There, it’s done.

Les Abysses is his film of Jean Vauthier’s version of the Papin sisters case — which inspired Genet’s The Maids (and Chabrol’s La Ceremonie)
His last film Les Equlibristes is about Genet’s last great love, a young Arab whose tightrope-walking act Genet promoted into something special. The kid, plucked from utter obscurity, couldn’t deal with the world Genet had created for him and killed himself. Genet,overcome with grief, then left France and wandered into the Palestinian territories where he wrote his posthumously published masterpiece Prisoner of Love.

Michel Piccoli plays Genet in Papatakis’ film.

Papatakis is also famous for his relation to Nico — the model/actress/singer/junkie legend. Born Christa Paffgen, this great natural beauty became a model when the fashion director of a Berlin department store named Tobias spotted her. Telling her that Christa was unsuitable for a career he named her Nico after a man he saw briefly and fell in madly unconsummated love with — Nico Papatakis. Thanks to Tobias’ grooming she was a hit. She went to Paris on one of her modelling jaunts and met Papatakis by chance. They became great friends and it was he who encouraged her singing career. You can find out all about this (plus her affairs with Bob Dylan, Jackson Brown, Jim Morrison, Philippe Garrel and Alain Delon) in the great documentary Nico/Icon which is available on DVD

On a less elevated note, have just attended a talk by Richard Stanley, so I’ll try and write something about that this weekend.