The Rocky Horror Picture Show

“We’ve got to get out of this trap
before this decadence saps our wills…”

Dr. Scott

Have you ever notice all the artistic quotations in the Rocky Horror Picture Show?

While I was re-watching this movie I had the idea of collecting them as an example of kitsch in cinema. As properly kitsch is the reproduction of art in a commercial way, this film embodies perfectly this idea. The costumes, the songs, the furnishing and, above all, Tim Curry performance make this film a cult movie for musical and camp style lovers. This is an exemple of how grotesqueness becomes beautiful and this is what makes the movie the triumph of Kitsch. Epical.

snapshots by me

Leonardo’s Gioconda on the walls

and another Leonardo’s masterpiece, The Last Dinner

the horrorific paint “American Gothic” by Grant Wood is parodied three times

Michelangelo’s David in the pink room with lipstick

The Discobolus in the pink room too

Venus de Milo in the dinner room (with a candle over the head)

other ancient greek style sculptures in the dinner room

another classical reference: Atlas in a glass window

the gothik entrance

a stuffed leopard and snake and a cabinet of curiosities on the back

the fireplace

“The Zen Room” as Frunk’n Furter called it, it’s an oriental inspired room, expression of a particular taste, very popular in the late XIX cent,  called Chinoiserie

a glass door with victorians inspired decorations

staircase

The Artist’s Mother by James McNeill Whistler

Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam


Aesthete. Art historian & blogger. Content creator and storyteller. Fond of real and virtual wunderkammer. Founder and main author of rocaille.it.

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