Jacques Demy's _Lady Oscar_

[anne mcknight]

Hi Ryan,
thanks for  the info. I have not exactly found it played up in the
nouvelle vague pantheon either. But given that JD made some other
fascinating and hard to find things, like Model Shop, it seems worth a
look. I've been cooking up some offerings for the LA public library
here, working with their teen reading coordinator. You probably know
that the Sophia Coppola Maria Antoinette film is coming out; based on
the Antonia Fraser bio, it seems a bit redemptive. I thought that
screening/showing some shojo material about MA that was not a pure
aristocratic romp might be nice. Also, there is a huge readership for
manga among teenagers--the LAPM partnered with TokyoPop for the
program, who was nice enough to make a set of characters specially for
the library. That said, I think it would be nice to spread the
blessings of info capitalism a bit more, shall we say, democratically.
So I'm compiling some things and notes for a reading handout kind of
thing. Also, trying to think about how comic culture from other
languages (Spanish around here) could be worked in, and make some of
the "Japan as luxury item" aura a bit accessible. I heard from someone
in Indiana who had a copy, and maybe I can put you 2 in touch as well?
Any thoughts on manga that might run well alongside Versaille no bara,
Kamikaze Girls, please send them my way. Or if you're interested in
this kind of "popular education stuff," I'd be happy to share what I
eventually come up with. Librarians in New Haven might be interested
in this kind of stuff as well, as it's hard for them to get info, and
if urban NH is anything like urban LA, lots of kids are interested.
amck

On 02/09/06, ryan.cook at yale.edu <ryan.cook at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi Anne,
>
> I too tried unsuccessfully to get a copy of Lady Oscar in the US a
> little while
> back. It seems to be readily available on DVD at least in Japan and Italy (for
> example this Italian company, which does not ship internationally:
> http://www.yamatovideo.com/customer/product.php?productid=227&cat=38), but it
> was never released in the US and even the usual suspects for hard-to-find
> videos here could not help me without going through an overseas source. At any
> rate, I have heard at every turn that this film does not number among Demy's
> finer achievements (hence the difficulty in turning up a copy??).
>
> You might also be interested to know that the French-Canadian pop star
> provocatrice Mylene Farmer, known for her lavish and epic music videos,
> reportedly took inspiration from Rose of Versailles/Lady Oscar in the
> video for
> her 1986 single "Libertine," which you can watch online here:
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/640x480/x3ygo_mylene-farmer-libertine.
>
> -Ryan
>
> Graduate Student
> Film Studies/East Asian Languages & Literatures
> Yale University
>
>
>
> Quoting anne mcknight <annekmcknight at gmail.com>:
>
> > I'm wondering if anyone might know where to get hold of this
> > intriguing production--a 1978 adaptation by Jacques Demy of the manga
> > _Rose of Versailles_. Apparently, filmed in English, with Japanese
> > funds. I've found it on a couple of faraway Ebay sites, but the
> > shipping has been impossible or forbiddingly expensive.
> >
> > Thanks for any leads.
> >
> > Anne
> >
>
>
>