Episode 777: The Image (1975)

Radley Metzger pushes the boundaries of erotic cinema with The Image (1975), a film that treats desire as ritual, performance, and provocation. Adapted from the infamous novel by Catherine Robbe-Grillet—writing under the name Jean de Berg—the film unfolds as a stylized confession. Carl Parker plays Jean, the author surrogate recounting a charged encounter with his estranged friend Claire (Marilyn Roberts) and the young woman who becomes the focus of his controlled cruelties, Anne (Mary Mendum).

Joining Mike are Jessica Shires and Heather Drain, as the conversation situates The Image alongside Metzger’s other works and within a broader lineage of European erotic literature and BDSM aesthetics. The episode interrogates authorship, consent, power, and the uneasy space between fantasy and autobiography that defines Robbe-Grillet’s writing and Metzger’s adaptation.

Interviews with Rob King, author of Man of Taste: The Erotic Cinema of Radley Metzger, and filmmaker Lina Mannheimer (La Cérémonie) expand the discussion, connecting The Image to questions of female authorship and the gaze.

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