Beyond Bizarre - Fragonard Museum - video Dailymotion

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Documentary television hosted by Jay Robinson focused on exploring great mysteries around the world, from ghost sightings, alien encounters and everything else in between.

Transcript

00:00In France, shortly before the Revolution in 1789,

00:06it was fashionable for sophisticated hosts

00:10to take pleasure in shocking their guests

00:14with a peek at their cabinets of curiosity.

00:19These cabinets often contained gruesome examples

00:24of some monstrous biological rarity.

00:29One man was renowned for his artistry

00:32in displaying these bizarrities.

00:37His name was Honore Fragonard.

00:43We are all familiar with the normal types of museums

00:47found around the world,

00:49but there are occasionally some lesser-known

00:52but very bizarre museums

00:54that seem to exist somewhat beyond the mainstream.

00:59The Fragonard Museum is one amazing example.

01:04Honore Fragonard was an 18th-century French anatomist.

01:09He directed one of France's first veterinary colleges

01:13outside Paris.

01:15His methods of dissection and preservation

01:18were very advanced for his day.

01:25Indeed, Fragonard was a gifted scholar of the human form

01:30in intimate detail,

01:32and although many contemporaries respected him,

01:36others believed he was mad.

01:43Fragonard seemed to take a perverse joy

01:47in his anatomical and biological rarities and mutations.

01:53One could plainly witness the evidence

01:56of a very curious mind,

01:59an artist fascinated by the bizarrities of nature.

02:05To Fragonard's studio came the oddest examples

02:09of pathological animal mutations.

02:12This two-headed cow calf was of great interest,

02:16for it had lived this way for a good time after its birth.

02:21Fragonard's collection provide new testimony

02:25to this era of curiosity.

02:31It seemed that every body part was too precious to waste.

02:37This fetus with fused lower limbs

02:40was called La Sirène, or The Mermaid.

02:47Horses, of course, were very important in the 18th century,

02:51and a large portion of the collection

02:54is dedicated to these creatures.

02:59This preserved foal was a victim of hydroencephalism,

03:05or water on the brain.

03:07This huge globe of calcified minerals

03:11is actually a horse's gallstone,

03:14at over 12 inches in diameter.

03:17Dr. Christophe de Gers is the present-day curator

03:22of the Fragonard Museum.

03:27During the 18th century, anatomy went through a revolution,

03:32a time when great minds approached science.

03:36A massive tapeworm, removed from its fatally affected victim,

03:42is quite a monster to share one's body with.

03:52The parasites fascinate people.

03:55Even today, when researchers disagree about a parasite,

03:59they must come here to find the answer.

04:02Fragonard excelled at one thing in particular,

04:06the sculpting of actual human flesh and bone.

04:10And it was these frightening works of art

04:13that earned him his most bizarre reputation.

04:17Some of these works are almost entirely defleshed,

04:21showing the inner workings of bone, tendon, and sinew.

04:26These strange items he dubbed écorché, or skinless.

04:32He was a formidable artist.

04:35In Man with Mandible, see the twisted ears,

04:39the diverging eyes, the chiseled lips, the menacing look.

04:44It presents an enlarged red heart.

04:47It stands out, an artistic interpretation of anatomy.

04:53Fragonard would elaborately

04:55and almost theatrically pose his creations.

04:59This type of work shows how dramatically

05:02Fragonard tried to combine both art and science.

05:09But at last for science,

05:12Fragonard never wrote about his techniques.

05:15And what we know about his mysteriously effective methods

05:19is only guesswork.

05:21Perhaps the single most bizarre piece

05:25in this quite bizarre collection

05:28is the work known as the Horseman of the Apocalypse.

05:32This straight-backed rider

05:35poses as if holding the reins at a whip

05:38and appears to be frozen in mid-stride,

05:41this unsettling appearance,

05:44almost too shocking to be viewed as art.

05:49The écorché are theatrical pieces, showcasing death.

05:54They exist to shock the public,

05:56as was the purpose of the Cabinets of Curiosity,

06:00in a spirit of challenge of society's principles

06:03prior to the French Revolution.

06:05There is a legend that perhaps the rider of the horse

06:10was indeed a beloved of Fragonard's,

06:13exhumed after death,

06:16and given immortality as an écorché.

06:21These are real bodies,

06:24worked, sculpted, dissected, and mummified.

06:28Flesh, bones, veins, arteries,

06:31injected with wax or plaster.

06:34This is a museum's museum.

06:37Nothing has changed in 100 years.

06:40But Fragonard suffered great challenges and indignities

06:44for following his fervor.

06:46His contemporaries, as well as the head of the school,

06:50had grown afraid of Fragonard.

06:53After nearly 40 years,

06:55he was dismissed from the Veterinary College.

06:59Fragonard went on to create his curiosities

07:02for a select few of the European elite.

07:06Fragonard died in 1799,

07:10on the eve of a new century,

07:13without descendants to watch over his collection.

07:16Fortunately, we are here today

07:20for all to come and see and experience

07:23artistic, scientific,

07:26and certainly beyond bizarre.

07:32As children, most of us have sat around the campfire

07:37or darkened bedroom with our friends,

07:41telling ghost stories.

07:43And these tall tales would gain substance

07:48with each successive account.

07:51An urban myth is a local or even regional legend or story

07:56that over time and retelling

07:59has become nearly accepted as fact.

08:03But there is a fine line between myth and reality,

08:09as you'll soon see.

08:14San Antonio, Texas, is the site of one of America's

08:18most perplexing and mysterious urban myths,

08:22contains the elements of a ghost story

08:25combined with continuing supernatural occurrences.

08:29Our story begins here, where the Villa Main Road

08:34and the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks intersect.

08:37Dosha Williams is the author of several books

08:40on Texas history and supernatural happenings.

08:44The story in various versions has been told for a long time

08:48that a busload of young school children

08:51were leaving San Antonio late one afternoon

08:54on a very gloomy October afternoon.

09:00The bus driver's route took him down Villa Main Road

09:04to where it intersects with the Southern Pacific Railroad tracks.

09:09Attempting to cross, the driver stalled the bus on the tracks.

09:21Ah!

09:37Oh, my God!

09:47The basic story has variations.

09:50Some claim it was a church bus instead of a school bus.

09:58The story has been set in the 20s, 30s, the 40s and the 50s.

10:07The age of the children in the bus remains a dispute also.

10:13The story goes that ever since the freight train school bus accident,

10:18the spirits of the children who were killed

10:21have clung to this particular spot.

10:24And if a car parks some distance away

10:27and the gears are put into neutral,

10:30and even though it's a slight uphill road,

10:33the car will suddenly start moving

10:36as if unseen little hands are pushing it along

10:39to be sure it will go over the tracks safely and not stall on the tracks

10:43as the school bus did that very tragic October afternoon.

10:47And people often dust the back of their vehicles

10:50with talcum powder or cornstarch or flour,

10:53and what happens, little handprints are imprinted on that flour

10:57or on that talcum powder,

10:59and people actually see these tiny little handprints.

11:04A teacher and her group of students happened by

11:07while our crew was filming the scene.

11:10What do you think is happening then when we're going over the...

11:13There's the hill.

11:15It's not a hill. Where is the hill?

11:17Gravitational force, scientific explanation.

11:19But it's elevated right there. How do we get across that?

11:22I just find it hard to believe that they're going to stay here

11:26on this plane for the longest time

11:28and that there's no record of it whatsoever,

11:30no parents were claiming it.

11:32But they have a mission. They're here on this plane.

11:35Are you talking about the planes of existence?

11:38They have a mission here.

11:40So let me tell you something.

11:42My sister that's into all this psychic and the mind game

11:45and the third eye and all of that stuff,

11:47she really believes in that.

11:49One day when she was coming over the tracks

11:52to also come over the tracks like we just did today,

11:55she was crossing the tracks going that way,

11:58and a limousine was coming this way.

12:01And she saw a little girl pushing the limousine.

12:05She can describe the little girl in detail.

12:08Now, if something that you're imagining,

12:10and she describes it the same way every single time,

12:13how can that be?

12:15The limousine never stopped to pick up this little girl.

12:18Where did the little girl go?

12:20This story is very popular within the city of San Antonio.

12:23I would venture to say if the city this size,

12:26over a million people,

12:2875% of the people that have been here for any length of time

12:32would have some knowledge about what has occurred

12:35down there at this spot in the railroad tracks.

12:37I believe the kids are actually pushing the car over the tracks.

12:40We sat there, we put the car in neutral,

12:43and the car did go over the tracks,

12:45and we believe that it was the spirits of the kids.

12:47I've seen the kids' fingerprints, their hands all over my car

12:51when I put dust on it,

12:53and I do believe it's them that they're pushing the car,

12:56and they're doing it because they don't want that to happen again.

12:59At this time, we haven't seen anything in our police records

13:03to substantiate that this incident ever did occur,

13:06so I guess a logical conclusion that anybody would have

13:09to this particular accident was it never did happen.

13:12Our information here at the library goes back to 1865.

13:17Through the years, I've received numerous phone calls

13:19from historians, the staff, the public, readers,

13:24people who are interested in the bus crash on Cheyne and Villemaine.

13:28Some stories indicate it happened over 60 years ago.

13:32Some people say it happened 40 years ago,

13:35but there's been no evidence from the records

13:38to show that this ever happened.

13:40If the story is not true,

13:43what is the explanation for the nearby neighborhood street names

13:47purported to be those of the children who died in the wreck?

13:54Our crew contacted local expert Roy Williams,

13:58former deputy commander of the Texas Highway Patrol in San Antonio,

14:03with 37 years in law enforcement.

14:07His credentials are well established.

14:11We asked him to help us confirm or deny

14:14the story of the children pushing cars over the railroad tracks.

14:20On exiting his car, Mr Williams checks the elevation

14:24of the road approaching the tracks.

14:27Apparently an uphill climb.

14:30Only after Roy had wiped down the back of his truck

14:34does he apply a liberal coating of talcum powder.

14:39Roy is a born sceptic,

14:41but time and time again the same thing happens.

14:47And just as in the stories we've heard,

14:50the car starts its uphill journey and over the tracks.

15:18The first thing we did on the back of the vehicle here,

15:23we took a clean cloth and cleaned the back of the vehicle off very well

15:28where there wouldn't be any latent prints on the vehicle

15:32before we dusted it.

15:34As we came across the tracks and after the vehicle stopped,

15:38when I got out, I have some very clear prints

15:41on the latent prints on the back that is in the powder.

15:45You definitely have prints on the back of the vehicle.

15:50I have no other choice to believe it

15:53because I know it was clean because I cleaned it

15:57and I looked and there was no prints there.

16:00And immediately when I get out and look,

16:02I'm looking now at these prints where a hand is touched here

16:07and also one over here.

16:09What else can you say?

16:11I have no explanation for it,

16:13but I can definitely say there is prints

16:15that's made on top of the talcum powder that I've just put on.

16:21Is the San Antonio school bus story just another myth

16:26or is there more to it?

16:28Perhaps pushing into the areas of the supernatural

16:32that are currently beyond our comprehension

16:35and even further beyond the limits of the bizarre.

Beyond Bizarre - Fragonard Museum

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