1. Jean Michel Rollin Roth Le Gentil was a French film director, actor, and novelist best known for his work in the fantastique genre.
61 Facts About Jean Rollin
1. 2.
Jean Rollin's films are noted for their exquisite, if mostly static, cinematography, off-kilter plot progression, poetic dialogue, playful surrealism and recurrent use of well-constructed female lead characters.
3.
Jean Rollin was born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, to Claude Louis Rene Rollin-Roth-Le Gentil, an actor and theatre director who went by the stage name Claude Martin, and his wife Denise, an artists' model.
4.
Jean Rollin saw his first film during the second World War.
5.
Jean Rollin decided he wanted to make films when he grew up; his father, a theatre actor, was a heavy influence on him.
6.
Jean Rollin was part of the crew in a short documentary about Snecma, a big factory in France which built motors and planes.
7.
Jean Rollin arranged the tracking shots, laid the tracks, checked the electricity, and helped the cameraman.
8.
When Jean Rollin did his military service for the French army, he worked as an editor in the cinema department alongside Claude Lelouch.
9.
Jean Rollin shot it on a 35mm Maurigraphe camera, and used a beach in Dieppe as his location, the same beach used in his later films.
10.
In 1960, Jean Rollin decided to direct his first feature film, but later abandoned the project as he had no money to finish it.
11.
Jean Rollin did not finish the film because he ran out of money and it was not very good.
12.
Jean Rollin directed a short film in 1965 called Les Pays Loins.
13.
In 1968, Jean Rollin directed his first feature Le viol du vampire.
14.
Jean Rollin himself was threatened due to this scandal, because of this, he briefly decided to give up making films.
15.
Jean Rollin wanted to do something a little more temperate than Le Viol, a traditional mystery film.
16.
Nathan having put her faith and support in Jean Rollin, turned down several a number of the most prominent French New Wave filmmakers for financing and instead entirely supported Jean Rollin as both a producer and a co-screenwriter for his next project, Le Frisson des Vampires which was heavily influenced by the trappings of the hippie movement.
17.
The second female lead was portrayed by Mireille D'argent whom Jean Rollin chose after she was introduced to him by an agent.
18.
Jean Rollin discovered that D'argent's agent was collecting her wages, which prompted him to contact a lawyer and have her wages returned to her.
19.
Jean Rollin financed his 1973 film La rose de fer himself and was convinced that it would become a failure, leading to financial ruin.
20.
The film was shot in the city of Amiens over a four-week period and premiered at the 2nd Annual Convention of the Fantastique in Paris in April 1973 and was initially met with a negative reception and as a result, Jean Rollin was unable to find anyone to back his future personal projects.
21.
However, in 1974 Jean Rollin directed the horror adventure and self-proclaimed "Expressionist" film Les demoniaques which was inspired by the adventure classics he had enormous admiration for in his youth.
22.
Jean Rollin had many disputes with the producers of the film during production of the project as they insisted on a low budget.
23.
Jean Rollin was hospitalized for two weeks following the work due to mental and physical exhaustion.
24.
Jean Rollin made a brief return to the erotic vampire genre in 1975 when he wrote and directed Levres de sang.
25.
The film includes all the surreal dreamlike aspects for which Jean Rollin's films are known.
26.
Levres de sang features Jean-Loup Philippe, whom Rollin co-wrote the film with, Annie Belle, and Nathalie Perrey, whom Rollin had worked with frequently throughout his career as a credited actress, script writer and editor.
27.
Jean Rollin returned in 1978, when he wrote and directed Les raisins de la mort which has been considered the first French gore film.
28.
The film includes pornographic actress Brigitte Lahaie, in her first mainstream role, as Jean Rollin was the first French director to recognise her acting capabilities and offer her much more prominent roles in his subsequent films.
29.
Jean Rollin stated that Les raisins de la mort was his "first traditional, almost conventional, production" which was because the film acquired solid finances with made a change and with special effects supplied by Italian experts.
30.
In 1979, and now established as a somewhat successful director, Jean Rollin created Fascination in which he returned to the roots of the fantastique genre his early works are known for.
31.
Jean Rollin overcame these obstacles and made the film he wanted.
32.
However, in a setback, one of the directors of UGC, a huge French distributor, cancelled the screenings Jean Rollin had been promised.
33.
However, it eventually garnered somewhat of a following in later years, as several of Jean Rollin's works have done in the past.
34.
Jean Rollin came to the decision to cast actors of the pornographic industry in the picture in order to keep production cost down and to give the actors the opportunity to show their legitimate talent.
35.
The film stands as a noteworthy piece of work in Jean Rollin's canon, as it differs from any of his previous work and is a departure from the fantastique genre that his films are greatly known for; the film is often poetic, yet it serves a realistic tone and chilling atmosphere.
36.
Jean Rollin himself had stated that "I don't think it is a very good film and it is probably one of my worst" and that if he could remake just one of his films it would be La nuit des traquees.
37.
At this point, Jean Rollin was planning to take a vacation, and on the morning he was expecting to leave, he received a phone call from the production company Eurocine asking if he would be interested directing the horror film which was due to start filming the next morning, as Franco could not be located.
38.
Le lac des morts vivants was released in 1981 and Jean Rollin admitted that he never really cared for the film.
39.
In 1981, Jean Rollin returned with the drama film, Les paumees du petit matin.
40.
Jean Rollin manages to get the attention of Marie, a teenage girl who is who sits in the garden on a rocking chair, while staring into space and never speaks, by dropping a tin food dish from her bedroom window and the sound somehow brings Marie back to reality.
41.
Jean Rollin was reluctant to do so and was influenced to create a film with combinations from his previous works.
42.
Jean Rollin described that the living dead girl is sort of a vampire woman who devours the blood of humans, taking the idea from his vampire works, but not exactly making her a vampire.
43.
Jean Rollin created the story of a young woman named Catherine Valmont who has been dead and buried in her family vault beneath the Valmont mansion for the past two years.
44.
When Blanchard arrived, Jean Rollin was unsure whether to offer her the role of Catherine due to the fact that in the first scene in which her character is resurrected, Blanchard appeared wearing trousers which wasn't required for the scene and Jean Rollin did not ask her to remove them.
45.
Jean Rollin did however receive the role due to good contact.
46.
Jean Rollin had Teresa Ann Savoy in mind for the role, whom he was greatly impressed with.
47.
Jean Rollin received minor work following Les trottoirs de Bangkok; in 1985, he resumed his pseudonymous work as "Michel Gentil" with a non-pornographic feature, the slapstick comedy, Ne prends pas les poulets pour des pigeons which reunited Brigitte Borghese and Gerard Landry from his previous film, and included French actor and comedian Popeck.
48.
Jean Rollin was hired, and therefore his real name was not attached to the project.
49.
The film suffered many flaws during production under direction from Bruno Zincone and Jean Rollin became involved in an attempt to salvage what he could and see that production was completed for the financiers.
50.
Jean Rollin agreed and travelled to New York with a small film crew and a 16mm camera.
51.
Jean Rollin produced the film with a runtime of just under one hour and immediately struggled to find distribution, whether it be released to theatres or television.
52.
Several problems would arise during post-production, as the film found it difficult to receive distribution, like Perdues dans New York, if it could not receive a theatrical distribution, Jean Rollin would settle for a video or television release.
53.
Jean Rollin was initially required as a screenwriter for the production due to the fact that he was to replace producer Marc Dorcel's in-house auteur Michele Ricaud, who has just recently passed away.
54.
Jean Rollin continued his career into the 1990s, following what was intended to be a brief return in 1994 when he directed and wrote a final pornographic film.
55.
Jean Rollin remained true to form for what were to be his final years of film making, and his next feature went into production in 1995; Les deux orphelines vampires saw the return of his most recognizable work, and his first vampire film since 1975's Levres de sang.
56.
The leading roles were offered to two inexperienced actresses, Alexandra Pic and Isabelle Teboul, whom Jean Rollin choose while answering a newspaper ad they had printed.
57.
Jean Rollin had written the screenplay for the film, as he did with many of his previous works.
58.
The film was successfully shown in theatres on 14 August 2002, for which Jean Rollin was not completely satisfied of the release date.
59.
Jean Rollin was married to Simone Jean Rollin Roth Le Gentil, with whom he had two sons, Serge and Carel.
60.
Jean Rollin died on 15 December 2010 after a long battle with cancer and was survived by his wife Simone, son Serge and granddaughter Gabrielle.
61.
Jean Rollin is buried at Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.