Jean Rollin Trailers: Requiem for a Vampire (French Trailer)

Original French Trailer for Requiem For a Vampire:

Jean Rollin Posters: Requiem for a Vampire

Sadly Requiem for a Vampire, one of Jean Rollin's most beautiful and poetic films, was represented by this misleading and exploitative poster design. I will keep searching for others.

Jean Rollin Home Video Designs: Requiem for a Vampire

Here are a selection of various home video designs for Requiem for a Vampire:

Jean Rollin Wallpapers: Requiem for a Vampire (Set 1)

Set one of three from Requiem for a Vampire.
The above pics will take you to my Zooomr account. If you prefer to access these through Photobucket please follow this link.

Jean Rollin Behind the Scenes of Requiem for a Vampire

These shots of Rollin creating his second masterpiece, Requiem for a Vampire, can be found on Encore's essential box-set for the film along with many others.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Pierre Raph)

Making his very memorable debut on a Jean Rollin film is French jazz and classical composer Pierre Raph. Raph's spare and romantic score for Requiem for a Vampire is lovely, compelling and serves Rollin's striking images quite well. Rollin himself has this to say about Raph in the booklet that came along with Encore's box set:

"(He was) an excellent composer and (his music) complemented the pictures. Particularly the visit to the dungeon in ruins that we had rented..."

Rollin, who had met Raph through assistant Jean-Noel Delamarre, would use the talented composer several more times on the films Jeunes Filles Impudiques (Schoolgirl Hitchhikers) (1973) The Iron Rose (1973) and The Demoniacs (1974). It is hard to imagine any of these films without Raph's music. According to the IMDB, Raph's only other film score comes with Le Débauche ou les amours buissonières in 1971 for director Jean-Francoise Davy, a film I mentioned in an earlier post on it's co-star Ursule Pauly.
Remembering his striking work on The Iron Rose in The liner notes to The Films of Jean Rollin CD, Rollin said that Raph was "able to set the tone for the baroque atmosphere of this story within the space of a few seconds." A less than prolific film composer (but respected by many in both the modern jazz and classical worlds), the work of Pierre Raph with Jean Rollin will be forever treasured by both of their fans.

Jean Rollin Wallpapers: Requiem for a Vampire (Set Two)

Set Two of Three sets of Screenshot Wallpapers from Jean Rollin's Requiem for a Vampire.

Jean Rollin at Home

My favorite extra on Encore's terrific Requiem for a Vampire box set is the interview with Jean Rollin entitled "Le Dernier Livre". The eight minute featurette focuses on Rollin's literary work and in it we are treated to him reading us a section from one of his works. Outside of the obvious delight in getting to hear Rollin reading some of his writing to us, is the treat we are given when the documentary crew films some of his apartment while he is doing so. I have captured a few images here, and I think just from looking at these you can tell a lot about the man. He is obviously a voracious reader who loves art, music, cinema and antiques. One also gets the feeling that he loves his memories and he values his career and the people that he has worked with in the past four decades. It's a lovely clip and I wanted to share these images to promote it.

Jean Rollin Wallpapers: Requiem for a Vampire (Set Three of Three)

Here are the final wallpapers I will be posting for Requiem for a Vampire. My look at the film as well as some notes on Rollin's collaborators will be coming later this week.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Renan Polles)

Requiem for a Vampire’s beautiful, poetic and stately photography is credited to Renan Polles, a talented French cinematographer who sometimes goes under the name of Jacques Flood. Astonishingly Requiem for a Vampire marks just the second major photography credit the gifted Polles, with the first being a 1969 short for director Jean-Michel Barjol.
Polles had worked previously with Rollin as part of the camera crew on Le Frisson des Vampires. Sadly, despite the excellent work he does on his first feature as cinematographer, Requiem for a Vampire would mark the last time Polles would work with Rollin, as the director would return to Jean-Jacques Renon soon after.
While Polles’ work on Requiem doesn’t contain quite the degree of fantastical greatness (especially in the lighting) that Renon had delivered for Le Frisson, there is still no denying that Polles work is quality stuff. Rollin himself would remember Polles fondly in Encore's Requiem for a Vampire booklet by saying that he, "was pleased with the work made by Polles, who'd taken Jean-Jacques Renon's place because the latter was unavailable." Polles balances the film’s wide open early outdoor daylight shots with the film’s later more interior and nightime atmosphere spectacularly well and his work helps make Requiem for a Vampire one of Rollin’s most distinctive looking films. Much more naturalistic than Renon, it’s no surprise that one of the filmmakers Polles is most associated with is Jacques Doillon, a director very much removed from the fantasy and horror genre that Rollin specializes in.

Polles filmography includes films with Doillon and Yvan Lagrange and he has continued to work prolifically in French and film and television. Despite only collaborating twice with Rollin, his work on Requiem for a Vampire makes him an important contributor to the French horror genre and a key, if relatively minor, player in Jean Rollin's canon.

Jean Rollin: The Collaborators (Mireille Dargent)

Mireille Dargent is another one of those very special performers who almost exclusively only worked with Jean Rollin. Her career in front of the camera, made up of only half a dozen films, was unfortunately very short but her work in four of Rollin's greatest films will always be treasured by fans. Here are some quotes from Rollin taken from Encore's Requiem for a Vampire booklet, as well as the audio commentary, on Mireille. The behind the scenes shots are from Encore's set as well.



"An agent introduced me to Mireille Dargent who would play Pony's partner, due to Cathy being busy or pregnant again. This agent was a crook. He used to collect Mireille's wages filling his own pocket without giving anything to her. I hired a lawyer and the agent hopped it. Mireille was grateful for me for taking care of her...A great friendship united us. She had a very round face and her plaits made her look as young as Pony. She had a plump body, very sensual..."
-Encore's Booklet-



"She was very strange...everybody was in love with her, including myself."
-Commentary-