1972 Rothschild Ball

This week, we're stepping into the bizarre world of the 1972 Rothschild Ball, one of the most extravagant and surreal parties ever thrown. Hosted by Guy and Marie-Hélène de Rothschild at the family’s French château, this was a night of surrealist outfits, extravagant table settings and some of the most illustrious names in high society. Shout-out to our incredible researcher Gracie McCamish and editor Jamie Rose for pulling this together. If you're wanting more Hot History content you can follow along on Instagram @thehothistorypod and @hothistoryclub, on TikTok @hot.history, on Substack @hothistoryclub and of course, right here! 'Til next week, Ainslie x

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  What she didn't know at the time is that it was about to be eclipsed in every way imaginable by what came next. For in 1972, the Baron and Baroness to Rothschild would send out invitations for the party to out-weird all parties. The grand, the gaudy, the borderline grotesque surrealist ball. It's why we're here today, divas, okay? And you do really need to lock the fuck in from here on out, because we are going to do a proper rabbit hole deep dive.

• 1:44Speaker 02

  Hi, guys, and welcome back to Hot History, your corner of the internet where we cover all the things in history that you probably should know but don't. I'm Ainslie Harvey, your hot historian here, ready to chat about one of the weirdest and wackiest and wildest parties in history today, guys, okay? It is genuinely a bit of nightmare fuel. That is how bizarre this evening was, featuring fur plates, headpieces made of antlers, and plastic babies for tablescapes. So strap in today, divas, because we are talking about the 1972 Rothschild surrealist ball. But even though, guys, that is where we are going to spend the majority of our time today,

• 2:27Speaker 02

  it is not where we are actually going to start. So let's rewind instead all the way back to 1462 in Frankfurt, where we find the first Jewish ghetto in a region called the Juden Gassa, or Jews' Lane in English being established. Now, according to the European Association of Jewish Museums, the Frankfurt Ghetto was one of the most important centres of Jewish life in Europe at the time, with over 3,000 people living in this space, which may leave you asking, and very rightfully so, what is a ghetto? And why do Jewish peoples have to live there? Well, to answer the first part of that question, Jewish ghettos were designated urban districts

• 3:08Speaker 02

  where Jewish communities lived, sometimes by choice, sometimes out of economic necessity, and sometimes, which was more often than not, because Christian authorities legally required Jewish peoples to live separately from Christians, which is part two of our question: why? Well, guys, to answer that, we would literally need to unpack the root cause of antisemitism, something that dates back almost to the dawn of time, which we simply do not have enough time to cover today, and genuinely would need a 10-part series to actually give the relevant context and facts. So instead today, for all of you, I'm just going to focus on the kind of the one key event which influenced the mandates of separation between the various religions throughout

• 3:51Speaker 02

  the Middle Ages, which is known as the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, where church authorities argued that Christians, Jews, and Muslims should have limited social contact and live in separate areas intended to limit influence of other religions. Hence why the Juden Gassa was established in Frankfurt, which is where one Maya Amshell Rothschild was born in 1744. As the son of a money changer and dealer in silk cloth, Maya learned the money-changing business, where he traded coins, metals, jewels, and other antiques, which is where he met Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse, whom he aided in several transactions, especially with rare coins. The business between Rothschild and the Crown Prince was a successful one, and by 1769,

• 4:36Speaker 02

  Rothschild was granted the title of court factor, meaning he was a supplier of the royal family, which gave him serious prestige and free advertising for his services, which he used to franchise his operations across Europe. Sending his five sons to the major hubs, including London, Paris, Vienna, Naples, and, of course, their main branch at home in Frankfurt, the Rothschilds soon boomed into one of the biggest banking dynasties in history, financing kings and popes and emperors, including Napoleon Bonaparte, who they backed in his series of wars, while also, rather controversially, financing his opponents at the same time. This, alongside a whole host of other economic dealings, made the Rothschilds one of the

• 5:21Speaker 02

  great commercial and political elites in the world, so much so that this family who started out in a tiny house in the Frankfurt Ghetto now had one of the largest private fortunes in world history by the time the mid-19th century rolled around. So a massive amount of success here, guys, as both a business and as a family, with endless connections and aristocratic relations, making the family one of the central figures in European high society. Together, they hosted balls, collected art, sponsored musicians, built grand homes, and most importantly, threw incredible, outlandish, history-defining parties, which we'll get to talk about in a moment.

• 6:05Speaker 02

  But before we get there, guys, we do have to address the elephant in the room, okay? Which is the endless amount of conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family in the years during and after their rise to power.

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• 7:20Speaker 02

  Now, I can absolutely do a full episode on the family history and kind of unpack these theories in detail with you all at a later date. We don't have the time today, so again, I am just going to summarize kind of for greater context. Now, since the establishment of the five banking branches, also known as the Five Arrows, the Rothschilds have largely become a lightning rod for antisemitism throughout the world at large, with the American Jewish Committee saying the family have been accused of everything, from secretly controlling the economy, manipulating the weather, and profiting from foreign wars. This has largely transformed the term Rothschild into a generic term for greed and manipulation, something that Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda minister, famously took advantage of, using

• 8:02Speaker 02

  the family and their name to spread antisemitism, where a lot of these conspiracy theories took hold amongst common people. This, guys, I want to be very clear, is something that I vehemently disagree with, okay? The same way using terms like witch, or slut, or bitch to stereotype women is also fucked up and incorrect, which we did speak about in our Salem Witch Trials series a few weeks back. Again, guys, this is a very top-line summary, because I do really want to like get to the party and talk about that today. We are going to talk more about the conspiracies in relation to that specific event later on. But basically, when the Rothschilds were at the heart of European society during the 20th century, these conspiracy theories continued to grow, especially in Paris.

• 8:47Speaker 02

  For after Maya Rothschild's youngest son, James, set up the Paris branch, their influence with the rich and powerful took hold. Here, he established a real business and a real estate, building the 80-room Chateau de Ferrier, roughly 25 kilometres east of Paris in the 1850s. This 10,000 acre property was designed with one thing and one thing only in mind, guys. Excess. In fact, as the story goes, James told architect Joseph Paxton to quote, "Build me a Mentmore only bigger", which referred to Mentmore Towers, his nephew from the English branch of the family's estate. So grandeur is absolutely the influence here, guys, which resolved itself in the massive home and grounds,

• 9:32Speaker 02

  which were meticulously planned, down to the smells that guests would encounter, which resulted in the kitchen being built away from the main house, so that the huge wafts of aroma wouldn't drift into the ballroom and kind of, you know, make it smell of meat and veg. This then presented a challenge for the approximately 100 servants who worked at Ferrier, as they struggled to take the food from the kitchen into the house without it spoiling. So, to combat this, James had an underground railway system built to get the giant feast from A to B, so that guests were never left wanting. So definitely excess, definitely grandeur, definitely, um, you know, a statement home for these people who visited.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  Speaking of whom, the guest book here is quite the list of who's who, guys. From Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie to Otto von Bismarck and King Wilhelm I of Prussia. But the big guests, almost squatters, guys, were the Nazis. For when World War II came and Paris fell, the German forces seized the estate as the Rothschilds fled for their lives. This left their homes and its contents in the hands of the Nazis, where James's son, Edouard de Rothschild's enormous collection of art and decorative objects were gutted. And while he sensed this danger and attempted to hide large parts of the collection, the Nazis actively searched for Rothschild pieces, including Edouard's The Astronomer by Vermeer,

• 10:57Speaker 02

  which was seized in 1940 and taken back to Berlin. Eventually, the war was over and as large parts of the Rothschilds' collection made their way back into their hands, so too did they to Ferrier, reopening the grand home after the effects of the war in 1959, when Edouard's son Guy and wife Marie Helene moved back in. As it was his childhood home, Guy adored the property and was thrilled at the suggestion by his wife that they bring the neglected Victorian mammoth into its second golden age, which is exactly what happened here. For under Marie's eye and with the assistance of renowned decorator Henri Samuel, the chateau was reborn.

• 11:39Speaker 02

  Although hardly the kind of home that you or I would live in as it was still enormous, only now, it was fit out for a very different kind of entertainment as the 60s rolled around. From weekend dinners to shooting parties, lunches on the lawn, to garden gatherings and many long staying guests, Ferrier became a bustling social scene once more. However, it was different to the kind of social life the Rothschilds had before the war. For under Marie and Guy, they did away with guest lists full of exclusively aristocratic ladies and gentlemen. Instead, mixing worlds with interesting people of dynamic professions and exorbitant talents. From the artists to the bankers to the actresses and the designers, plus, of course, still the barons, ladies and lords.

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Marie threw away with the traditional country house model, instead transforming her estate into a cultural cornucopia for the ages, which led, as you can imagine, to some epic parties. For what started out as weekend gatherings soon ballooned into grander spectacles with truckloads of flowers bring boarding from Paris alongside chefs and produce and fashion and themed decor, which all culminated in a giant costume ball in 1971, when Marie and Guy decided to throw a party to celebrate the centenary of French novelist and social observer Marcel Proust's birth on December 2nd, 1971.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Known as the Proust Ball, Marie Helene decided to, in no uncertain terms here, guys, recreate an entire lost society, telling her guests to dress as figures from the Belle Époque age. It's seriously giving 1903 Romanoff ball here, guys, and like, we're gonna make reference to it a lot. And while, yes, this wasn't as extravagant as the Romanoffs pulling almost 300 year old jeweled garments out of their archives, the costumes for the Proust Ball were designed by Yves Saint Laurent and shot by famed Vogue photographer Cecil Beaton. The guest list was also outrageous, with journalist Sarah Hyde being present for the evening and providing a detailed description of what went down, including Jane Birkin, as in the muse for the infamous Birkin bag, showing up in an outrageous dress,

• 13:50Speaker 02

  as she mingled with actress and model Marisa Berensen, American socialite Nan Kemper, and of course, the infallible Elizabeth Taylor, who also remembered the countless jeweled hairpins left on the floor as guests filed out, and the lines of Rolls Royces which stood outside like sentinels to guard their owners' home. It was a spectacle, guys, to say the least, with footmen dressed in red livery while holding candelabras, the great hall being fit out as a winter garden with 1,500 potted palms and over 250 additional guests of Guy's son's David showing up to dance the night away after dinner. This made it, according to Sarah, one of the last great costume balls.

• 14:33Speaker 02

  However, what she didn't know at the time is that it was about to be eclipsed in every way imaginable by what came next. For in 1972, the Baron and Baroness de Rothschild would send out invitations for the party to out-weird all parties. The grand, the gaudy, the borderline grotesque surrealist ball. It's why we're here today, divas, okay? And you do really need to lock the fuck in from here on out, because we are going to do a proper rabbit hole deep dive, starting with a brief explainer on what the hell surrealism even is, before we get into the details. According to Parkwest Gallery, they say that poet Guillermo Apollinaire first coined the term surreal

• 15:17Speaker 02

  in reference to the idea of an independent reality existing beneath our conscious reality, which sounds very unhelpful in actually making any sense here, guys. So my definition is that surreal is basically something that feels dreamlike or bizarre and often impossible, as though reality itself has been scrambled. Which, you know, we get that, but what does it mean to be a part of the surrealist movement? Well, this initially surfaced in 1924, when the French poet André Breton published his manifesto to surrealism, influenced by Sigmund Freud, among other sociologists and artists,

• 15:57Speaker 02

  which is characterized by its quote, "uninhibited spontaneous expression of the unconscious mind through dreamlike imagery, unexpected juxtapositions, and the deliberate embrace of the irrational, which can really come in the form of anything, from the natural world to man-made objects, and of course, people and animals." For example, guys, of the surrealist movement in art, we look to the likes of Salvador Dali and Picasso, right? Who the tates say, quote, "Find magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny", which is absolutely bang on for surrealism and makes sense why Marie Helene, the great kind of, you know, reimaginer and really the Parisian culture vulture, loved it so much.

• 16:42Speaker 02

  But, guys, let's be real, it's one thing to love a movement and another thing to throw a giant fuck-off costume ball for it. So why the hell did Guy and Marie Helene decide to put on the 1972 Surrealist Ball? Well, because they wanted to. Honestly, guys, in all of the research I did on this party, not a single source mentioned it was for a specific purpose or a specific person or a specific political maneuver. It was literally just for the love of the game. And this particular game, guys, was weird, alright? Which, again, we're dealing with surrealism, it is kind of the point.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  So let's get into all of the details, starting with the invitations. Printed in reverse writing, the invite featured a blue and clouded sky, inspired by a painting from Magritte, which had to be deciphered by holding the card up to a mirror, which read, "Come in black tie and long dresses with surrealist head backwards." Now, for those of you who are watching on Spotify or YouTube, I am gonna put images all throughout this. If you're not, don't worry, they will be up on the socials as well. So, all ready, guys, in, you know, just literally with the invites, we are off to a cryptic and kooky start here, before we even get to the night of December 12th, 1972. But that really is just the start, so let's get into the actual details.

• 18:10Speaker 02

  Now, I think really the big thing that Guy Marie wanted was initial impact, right? Again, we see it with the invites. So they wanted the experience to start the moment you arrived at the property. And I don't mean when you walk through the front door or you kind of, you know, enter the main dining room. I mean the very second you lock eyes on the house, which was consumed by bright orange and red floodlights. So imagine total darkness, this is at night, pitch black, total darkness. You are driving up the long Rothschild driveway to the chateau and bam, giant red floodlights, and like, the whole chateau is basically standing out to you like a bloodied moon on a dark night sky. And this was only the appetizer, guys.

• 18:55Speaker 02

  For according to The Timeless Journal, who gives an excellent retelling of the evening's events, you made your way through the front door and were met by a disorientating maze of black ribbons, which were in fact, a real life interactive maze that you had to weave your way through to exit into the rest of the ball. If you couldn't find your way, I'm terrible at mazes, guys, if you couldn't find your way, you needn't worry. Although, maybe you do. Because if you got lost, a staff member dressed in a cat costume came and got you, and I shit you not here, guys, purred as they guided you through the correct route of the maze to the next room, like you were literally following the sound of the purr to get out.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I promised you weird, and I am delivering. And just because one cat maze director man, is it enough? There were also other waiters who were paid to dress as cats and pour at each other and pretend to sleep curled up on the floor. To which I say, I hope they got massive fucking tips for this job. Like, imagine you're just like a hired waiter and you show up, they're like, he's a cat costume, go to sleep on the floor. I can't. Now, after you've made your way through the maze, you reached the Tapestry Salon, which was adorned in gold, red and pink, where the Baron and Baron de Rothschild greeted you to the divine music of the piano city. According to the timeless journal, you then followed the cat butlers straight through

• 20:22Speaker 02

  to the main hall, which was transformed into a wonderland vision, with one of the tables being adorned by taxidermied animals, while another had a mannequin's corpse, which was, quote, "laid to sleep on a bed of roses", which we're gonna talk more about in a second, so mental note. There was also fallen fruit everywhere, architectural monuments erected in corners, and apple and pear-headed figures who roamed the space while a mix of animals and other fantastical creatures filled the room, which was described by another guest as, quote, "a mix of hell and paradise". And again, guys, I wanna be clear, this is all before we even get to the dining room, where the main dinner was being held.

• 21:06Speaker 02

  This is all just like appetizers and entrees before you get to the main place. For this, however, they really did pull out all the stops, with a variety of tables, each containing an individual theme, including, hold on to your hats here, guys, there was the Table of Metaphysical Perspectives, the Table of Insane Shoes, the Table of Tenderized Turtles, the Table of the Swaying Dolls, which had an arrangement of baby dolls with some parts of their limbs and skulls missing, alongside the Table of the Sleeping Cat, the Table of the Dethroned Queens, and then to top it all off, the Table of Eggs à la Florentine, which was topped with a giant mound of cooked spinach, and a giant bird

• 21:51Speaker 02

  and women's breasts. Yeah. Now again, guys, if you are watching on Spotify and YouTube, you'll have seen all of this. If you're not and you're just listening, I'm gonna post all of these to socials, because they need to be seen to be believed, which is also what the guests thought as they wandered kind of lost through the room, looking at all these weird tables, trying to find their seats, which they were only able to decipher after solving a puzzle given to them by butlers in top hats. So, once you'd kind of solved your puzzle and you found your seat and everyone's sitting down for dinner, this whole show and shock value's gotta be over, right? Like, fair enough, we can make a surrealist ball and we can kind of go in all of these

• 22:34Speaker 02

  details, but we've still gotta eat properly. Well, turns out, no. For the weirdest and wackiest detail of the night was about to land in front of attendees when butlers delivered to each and every guest a plate covered in fur.

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• 23:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, guys, like a fucking cat, okay? Which was topped off with a pale blue painted dinner roll. Yeah, fur plates and painted bread is what you're getting at the dinner de Rothschild. After this, though, because, you know, you didn't eat a full meal, came the formal menu, which featured a built-in bubble blower, which detailed the courses, including an extra lucid soup, goat's cheese roasted in post-coital sadness, and foie gras and game as the key protein. So, very much still leaning into the surrealism with every single bite. But, let's be real, no party is complete without dessert. And for this, the Baron and Baroness go full tilt, crafting the sculpture of a naked

• 24:39Speaker 02

  woman lying on a bed of roses, which was made entirely of sugar. I told you we'd come back to it, guys. Yeah, that mannequin that was on those bed of roses, edible. Which, gotta admit, not quite sure, as much as I love a sweet treat, I'd personally be going and breaking off a finger of, you know, this kind of fake woman for my sweet treat after my post-coital sadness goat cheese. But, I guess, each to their own. After this, when guests had their fill of fur plates and foie gras, they moved to the salons, which replicated a Turkish nightclub where drinking, photography and dancing took place.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  Which, guys, I do wanna say here, this, you know, does kind of have this wacky dinner and these kind of themes that we've talked about, but it was absolutely still a society ball, with formal dancing time an essential part of the evening, which concluded, according to Guy de Rothschild's own account, at dawn, which really could be any time after 5am, where guests stumbled back through the ribbon maze, still slack-jawed at the tables, rooms, fur-covered plates, and, of course, the outfits. Oh, yes, my divas, this would not be hot history without a thorough discussion of the fashion and the guest list. Because the big question here is, who the hell is attending something like this? Well, to tell you the truth, it's less who we see than what we see.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  For as Margaret Allen writes, each guest arrived not simply dressed, but constructed. These choices were absolutely not arbitrary. Many costumes functioned as direct and indirect references to artwork. Art history was not displayed but worn, encountering one another as images rather than individuals. Which is basically a very fancy way of saying everyone wore outrageous fuck-off costumes. So, let's get to unpacking them, starting with the hostess herself, Marie Lane, who wore a giant stag's head adorned with real diamond tears with a pale blue floor-length gown, while the Baron de Rothschild wore a fur hat with a headdress on top of it, representing

• 26:47Speaker 02

  a real-life arrangement with a stuffed pheasant and pheasant skeleton on a huge platter. Also in attendance was actress Audrey Hepburn, who wore a birdcage on her head, inside of which one saw said real birds fluttered, which was designed by Givenchy himself. And for our listeners, guys, this cage went over her whole head, so she had to actually open a little door on the front to tuck in to her extra lucid soup. Then, of course, there was Salvador Dali, who apparently had significant involvement in designing many of the costumes, though didn't wear one himself, as he believed he was the surrealist all by himself, which checks out. Famous perfumer Helena Rojas was also there and wore a giant gramophone on her head,

• 27:31Speaker 02

  while Baron Alexis de Reed, a French banker and aristocrat, wore a quadruple-decker, four-mask-in-one designed by Dali, which had freckles made of scarab beetles. Now, as with any French society soiree, there were, of course, also plenty of actresses in attendance, including Jacqueline Dela Back, who wore an apple in front of her face, and of course, Brigitte Bateau, who was dressed as the Snow Queen. Royalty were also in attendance for this evening with HRH Princess Maria Gabriela de Savoir, the daughter of Italy's last king, strutting in with a stunning floral arrangement as a headpiece, paired with a simple black gown. There was also, in case anyone tried to, you know, bite into the sugar woman's finger

• 28:14Speaker 02

  directly, Claude Lebon, a society dentist, alongside the likes of Charles de Creuset from the French Ministry of Finance, who painted his face white with a top hat which had a small chair on top of it. As for designers, we had Yves Saint Laurent and Marc Bowen, who was designing for Dior at the time. And of course, guys, what ball is complete without a Cleopatra, who took the form of one Helen David Vale, whose floor-length black wig supported hands, legs, lips, frogs and snails. Not quite sure Argel Cleo would have liked that in any way, shape or form, but there it is. There were also business moguls like Espirito Santo and one of my personal favorite outfits worn by Charlotte Allard, who covered her bust and face with a bronze armor, which was

• 28:58Speaker 02

  cast to order by sculptor Claude Lallane, who very kindly made the lips and chin removable so she could speak, eat and drink. Honestly, guys, this whole thing was like something out of a psychedelic-induced David Lynch film. Between the guest list, the decor, the food, the costumes, and the general outrageousness, the whole night was a cornucopia for the rich and powerful, with Margaret Allen saying, quote, "The scale and precision of the Rothschild Ball were inseparable from the social and financial structures that enabled it. The chateau, the staging, and the coordination required resources available only within a narrow network of wealth and influence. Invitations were limited,

• 29:40Speaker 02

  reinforcing a system in which access shaped both participation and memory," which is absolutely bang on here, guys. And again, it's 100% surrealist. So, from a brief point of view and like nailing a theme, Marie Helene hits the nail on the head, with guests in attendance describing the scale, and the opulence, and the attention to detail as something extraordinary. But not everyone sees this as a positive thing, with two key ramifications coming from the ball, which I want to flesh out a bit before we wrap up this episode. One, being the conspiracy theories surrounding it, and two, Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut movie. So, let's start with one. Now, of course, guys,

• 30:25Speaker 02

  when you mix an exclusive surrealist party, rich people, and antisemitism, which is constantly showing itself in discussions of the Rothschilds, you are going to get a conspiracy theory or two. And given how highly photographed this event was, the 1972 Rothschild Ball has circulated on the internet like wildfire, constantly re-entering the modern zeitgeist. For some, they see the evening as a masterclass in surrealism, acting as a beacon for an often misunderstood and undervalued movement in the art world. But, others look at the party as something dark and suspicious, drawing links to the symbolism of the sugar woman, the broken baby dolls,

• 31:04Speaker 02

  and all these kind of stag heads as something devious. Which begs the question, what do we make of this? Well, if we all first kind of put our tin or foil hats on for a second, let's unpack the main qualms that people have before we make our own conclusion. Starting with the caveat at the top here, guys, that theories and outrage like this are not new, okay? Not only to the Rothschilds, but to all the rich and famous who came before, whether it was the royals, right? Like the Romanovs and the Bobons, or the political animals like the Medici's and the Borges. So, we can't necessarily look only to the symbolism of the night as the source of outrage here,

• 31:46Speaker 02

  but there are some pretty strong cases made for how this iconography can be perceived as something nefarious. And guys, like, I really don't think there is anything controversial in saying this, okay? It is fucking weird for some of the world's most rich and powerful to be breaking off the sugary fingers of what is meant to be a human woman's corpse and eating them. All right? Objectively, that is a fucking creepy and bizarre thing to do. Like, if anybody's listening along and saying, you know, "This is antisemitic," or like, "This is really, um, you know, negative to the surrealist movement," like, that is not at all what I'm saying. I think we can all say that,

• 32:29Speaker 02

  again, breaking off fingers of what is meant to be a human corpse and eating them is a fucked-up thing to do. However, some people do go way further than saying some of the iconography is fucked up. Instead, drawing parallels to things like demonic rituals, with Marco Magaritoff drawing historical parallels to the cryptic invitations which were written backwards, and ancient beliefs of inversion, which indicated the presence of devil worship. There's also, of course, the imagery of the maimed babies, which people also draw parallels to as indications of human sacrifice, plus the red glowing facade, which was described by one guest as, quote, "A symbol of entering hell." Magaritoff also says that people claimed the party was full of Freemason and Illuminati imagery,

• 33:13Speaker 02

  such as the black and white chequered floors and the maze, which, again, guys, I want to say, this is some people's interpretation. I personally don't think there's actual devil worship involved, but I can see how these conclusions can be drawn by others. If it is me personally who you're asking, though, I've got to be honest, I think this has far less to do with Satan than it does with how stupidly wealthy people do stupidly ridiculous things, which absolutely tend to be obscene and grotesque for the thrill of it. I mean, we spoke about the 1903 Romanov Ball the other day in our Romanov series, again, we've brought it up throughout this, and yes, it is

• 33:53Speaker 02

  a very different kind of party, but still grotesque and obscene in its own way. There was the complete disregard of historical property and spending of state resources while people starved in the streets, and while, yes, there were no maimed baby dolls on the tables in St. Petersburg on that evening, it's still a case of stupidly wealthy people doing stupid things. And again, guys, FYI, I am not saying the surrealist movement itself is grotesque or stupid in any way, but again, I think everyone watching this can look at the iconography and the choice of motifs of this surrealist party and go, "It's pretty fucked up," which is certainly something that Stanley

• 34:35Speaker 02

  Kubrick thought, reportedly using the ball as inspiration for his R-rated 1999 film Eyes Wide Shut. Based on the novella Dream Story and starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, the film basically follows a couple who start having sexual fantasies, and as such, join an underground sex group, which is very much ritualistic and does feature satanic imagery. In one scene in particular, there is a massive masked ball orgy, which was actually partly filmed at the Metmore Towers, the Rothschild mansion that Chateau Ferrier was inspired by, again establishing a potential link here. There is also a more personal tie for Kubrick with one of his favorite stars, supermodel

• 35:16Speaker 02

  Marissa Berensen, attending the 1972 Ball, which, according to writer Martin Schneider, she told Stanley about, saying, quote, "There's little doubt that Stanley Kubrick was aware of the surrealist ball and drew on it as a resource for the extended party scene in Eyes Wide Shut. There's a lovely shot of the gathered masked guests gazing up to her that looks like the still photos taken at the surrealist ball." I mean, guys, it is wild. There is just so many rabbit holes that we can dive down here. Again, I do not have the time to do it today, guys. I'm going to leave you all to go down these rabbit holes, and I want to hear your thoughts on the evening of December 12th, okay? Comment, DM, send me an email, [email protected]. I want

• 35:57Speaker 02

  to hear what you have to think. But before I let you go, I do want to give you one last piece of food for thought. Not coming on a fur-covered plate, though, which came from Baron Alexis Terried, who made the case that the 1972 surrealist ball actually replicated France's own historical past, saying, quote, "All these parties were in the tradition of the great balls that had been held in France for centuries. You can trace them back to the days of Henry III and the masquerades and carousels that so appealed to Louis IV. And coming in at the latter end of the century, the Rothschilds and I made an impressive attempt to round the century off with some magnificent and memorable evenings." Which, again, guys, I think, yes, we can say it

• 36:41Speaker 02

  is impressive in terms of scale and outrageousness, and it's certainly memorable, but to what end? I mean, it's a fascinating question, and something in the context of the 21st century we should absolutely be asking, because would a party like this happen today? Well, according to the Timeless Journal, no. They say, quote, "The surrealist ball remains a symbol of an era when the world's elite could indulge in the wildest flights of fancy, where the only limit was the imagination." But I don't agree here, guys. All you need do is log on to social media, and you'll find any number of excessive, ridiculous, often themed events that aren't

• 37:21Speaker 02

  too dissimilar to the 1972 Ball. From Diddy's infamous filth-infested parties to the highly exclusive annual white party, and of course, the Met Gala, which feels increasingly like something out of this world of the stupidly wealthy doing stupidly ignorant things. And those are just the ones we see online. Certainly food for thought here, guys, and I am keen to keep unpacking it with you again in the comments and DMs. But we are at the end of another episode of Hot History, guys, a short one today. Thank you so much for following along with me on this episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Substack at Hot History Club, and on YouTube and TikTok at Hot.History. As always, guys, it has been a pleasure to get down and dirty in

• 38:03Speaker 02

  time with you, and I will speak to you all shortly. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.

• 38:14Speaker 02

  This episode of Hot History was recorded on Darrickland, always was, always will be, Aboriginal.

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