Her hair was a wild mess and her skirt slit to the waist, but the mambo dance that Brigitte Bardot performed in “And God Created Woman” became an overnight sensation in the staid 1950s.<\/p>\n
Bardot created a “sex kitten” myth that outraged French censors.<\/p>\n
The scene, both innocent and provocative, was the embodiment of a looming sexual revolution. It was one Bardot, who has died aged 91, never lived down nor really sought to.<\/p>\n
Shot in 1956 in Saint-Tropez, which later became her home and refuge, “And God Created Woman” remained one of her great cinema memories.<\/p>\n
She told AFP in an interview on the 60th anniversary of Roger Vadim’s film that Saint-Tropez was then “an authentic village still far removed from the frenzied crowds, full of charm, fishermen, and a southern accent”.<\/p>\n
She said she hated it when the filming ended and she was separated from Vadim, whom four years earlier had become the first of her four husbands. <\/p>\n
In her feverish mambo, Bardot who played carefree teenager Juliette, captivated three potential suitors played by Jean-Louis Trintignant, Christian Marquand, and Curt Jurgens.<\/p>\n
For the first time in French cinema, a woman expressed her desire on equal footing with a man.<\/p>\n
Moral crusaders were outraged and censors ordered some suggestive scenes — including one of oral sex performed on a woman — be cut.<\/p>\n
But “BB”, as she became known in her home country, became a role model for many French women.<\/p>\n
– ‘Don’t give a damn’ –<\/p>\n
In real life, Bardot in public displayed the same freedom as Juliette — “a girl of her time, free from all feelings of guilt, from all taboos imposed by society,” according to Vadim.<\/p>\n
“With her free-spirited character, and her freedom over her body, she spoke to the women of that era. BB was one of the powerful symbols in a period of asceticism, with a desire to shake things up,” said Francoise Picq, a historian of feminism.<\/p>\n
Sixty years after the release of “And God Created Woman”, Bardot was still amused by the scandal it created.<\/p>\n
“It was funny because, in the end, there’s nothing shocking about it,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The mambo I danced was completely improvised. I gave free rein to my instincts. I danced as I felt like it, captivated by the music, that’s all!”<\/p>\n
But Bardot, who was later criticised by some for her far-right wing views and five times punished in court for her comments, said she did not seek to champion the emancipation of women that the film helped to inspire.<\/p>\n
“I don’t give a damn,” she said in the 2016 interview.<\/p>\n
Protecting animals, her passion in later life, was far more important.<\/p>\n
Bardot in 2018 criticised the #MeToo campaign denouncing the abuse of women.<\/p>\n
“Feminism isn’t my thing,” she told AFP in another interview earlier this year, defending French actor Gerard Depardieu before a court found him guilty of sexual assault.<\/p>\n
– ‘Wonderful way to break up’ –<\/p>\n
“I’ve never been one for complicated thinking, and I loved this role that was written specifically for me,” she said in the 2016 interview.<\/p>\n
The BB phenomenon that the film created “hit me like a ton of bricks!” she declared, adding that she had never expected the success.<\/p>\n
Vadim maintained that he let Bardot “play, with her flaws and her strengths, a character not exactly her own, but corresponding to her nature.”<\/p>\n
“I found Vadim sublimely handsome, but I never would have thought he would fall in love with me,” she said of the director. “Everything I’ve learned, I learned with him.”<\/p>\n
But “And God Created Woman” spelled the beginning of the end of their relationship.<\/p>\n
The couple divorced on December 6, 1957, a year after the film’s release.<\/p>\n
During filming, Bardot fell in love with Trintignant.<\/p>\n
“The film was our artistic child. It was a wonderful way to break up,” Vadim said.<\/p>\n
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