Quiet Days in Clichy appeared in 1970 and was stopped at the border when Grove Press, having done reasonably well with distributing another controversial film, I Am Curious (Yellow), attempted to import the film for distribution in the US. After a court battle and a brief distribution in the US, the film disappeared and only in recent years has been viewed again, and is now on this DVD put out by Blue Underground a couple of years ago.
By a coincidence, this film, made in the Place Clichy area described in the book, was being shot at the same time that another film adaptation of Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer starring Rip Torn, was being shot, also using authentic locations in a neighboring quarter. Both this film and IAC(Y) have tended to overshadow this film's reputation during its long absence, as has the court case surrounding the film, one of many battles that Grove Press's Barney Rosset fought against US censorship. Rosset was inspired to go into publishing by Henry Miller, and had fought in court to publish his books in the US, so it was appropriate for them to follow up IAC(Y) with something adapted from Miller.
Directed by Jens Jørgen Thorsen, a filmmaker, artist, and prankster associated with the Situationists and close to the radical art and intellectual life of Europe in the sixties, I liked the film for its spontaneous style and rough, underground feel, as well as Country Joe McDonald's soundtrack, but I wasn't bowled over by it. More artsploitation than art film, the story concerns an American writer named Joey (Paul Valjean) and his French buddy Carl (Wayne Rodda, who was originally Australian, as it turns out) as they live for the day, cadging meals and bedding chicks, mostly the latter. There is nothing too terribly experimental in the film apart from its frank depiction of sex which is somewhere in between the simulated writhings of sexploitation and the clinical closeups of the adult feature film of later in the decade. No politics intrudes or diatribes against the bourgeoisie or the military industrial complex, just Joey and Carl living life to the full, which apparently entails looking for "cunt" (one of Miller's favorite words) and a day trip to Luxembourg, shown mostly in stills.
Quiet Days in Clichy was probably appealing to those who wanted a movie with sex but found I Am Curious (Yellow) too boring and full of politics. It wears badly today mainly due to the sexism of its storyline and its dialogue. Miller was a long-winded writer, but blunt to the point of callousness on the subject of sex, not using any flowery circumlocutions or euphemisms, and he was very much a product of his lower middle-class, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn upbringing, as comes across right away in this film. Probably the crudest attitude comes from Rodda as Carl, who takes in a simple-minded teenage runaway and keeps her around to cook, clean and provide sex until her parents come to pick her up, and who says about one woman, "She's got a cunt like a suction pump." The persistently insensitive comments and general attitude about women was not, for me, a reason not to watch the film, but there were plenty of moments that made me cringe. You just don't hear that kind of talk anymore, or at least I don't, and there are definitely folks who don't want to hear it, and they are probably better off giving this movie a miss.
By a coincidence, this film, made in the Place Clichy area described in the book, was being shot at the same time that another film adaptation of Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer starring Rip Torn, was being shot, also using authentic locations in a neighboring quarter. Both this film and IAC(Y) have tended to overshadow this film's reputation during its long absence, as has the court case surrounding the film, one of many battles that Grove Press's Barney Rosset fought against US censorship. Rosset was inspired to go into publishing by Henry Miller, and had fought in court to publish his books in the US, so it was appropriate for them to follow up IAC(Y) with something adapted from Miller.
Directed by Jens Jørgen Thorsen, a filmmaker, artist, and prankster associated with the Situationists and close to the radical art and intellectual life of Europe in the sixties, I liked the film for its spontaneous style and rough, underground feel, as well as Country Joe McDonald's soundtrack, but I wasn't bowled over by it. More artsploitation than art film, the story concerns an American writer named Joey (Paul Valjean) and his French buddy Carl (Wayne Rodda, who was originally Australian, as it turns out) as they live for the day, cadging meals and bedding chicks, mostly the latter. There is nothing too terribly experimental in the film apart from its frank depiction of sex which is somewhere in between the simulated writhings of sexploitation and the clinical closeups of the adult feature film of later in the decade. No politics intrudes or diatribes against the bourgeoisie or the military industrial complex, just Joey and Carl living life to the full, which apparently entails looking for "cunt" (one of Miller's favorite words) and a day trip to Luxembourg, shown mostly in stills.
Quiet Days in Clichy was probably appealing to those who wanted a movie with sex but found I Am Curious (Yellow) too boring and full of politics. It wears badly today mainly due to the sexism of its storyline and its dialogue. Miller was a long-winded writer, but blunt to the point of callousness on the subject of sex, not using any flowery circumlocutions or euphemisms, and he was very much a product of his lower middle-class, turn-of-the-century Brooklyn upbringing, as comes across right away in this film. Probably the crudest attitude comes from Rodda as Carl, who takes in a simple-minded teenage runaway and keeps her around to cook, clean and provide sex until her parents come to pick her up, and who says about one woman, "She's got a cunt like a suction pump." The persistently insensitive comments and general attitude about women was not, for me, a reason not to watch the film, but there were plenty of moments that made me cringe. You just don't hear that kind of talk anymore, or at least I don't, and there are definitely folks who don't want to hear it, and they are probably better off giving this movie a miss.
