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Abstract
Luchino Visconti's 1973 film Ludwig exploited the biography of Ludwig II of Bavaria, a notorious homosexual. In turn, Visconti's film became an erotic tale primarily intended to arouse heterosexual male readers in the form of Ludwig, il folle di Baviera, a porn comic book conceived as a spoof published while the film was still in post-production. As well as considering the general relationship between mainstream cinema and pornographic comics and their representation of homosexuality, this article analyzes Ludwig, il folle di Baviera as a re-adaptation of Visconti's film that exploits the director's peculiar image in order to handle its ambiguous sexual content.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank Paul Hallam for kind help in revising the translation.
Notes
1. Jean-Claude Forest's (Citation1962) Barbarella, which appeared in a magazine, was a precursor, but the Italian development of porn comics was actually modelled on the graphic crime novel trend generated by Angela Giussani and Luciana Giussani's (Citation1962) Diabolik that same year. In fact, it was the Italian comics that inspired later imitations in France, when Edifumetto opened its French brand, Elvifrance, translating a selection of its titles in the 1970s and 1980s (see Raabe Citation1997).
2. Sukia is a pun on the verb succhiare [to suck]; Ulula on the onomatopoeic verb ululare [to howl], also used as an obscene reference to the noise made during intercourse; Sorchella on a slang word for ‘vagina’; and Cappuccetto Rotto on Cappuccetto Rosso, the name of a popular fairytale character (Little Red Riding Hood), distorted to allude to a broken condom.
3. I borrow the concept of ‘image’ from Dyer's (Citation1996, 38) seminal work on movie stardom.
4. Nowell-Smith (Citation2003), Rondolino (Citation2003) and Schifano (Citation2009) are valuable introductions to Luchino Visconti's biography and works.
5. Several surveys throughout the 1970s lamented the spread of these comics among schoolboys (see, for example, those in Ribero [Citation1971] and Caletti [Citation1976]).
6. On the difference between pornography and erotica, as far as the borders of the frame are concerned, see Barthes (Citation1981, 55–59).
7. I fumettoni was discontinued relatively quickly, only to be replaced by an equivalent series, Tabù, also intended to offer ‘big stories taken from big novels and big movies’, as the advertising slogan declared. The 70 issues of the two series considered together prove that this type of comic was appreciated.
8. Throughout both Palimpsestes and Paratexts, Genette (Citation1997a, Citation1997b) elaborates on Philippe Lejeune's notion of ‘autobiographical contract’ to show how a text can make its intertextual (transtextual in his words) relationship explicit, inviting the reader to take it into consideration.
9. Which in Italy opened in March, after a preview held in Bonn on 18 January.
10. The identity of the illustrator, Stelio Fenzo, is easily recognizable by the style of the drawings.
11. ‘The goal of the readaptation […] is fidelity’, Leitch (Citation2002, 45) points out, but faithfulness does not seem to be mandatory and it certainly did not concern the creators of these comics.
12. For obvious historical reasons, throughout this essay I refer to the print released in Italy in 1973 rather than to the longer version that since 1980 has been the only one focused on by scholars.
13. This is also true for porn movies, contrary to what is prescribed by the classical continuity style (see Giori Citation2008, 282–287).
14. On homosexuality in Italy in those years, see Ferluga (Citation2003) and Pini (Citation2011); on its representation in Italian cinema before the foundation of the Italian gay liberation movement, see Giori (Citation2014).
15. Announcing the ‘scandals of a magnificent court, where transvestites and spies hold sway, where the orgy reaches never imagined heights’, as well as the story of the ‘impossible loves’ of a king ‘fallen into the gutter of horrible pleasures and ignominious passions’ and doomed to ‘a destiny linked with that of Richard Wagner (his protégé? his lover?)’ (L'ereditiera del Lusitania, Citation1972, page not numbered).
16. It is worth noting that Visconti's Sophie is very shy and sensible, while within the comics Sofia is lustful enough to signify availability, even if she does not submit herself to Ludwig's violence, contrary to what usually happens in porn tales, because the rape has to be condemned as a consequence of the King's perversion.
17. In one of the first plates, the physician states that ‘Ludwig è sanissimo… se si eccettuano certe tendenze …’ [Ludwig is absolutely sane … with the exception of certain tendencies …]. Later, this connection is reinforced when the same physician confronts Ludwig just after he has been overcome with an attack of rage during an orgy, announcing to him that his brother has been institutionalized. Having being asked by the King what he should do in order to be spared the same fate, the doctor states that it can only be through marriage that ‘gli istinti morbosi svaniranno per sempre’ [the morbid urges will disappear forever], clearly referring to both his sexual drives and the risk of succumbing to a possibly hereditary madness. As a consequence, Ludwig gets engaged to his cousin and decides to shut down his private apartments where he used to organize his orgies. In giving the reader this information, the narrator defines Ludwig's sexual proclivities as ‘condotta insana’ [insane behaviour].
18. Especially so in barracks by young men subject to the draft and in schools by male teenagers. Abruzzese (Citation1980, 109) states that they were ‘passed from hand to hand in the workplaces, during commuting time, near the bed, in the toilets, in the barracks’.
19. A premature series with a (derisive) homosexual protagonist, Rolando del Fico, was discontinued in 1973 after only 14 issues. This was followed by a few series with bisexual heroes (Karzan, Citation1975–78; Belzeba, Citation1977–79), but it was not until 1978 that a more successful homosexual deuteragonist appeared – Gary, the heroine's assistant in the series Sukia (Citation1978–86), still a sissy but also a vehicle for political issues. A very different hero, a muscular leatherman, completely at ease with his homosexual bonds as well as with gay sex appeared in 1984 in the series Macho (Citation1984–86), after the failure of the more conventional Batty & Gay (Citation1981–82).
20. Similar considerations would apply to the clumsy statement contained in a note thrown by one of the protesters who interrupts a speech of the King inside a theatre (a scene clearly borrowed from another renowned Visconti movie, Senso; Visconti Citation1954): ‘Non disprezziamo le checche, disprezziamo i re’ [We don't despise fags, we despise kings].
21. This would have been possible only in the late 1970s, a few years before the transition to hardcore. In the early 1970s, only a few French translations circulated in hardcore versions, before the intervention of censorship (see Méon Citation2010).
22. Especially in the print released in 1973, from which Visconti cut a couple of nude servants after the orgy to shorten the film and possibly to avoid problems with censors, so that only Volk is shown fully naked in a few dark, long and medium shots.
23. A handwritten version of this verdict is all that remains among the censorship papers preserved at Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali di Roma, Direzione Generale per il Cinema, Folder No. 62029.
24. Giorgio D'Andrea (Citation1973, 11), indubitably the most radical, even went so far as to regret that Ludwig ‘was not printed on paper instead of on film, since it would have been much more suitable for its proper use’. For a discussion of these reviews, see Giori (Citation2012, 338–345).