Are you joking?
Please don't all be so damned gullible.
It was (and still is) a very popular "underground" marketing stratergy. The studio leak a rumour about "real bodies being used" it is (and always is) a complete and utter myth.
As if anyone would allow a loved one who had just died (or as this rumour goes committed suicide) to be desecrated this way! I mean c'mon...think about it!
"Oh your daughter just committ suicide how sad...can we cut her eye out please and film it?"
"Sure!"
Even to this day people involved in the film may still claim "It was a family friend of the director who committed suicide...etc." but that doesn't necessarily make it so.
They used special effects like they do in every other film.
Fm
No it was not a "marketing strategy", they used a real corpse in the film, and the lead actress confirmed that in a 2005 interview.
shareI heard Christina say herself in Cleveland last April that the director had a doctor friend with a cadaver of a young girl who had just committed suicide. They filmed the piercing before the body was cremated. Remember, there were no computer special effects in '73 and the take looks genuine. I'm pretty sure Christina would know.
shareI find this so hard to believe. Just becuase someone associated with the film makes a claim doesn't necessarily make it so.
That said, you appear to hae more knowledge on this film than I, so I concede - if they used a real corpse then they used a real corpse - does seem a bit far fetched though (especially in terms of moral/legal implications etc.)
Fm
This was done 36, almost 37 years ago in Sweden. There quite possibly was no law at that time covering corpse mutilation. For moral implications, well, this movie was banned in it's home country.
shareWow. Ever heard of donating one's body to science after death? Or one of those body farms? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_farm
Or donating organs so that other people can live or have sight again?
People's bodies are desecrated all the time, with full knowledge of the families. Ever heard of an autopsy?
Yes, Christina said it was a real corpse, http://film.thedigitalfix.com/content/id/60739/looking-for-mushrooms-w ith-christina-lindberg.html
Quote from interview, with CL being Christina Lindberg:
[KG]: OK, well I’ll ask about that in a moment, but I just want to get to the other famous scene in the film – the gruesome eyeball scene. Now I’ve heard the rumour that a real corpse was used for the shot where you have your left eye gouged out. So I’m curious of course. How was that achieved? Is there any truth to the rumour?
[CL]: Yes, it’s true. It was a young girl that had committed suicide and Vibenius, he used one of the biggest hospitals in Sweden. And they made it you know. They just put some mascara on the eyes.
[KG]: That’s quite shocking. How did he actually get the body? Did he just walk in, ask for permission?
[CL]: Probably with some kind of permission from a doctor or something like that. I really don’t know how he could, and I have been asked by many people connected with this situation and everyone says that’s just the way it was.
[KG]: It makes you wonder about the poor girl’s family.
[CL]: Yes, but you can’t really see that it’s a different girl.
And here too, with C.L being Christina Lindberg: http://www.dbcult.com/printed-media/christina-lindberg-interview/
C.L. – Do you know how he did that scene when they're poking out her eye?
J.L. – That scenes is missing from the version I've seen!
C.L. – Well, he (Vibenius) knew some doctor, and he asked him to get ahold of a corpse to perform the poking on. So they're really cutting (with a scalpel) through the eye of a corpse (of a girl about my age), on which he had painted the face (with rouge, mascara, and the like). You see, that's the way he worked¦ I was told this story long afterwards I'm glad he didn't do this to me.
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