Roland Topor

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Roland Topor (born January 7, 1938 in Paris , † April 16, 1997 ibid) was a French artist and writer .

Life

Roland Topor was the son of Polish-Jewish immigrants. His father Abram Topor had studied sculpture in Warsaw. In 1929 he came to Paris in the hope of being able to live and work as an artist, which he did not succeed. He had his fiancée Zlata Binsztok, Roland Topor's mother, join him and after his scholarship expired he worked as an upholsterer and manufacturer of leather goods. Roland's sister Hélène d'Almeida-Topor was born in 1932.

During the National Socialist occupation of France, Roland Topor was hidden by his parents with foster parents in the Savoy countryside . His father was interned in Pithiviers . After the end of the war, Topor attended the Lycée Jacques Decour in Paris from 1946 to 1955. From 1955 to 1964 he studied at the École nationale des beaux-arts in Paris, mainly because he did not want to be drafted into the Algerian war . From 1958 he published drawings in the magazines Bizarre , Arts and the humorous Le Rire . He published his first novels in the science fiction magazine Fiction .

Together with his friend Fernando Arrabal , he founded the so-called panic movement ( groupe panique ) around 1960 , named after the Greek god Pan . It wasn't actually an artistic movement, but rather a joke that served the two founders and their friends to fool journalists.

Topor was a very versatile artist. He drew for exhibitions and portfolios, illustrated books (e.g. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi ), made film posters (e.g. for Die Blechtrommel by Volker Schlöndorff and Nosferatu by Werner Herzog ), created stage sets and wrote prose and plays. His novel The tenant was of Roman Polanski in 1976 filmed .

He played in several films himself and was instrumental in the fantastic cartoon La Planète sauvage (1973) and the film Marquis (1989). The latter deals with the story of the Marquis de Sade when he was imprisoned in the Bastille on the eve of the French Revolution . The film was made in collaboration with Henri Xhonneux and was made by actors who wore animal masks. The (speaking) penis of the marquis, represented by a doll, plays a leading role. In addition to de Sade, figures from his works ( Justine and Juliette ) as well as other literary figures ( Jacques the Fatalist ) appear.

Previously , a satirical children's series was created in collaboration with Henri Xhonneux Téléchat (German: Die Sendung mit der Katzen ), which soon enjoyed cult status among French young people and was broadcast in 234 episodes between 1982 and 1986.

Topor also created the drawings that can be seen in Federico Fellini's film Casanova as projections of the magic lantern in the belly of the whale Mona.

He had been friends with Wolfram Siebeck since mid-1960 , whose book Culinary Notes he illustrated in 1980.

Topor died of a cerebral haemorrhage after a fall. Topor was buried in the Montparnasse cemetery .

Quotes

“It is admirable
with what mild stubbornness
the genius Topors prepares
to take possession of our soul.
He penetrates into
what is hidden, breaks the silence,
triumphs over the dull darkness,
bewitched, transported, enlightened. "

- Fernando Arrabal

"That's what fascinates me so much about Topor: his boundless melancholy, his so hopeless world, which at the same time is presented so perfectly and with all the details that it finally looks almost cozy."

- Federico Fellini

“We turn left into rue de Charonne, which starts here and leads quite a way to the 12th arrondissement, on the south side of the Père Lachaise. “Will they one day bury you there with great pomp? Besides Cocteau and Sartre? ”I ask Topor. He grimaces and corrects me: “Sartre is in the Montparnasse cemetery. And I'll probably end up in a sack on the trash. ”The idea seems to amuse him; he laughs loudly. "

- Wolfram Siebeck

Awards

Works

Literary works (in German)

Filmography

Theater equipment

Exhibitions

literature

  • Seven fantastic humorists: Paul Flora , Edward Gorey , Luis Murschetz , JJ Sempé , Roland Topor, Tomi Ungerer , Reiner Zimnik , exhibition catalog: October 5–18. November 1972. Galerie Daniel Keel , Zurich 1972, OCLC 758385075 .
  • Gina Kehayoff, Christoph Stölzl (Ed.): Death and the devil. Topor . To the exhibition of the Munich City Museum. Diogenes, Zurich 1985, ISBN 3-257-02009-0 .
  • Daniel Colagrossi: Topor traits. Éditions Scali, Paris 2007.
  • Christophe Hubert: Topor, l'homme élégant. Éditions Hermaphrodites, Paris 2004.
  • Frantz Vaillant: Roland Topor ou le rire étranglé. Buchet-Chastel, Paris 2007.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kehayoff, Stölzl: Topor, Tod und Teufel. 1985, p. 7
  2. ↑ Kehayoff, Stölzl: Topor, Tod und Teufel. 1985, p. 10
  3. ↑ Kehayoff, Stölzl: Topor, Tod und Teufel. 1985, p. 18
  4. ^ Wolfram Siebeck: Culinary Notes. With 17 drawings by Roland Topor. Nymphenburger, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-485-00385-9
  5. ↑ letemps.ch: Quand Topor et Gébé pourfendaient la bêtise en riant
  6. ↑ Kehayoff, Stölzl: Topor, Tod und Teufel. 1985, p. 85
  7. ↑ Kehayoff, Stölzl: Topor, Tod und Teufel. 1985, p. 80.
  8. ↑ Wolfram Siebeck on his last encounter with the versatile artist Roland Topor , obituary in Die Zeit 1997.
personal data
SURNAME Topor, Roland
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer, actor and painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 7, 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH April 16, 1997
Place of death Paris