The Fantastically Surreal World Of Roland Topor
Roland Topor (1938 – 1997)
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Roland Topor was a surrealist French illustrator, painter, writer, film-maker and actor. He was aligned to the Fluxus network of artists, and in 1962 created the Panic Movement, with the Chilean cult avant-garde film-maker Alejandro Jodorowsky, and the Spanish writer and director Fernando Arrabal. They staged controversial "action art" performances, that were more an anti-establishment reaction to "mainstream" surrealism than the anti-art manifesto of Fluxus, designed to shock audiences. Paying homage to Antonin Artaud's, Theatre of Cruelty. Featuring eroticism, violence, animal cruelty and themes of blasphemy. Topor often shocked with his work, creating almost nonchalant images of extreme violence, as seen through his surrealist eye.
Such themes Topor expressed in his own work, especially his illustrations. He contributed to the controversial French satirical magazine Hara Kiri. The magazine which would go on to become Charlie Hebdo. Among his own publications were 1965's book of illustrations Les Masochistes, and 1975's Souvenir, which had every word in it scribbled out. |
He also explored themes of alienation and identity in his "readable" novels like The Tenant (Le Locataire Chimérique, 1964) and, Joko's Anniversary (1969). The Tenant was later adapted to film by Roman Polanski in 1976, as the last of his "Apartment Trilogy" of movies, which began with Repulsion (1965) and was followed by Rosemary's Baby (1968).
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His most well known work outside of France was with René Laloux. In 1965, they worked together on an animation short "Les Escargots", which lead them to create 1973's Fantastic Planet (La Planète Sauvage). Topor doing all the design and illustrations for it. The feature length animation was based on the novel by Stefan Wul, it was well received on its release and has gained a cult following over the years since. And remains Topor's most renowned work, among international audiences. As an actor Topor made appearances in Dusan Makavejev's controversial avant-garde Sweet Movie (1974), and played the role of Renfield along-side Klaus Kinski, in Werner Herzog's reworking of the classic 1922, movie Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979).
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Fantastic Planet (1973)
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Topor co-wrote with director Henri Xhonneux, the screenplay for his surrealist film project based on the life and writings of the Marquis de Sade. The film Marquis (1989), mixed live-action and stop-motion animation, in which all the actors wore animal masks that represented their characters. A film in which the dog-faced Marquis has long debates and conversations with his enormous penis with a human face. It was in the 1980s, that Topor garnered greater international attention. The release of Fantastic Planet on video in 1986, and the art-house success of Marquis brought Topor to the attention of a new generation.
Much better known for his larger body of work in France than internationally, an accessible example of Topor’s work is the 1960 book of illustrations Les Masochistes. It shows how he would mix the seemingly mudane with the bizarre. It's filled with a quiet tongue-in-cheek sense of humour. The drawings are sparse, forcing the viewer to focus on the acts of masochism the people in the illustrations are committing on themselves. It's a wonderfully witty and dark piece of work, taking an irreverent side-swipe at social norms and consumerism. Paying in no small part, homage to Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte, with pages littered with suited and bowler hatted men.
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