The Story of O

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Movie
German title The Story of O
Original title Histoire d'O
Country of production France
original language French
Publishing year 1975
length approx. 105 (uncut) minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director Just Jaeckin
script Sébastien Japrisot
production Gérard Lorin
Éric Rochat
music Pierre Bachelet
camera Robert Fraisse : Producer
Yves Rodallec : Producer
cut Francine Pierre
occupation

The Story of O is a love story by the French film director and fashion photographer Just Jaeckin from 1975. The film is based on Dominique Aury's sadomasochistic novel , The Story of O , and tells the story of voluntary female submission .

action

The submissive O ( Corinne Cléry ), a successful Parisian fashion photographer, is brought to the secluded Roissy Castle by her boyfriend René ( Udo Kier ) , where she is trained to be a perfect sub out of love for him .

Roissy is a private estate in the Gothic interior of which many submissive women submit to the will of men. During her stay, O learns to be an obedient "slave", but she always remains self-confident and is aware of her power over the men around her. Nothing happens without first being asked for her consent.

After completing her training, she agrees to René's request to temporarily live with his father's friend Sir Stephen ( Anthony Steel ) as a further proof of love and to comply unconditionally with his wishes. Sir Stephen proves to be even more dominant than René, and O falls in love with him. As final proof of her love, she undergoes further training, which ends with her voluntarily having Sir Stephen's mark branded on her.

The literary original ends with O accompanying Sir Stephen, wearing only an imaginative feather mask, to an exclusive ball. Deviating from this, the film ends with an additional scene in a park, in which O Sir Stephen presses a ring-shaped brand into the skin of his hand with her hot cigarette holder.

backgrounds

  • The literary model won the French literary prize Prix ​​des Deux Magots in February 1955 .
  • Although the film manages completely without the detailed depiction of sexual intercourse or verbal profanity, it has references to the porn chic of the 1970s due to its subject matter, aesthetics and lavish equipment .
  • Aury wrote the novel under the pseudonym Pauline Réage and did not reveal her authorship, which was only rumored for decades, publicly until 1994 in an interview with the American magazine The New Yorker .
  • The final scene of the film was exactly re-recorded in terms of decoration and tonality in Eyes Wide Shut .
  • Along with 9 1/2 weeks, the film is one of the most famous productions on the subject of sadomasochism.
  • Also in 1975 was Gerard Damiano's production The Story of Joanna , which also took up the novel and, for licensing reasons, implemented it under a different title, much more radically.

Distribution restrictions

When the film was released, it sparked heated controversy in several countries. In some countries there are still bans and restrictions on its broadcast, possession or sale.

Germany

The FSK found in 1975: "The visually and acoustically licked sado-masochistic work could be dismissed as ridiculous kitsch if it were not based on a sex-fascist attitude that grants the woman the right to exist only as a man's object of pleasure." 1975 protested in a number of West German cities Women against film because it demeans women. In Berlin women threw stink bombs and pissed on cinema seats, in Bonn a woman symbolically chained herself to a huge paper mache penis. But at that time, when the peak of the sex wave had passed, the interest of the press and radio in scandalizing films was waning.

It was not until 1982 that the film was indexed by the Federal Inspectorate for Writings Harmful to Young People (BPjS). After 25 years of indexing, it was removed from the list of media harmful to minors in 2008 . The deletion was preceded by a lawsuit against the original administrative decision by the German DVD distributor, Galileo Medien AG. Since that re-evaluation by the Federal Testing Office for Media Harmful to Young People (BPjM), the film has been allowed to be distributed again in its unabridged version.

The two thousand and one edition of the film has been available on DVD (FSK from 18 years) since 2009.

Previously, the film had repeatedly been broadcast uncut in the night programs of several German broadcasters.

Great Britain

In Great Britain , the film was only approved by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) in 2000 after it had been cut by eight minutes .

Norway

The film was banned in Norway in its theatrical version from 1978 to 2003.

New Zealand

Film is still banned in New Zealand .

Reviews

  • "Just Jaeckin's films come in luxurious glossy packaging that simulates art, although at best they are kitschy arts and crafts with a ' Vogue ' and ' Playboy ' look." Filmdienst, 1975
  • “This commercially extremely successful film… holds close to the literary original in terms of content, but the film can never convey the true nature of the indicated pain: where the text by Pauline Réage always preserves 'decency' in terms of aesthetics and often the most terrifying details describes abstract 'high-level language', the film saves itself in the shameful fade-out, for example in the scene of branding. ” Marcus Stiglegger, Kino der Extreme.
  • “In addition to humiliating sexual acts that O endures, the women are mostly shown naked or only poorly clothed, while all the men remain fully dressed. Because of its uncritical portrayal of women (women want to belong to men and swear absolute obedience to them), this film caused protests in several German cities when it was shown in 1975. " lesbengeschichte.de
  • “By today's standards, the sexual tour de force of photographer O (Corinne Clery) is not that shocking. One can only rightly argue about the image of women conveyed. ” TV SPIELFILM
  • "Thanks to a thoroughly defused script and a merciless pastel filter with a soft-focus effect, the film comes in the plain, slippery cloak of 1970s soft porn à la Bilitis ." Cineman.ch
  • ",The Story of O.' is tasteful erotic cinema from the seventies. Sympathetic main actors, aesthetic erotic scenes and an interesting story make this film something special. Adult audiences who can get involved in a classic of eroticism should watch Just Jaeckin's film once. ” Sneakfilm.de
  • “Initially unrealistic like a dream with the original sound switched off and chorale music faded over, we see Victorian-uptight erotic gesture play without verbal communication, predominantly heterosexual, feminine submissive, but towards the middle of the film with an orgiastic lesbian encounter, the O finally finds the one that makes her happy in the last quarter natural fulfillment in doggy style under an athletic man of about the same age and, in the end, promotes herself to also-sadist by branding her O with a glowing cigar (te?) on her lover. Certainly historical inspiration for more-than- vanilla sex bisexuals . ” Bisexual characters in film

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jürgen Kniep: “No youth release!” Film censorship in West Germany 1949 - 1990 , Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2010, p. 255.
  2. ^ "History of the O" no longer on the index , accessed on December 15, 2012
  3. ↑ Marcus Stiglegger (Ed.): Kino der Extreme. Kulturanalytische Studien, Gardez Verlag: St. Augustin 2002, online under Sexuality and Power - Sadomasochism in Film
  4. ↑ lesbengeschichte.de , accessed on December 16, 2012
  5. ↑ A scandal ?, online at TV SPIELFILM
  6. ↑ cineman.ch ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cineman.ch
  7. ↑ sneakfilm.de
  8. ↑ Wayne Bryant : Bisexual characters in film , 1997, ISBN 1560238941