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The subject of bodily functions is usually reserved for medical texts,
talk between parents and their toddlers, and the anally obsessed South
Park. So when discussing Le Petomane: Turn of the Century Fartiste, a
documentary about Joseph Pujol, the greatest exponent of flatulence as
entertainment, the language available for the job ranges from the
clinically matter-of-fact to the coy to the crudely adolescent.
When writing about this subject it is tempting to play with references to
wind, the kicking of dogs in the presence of guests and the cutting of
cheese. In this discussion of Le Petomane, a wonderfully cheeky tribute
to the life, times and talents of Pujol, that temptation will be resisted
as much as possible.
For those whose French does not extend to schoolyard patois, “petomane”
combines the words for fart and mania, literally meaning “fart maniac”.
But Pujol’s stage act, his deportment and the enthusiasm with which he was
embraced by bourgeois theatre-goers in late 19th-century Paris gave the
word a more respectable, even classy connotation. A fart maniac is an
adolescent male to be sent away from the dinner table but a fartiste can
be the droll darling of the well-heeled.
Pujol discovered his ability when, as a boy swimming in the ocean, he felt
a sharp, icy sensation pierce his bowels. Returning to shore he was
shocked to see a mass of water streaming from his anus and found he not
only had an enormous capacity in his bowel but also an unusual degree of
control over his rectal muscles.
Years later, while in the army, he rediscovered his talent during “a night
of song and cheap absinthe”, entertaining his army mates with a
trombone/flatulence duet.
The
late 1800s in Paris is known as ‘La Belle Epoche’, a time of peace and
prosperity, leisure, passion and extravagance. There was a great
curiosity for exotic cultures and odd creatures, a sense of awe and
wonder for the world; a skill such as Pujol’s could not have better
setting in which to flourish.
In 1892, the impeccably dressed Pujol went to the Moulin Rouge, the
Parisian music hall, and announced to the manager: “My anus is of such
rich elasticity that I can open and shut it at will ... the unique
thing about my act is the deep range of sounds I can produce.” The
manager, a man named Zidler who could spot a class act from 50 metres,
replied, “Do you mean you can sing through your backside? Go ahead, I’m
listening!” Le Petomane — Pujol’s
stage-name — quickly drew
large crowds, outstripping those attending performances of the most
popular actor of the time, Sarah Bernhardt.
Dressed in red velvet coat and tails, with a discrete flap allowing
him to perform without baring his rear, Le Petomane’s act included bird
calls, fart effects ( ‘the bride on her wedding night”, “the dressmaker
tearing two yards of calico”, “the mother-in-law”, ‘the cannon”), singing
through his anus (tenor, baritone, bass, alto), playing instruments and
smoking cigarettes using a length of hose. At the end of his performance
he would snuff out the stage light with puffs of wind from behind.
Women often fainted from laughter watching Pujol and a man, it is
said, died of a heart attack during a show after laughing so hard. The
appeal of the act was broad: the leisured classes and the lower classes
were regulars at Le Petomane’s shows — the King of
Belgium once attended incognito.
His influence on luminaries such as Sigmund Freud (who often mentioned
patients’ dreams about flatulence and who had a photo of Le Petomane on
his consulting room wall in 1938) and the bohemian eccentric musician Erik
Satie (who composed Airs to Make One Flee about the time he worked near
the Moulin Rouge) is well documented.
When Pujol died in 1945, aged 88, theatre critic Robert Gerard
wrote:
‘His act cannot be properly described in a public journal. Is it enough
to say he made a great clamor, yet never raised his voice?”
Perhaps, but it could not be said that he never fluffed his lines.
edited from Gordon Farrar article , The Age. Melbourne
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