page_title: Barbarella (film)
section_title: Pre-production
hierarchical_section_title: Barbarella (film) / Production / Pre-production
caption_attribution_description: French director Roger Vadim and actress Jane Fonda playing with their dog in their villa on the Appian Way outside Rome, during the filming of Barbarella.
context_page_description: Barbarella is a 1968 science fiction film directed by Roger Vadim based on the comic series of the same name by Jean-Claude Forest. The film stars Jane Fonda as Barbarella, a space-traveler and representative of the United Earth government sent to find scientist Durand Durand, who has created a weapon that could destroy humanity. The cast also includes John Phillip Law, Marcel Marceau, David Hemmings, Ugo Tognazzi, and Milo O'Shea.
  As a director who expressed an interest in comics and science fiction, Vadim was hired to direct Barbarella after producer Dino De Laurentiis purchased the film rights to the comic series. Vadim attempted to cast several actors in the title role before choosing his then-wife, Fonda. A friend of Vadim's, Terry Southern, wrote the initial screenplay, which changed considerably during filming and led to seven other writers credited in the final release, including Vadim and Forest. The film began shooting immediately following the completion of another De Laurentiis comic adaptation, Danger: Diabolik, with both films sharing several cast and crew members.
context_section_description: Several actresses were approached before Jane Fonda was cast as Barbarella. De Laurentiis' first choice was Virna Lisi; his second was Brigitte Bardot, who was not interested in a sexualized role. His third choice was Sophia Loren, who was pregnant and felt that she would not fit the role. Fonda was uncertain about the film, but Vadim convinced her by saying that science fiction was a rapidly-evolving genre. Before filming Barbarella, she was the subject of two sex scandals: the first when her nude body was displayed across an eight-story billboard promoting the premiere of Circle of Love in 1965, and the second when several candid nude photos from Vadim's closed set for The Game Is Over were sold to Playboy the following year. According to biographer Thomas Kiernan, the billboard incident made her a sex symbol in the United States. Vadim said he did not want the actress to play Barbarella "tongue in cheek", and he saw the character as "just a lovely, average girl with a terrific space record and a lovely body. I am not going to intellectualise her. Although there is going to be a bit of satire about our morals and our ethics, the picture is going to be more of a spectacle than a cerebral exercise for a few way-out intellectuals." Fonda felt her first priority for Barbarella was to "keep her innocent"; the character "is not a vamp and her sexuality is not measured by the rules of our society. She is not being promiscuous, but she follows the natural reaction of another type of upbringing. She is not a so-called 'sexually liberated woman' either. That would mean rebellion against something. She is different. She was born free."
  Fonda personally recommended John Phillip Law as Pygar to Vadim following their work on Hurry Sundown. Law, an avid comic book reader since childhood, read the Forest comics and studied the DC Comics character Hawkman for inspiration. The delayed pre-production of Barbarella allowed Law to film two roles before committing to the film: as Bill Meceita in the Spaghetti Western Death Rides a Horse, and as the title character in Danger: Diabolik.
  French mime Marcel Marceau had his first speaking role in the film as Professor Ping. Comparing his character to Bip the Clown and Harpo Marx, he said that he did not "forget the lines, but I have trouble organising them. It's a different way of making what's inside come out. It goes from the brain to the vocal chords, and not directly to the body."
  All costumes in the film, including Fonda's, were designed by French costume designer Jacques Fonteray and manufactured by Sartoria Farani, with Barbarella's costume in the final scenes being, as the credits put it, "inspired by ideas of" fashion designer Paco Rabanne. Barbarella's outfits were Fonteray's interpretation of Forest's vision, combining Orientalist and medieval aesthetics with samurai armors. Forest also worked on the production's design. In a 1985 interview, he said that during production he did not care about his original comic strip and was more interested in the film industry: "The Italian artists were incredible; they could build anything in an extremely short time. I saw all the daily rushes, an incredible amount of film. The choices that were made for the final cut from those images were not the ones I would have liked, but I was not the director. It wasn't my affair."
caption: Roger Vadim and Jane Fonda in Rome in 1967 during the movie's filming.
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