Poster of the Week! Mondo Cane

Poster of the Week! -Mondo Cane (1962). The original "shockumentary" by Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi created a cottage industry of sleaze documentaries, reality conjured as freak show. An interesting side story concerns the painter Yves Klein. From Philippe Vergne from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN:

"Realized in the privacy of his studio or during performances,... conceived by covering the bodies of nude female models—his 'living brushes'—with ultramarine blue paint, which he named and patented as International Klein Blue (IKB). He then instructed these living brushes to produce body prints, radically challenging painting by conciliating it with performance.... Commissioned to be featured in Gualtiero Jacopetti’s film Mondo Cane (1962), the work was realized in front of a camera, through a large sheet of glass, with the artist’s mistaken belief that the filmmaker would do for him what Hans Namuth did for Jackson Pollock, what Henri-Georges Clouzot did for Picasso. Klein could not reconcile himself to the rude awareness that Mondo Cane was the first global exploitation film—a “shockumentary”—abusing his work dedicated to spiritual perceptions of the world. Publicly humiliated at the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962, he never recovered from the shock and died a few weeks later of a heart attack. Mondo Cane put an end to Klein’s blue revolution and Mondo Cane Shroud became the ethereal shroud of the artist himself. The Walker’s acquisition, which occurred after nearly eight years of searching, of this marvelous painting and accompanying wooden tub, encrusted with the IKB in which the models bathed, brings together the history of film, performance, and painting."

One can see an image of the painting here. Mondo Cane has been released on DVD by Blue Underground as part of their Mondo Cane Collection, a collection of Jacopetti and Prosperi's documentary films (including the unreal Goodbye Uncle Tom). It's out of print, according to Blue Underground, but you can find it easily on eBay and Amazon (and possibly other retail outfits). Here are some reviews of the collection, from Kinocite, DVD Maniacs and Monsters at Play. Inspired by a post by The Dirtiest Thing in the Whole Wide World, a cool blog that specializes in old sleaze. The movie poster is from Poland. Click on the image on the left for a larger version. 541 K