Fantastic Midnight-Midnight (MMF) inaugurated in 1962 an adult approach to fantastic cinema, at the center of the emergence of counter-culture in France, which has now become pop culture. For ten years, Nicolas Stanzick with Michel Caen and Guy Astic, have reissued in four sumptuous albums the complete 24 numbers, with fabulous bonuses (Ed. Rouge Profond). This last volume, provided with an unpublished n ° 25-26, and a DVD of four hours, closes in beauty an exceptional editorial work.
Having had a lot to do with censorship, Fantastic Midnight-Midnight was created by Michel Caen, a minor at the time, who will head a review prohibited to under 18s: a shame. Accompanied by Jean-Claude Romer (Monsieur Cinéma), recently deceased, Alain le Bris, Jean Boullet, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou and Gérard Lenne, under the leadership of publisher Eric Losfeld, all take a new look at popular culture, with in the first row, fantastic cinema, then despised, which they rehabilitate.
In the continuity of surrealism, Losfeld being the editor of André Breton, the review will move towards an unusual in the broad sense with eclecticism, by departing somewhat from the only genre cinema. Sexuality, taboo at the dawn of the Sixties, will be exposed over the numbers in the films of Alain Robbe-Grillet, José Bénazéraf, Seijun Suzuki, or the first essays bordering on the experimental of Jean-François Davi. The review will however remain faithful to its fundamentals by reflecting the topicality of the fantastic cinema of the time.
/2021/12/17/phpfZR4K0.png)
This volume 4 is devoted to numbers 18 to 24 from 1967 to 1973, when Gothic films (Dracula, Frankenstein, ghosts) run out of steam. Luxurious and richly illustrated, this reissue benefits from exceptional photographic reproduction quality, completed with color photographs (MMF was published in B&W) and unpublished documents. In addition to the cinema, MMF opened up to illustration and literature, offering portfolios, short stories and literary studies, notably a sum on Gaston Leroux (The Phantom of the Opera), by French fantasy filmmaker Jean Rollin.
This last volume is exceptional with the edition of number 25-26, never published but ready to be published in 1973, with texts by Ado Kyrou, Jean-Claude Romer and an interview with Paul Morrissey, in particular. The four-hour DVD features eight short films, including one by Pierre Étaix, an adaptation of The Judge’s House by Bram Stoker (Dracula), and a documentary on MMF by the “midi-minuistes” themselves. More topical than ever in these corseted times: a libertarian bubble in a rough world.
To mark the occasion, the Forum des Images, in Paris, has concocted a program of forty “midday-midnight” films until January 9, 2022, from Dracula’s Nightmare (Terence Fisher, 1958) to Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965): a history of fantastic cinema, with conferences and exhibition. Merry Christmas !
Noon-Midnight Fantastic Vol. 4
Michel Caen and Nicolas Stanzick
Deep Red Editions
752 pages
Hardcover, numerous black and white and color illustrations
70 Euros