian Olney, entitled Eurohorror, 2013, published by Indiana University Press) and the deaths now of Mario Bava (1980), Riccardo Freda (1999), Lucio Fulci (1996), Paul Naschy (2009), Jean Rollin (2010), and now Jesus Franco leaves only a handful of younger directors who made films at the tale end of the euro-horror boom alive and kicking (Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento, Pupi Avati, Harry Kumel, Sergio Martino, and others). The recent passing of both Franco and Rollin is most strongly felt because they, perhaps, are two filmmakers who best exemplified the highs and lows of the euro-horror film: unabashedly personal, without care for taste or decorum, yet marked by a tasty streak of exploitation that made their films ultimately populist (if not for all tastes); at times veering toward artfully sublime, other times marred by the affects of time and budget restrains; never afraid to mix the once taboo elements of fierce violence and naked sexuality. The works of Franco and Rollin challenged the way films were told, the roles of women (who were often cast as powerfully iconic figures, dangerous, Amazonian, lethal, sensual, seductive, ‘monstrous’ female fatales, lesbian or bisexual lovers, and tragically fated to repeat the sins of their past incarnations), and the limits of what constitutes horror. With the recent boom in interest, academically and by ‘fan scholars’, the groundwork laid out by figures such as Franco and Rollin will only grow in historical stature.
