anatomy of an erotic film myth
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ARTE – SUNDAY AUGUST 14 AT 10:40 P.M. – DOCUMENTARY
Originally there was a book, Emmanuelle (1959), published by the rebellious Eric Losfeld, written by Emmanuelle Arsan, the pseudonym of the Thai Marayat Bibidh, who became Marayat Rollet-Andriane through her marriage to a French diplomat. According to some, she would have written it alone; for others, it would have been written with four hands, or even exclusively by her husband.
At the beginning of the 1970s, a period still stuck but which was freeing itself, Yves Rousset-Rouard tried, for his first steps in the profession of film producer, to “make a lot of money with a little financing”. He wants to buy the rights to adapt the book, but they have already been reserved by the brothers Robert and Raymond Hakim, two big names in the profession. Luckily, they did not extend the preemption period. Rousset-Rouard hires Jean-Louis Richard, co-screenwriter of François Truffaut, and puts in charge of the production the photographer Just Jaeckin, whose images he has seen and loved. Chance makes them fall on the young Dutch Sylvia Kristel, still unknown, “a big blond pole” with seductive freshness and naturalness.
At the time, we were very far from what was happening in the United States, where a “hard” film like Deep Throat (Deep Throat1972), by Gerard Damiano, was released theatrically and attracted a sizable audience. French law still imposes a more “soft” representation of sexuality, which the protagonists ofEmmanuelle, while trying to stay in the sulphurous furrow of the Last Tango in Paris (1972), by Bernardo Bertolucci.
Twelve years on display
They even dream that Marlon Brando gives the reply to Sylvia Kristel. It will be Alain Cuny, certainly seen in Satyricon, by Federico Fellini, released during the erotic year 1969, but rather associated with the austere universe of Paul Claudel… The surname of the actor (which she considers comical on the poster of such a film) amuses elsewhere one of the speakers in Clélia Cohen’s documentary, which retraces and comments on the story of this feature film that has become legendary.
Shot with pennies in Thailand, Emmanuelle, in which no one really believes, was released in June 1974: in its first week, it doubled the admissions of the Last Tango in Paris, and will total 25 million after one year of operation. It will remain for twelve years on the bill of a cinema on the Champs-Elysées, in Paris, opposite the office of the Hakim brothers, who will have missed the“idea of the century for a pittance”…
Yves Rousset-Rouard will exploit the vein twice more (Emmanuelle 21975, and Goodbye Emmanuelle1977) then became the producer of another great success, The Bronzed (1978), by Patrice Leconte. Its co-producer will not change hands and will continue with two other parts of the series. But, without Sylvia Kristel, whose “Destiny is to get away from cars and become a one-man slut,” as the author, actress and director says in raw but fair words Ovidia.
Sylvia Kristel, died in 2012will certainly turn for Claude Chabrol, in Alice or the Last Fugue (1977), but she will never escape the image of her fixed by Emmanuelle, where she will have “liberated women by imprisoning themselves forever”, as it is said in bitter conclusion.
Emmanuelle, the longest caress of French cinema, by Clélia Cohen (Fr., 2020, 52 min). Available on Arte.tv until September 12.
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