Saga Erotica - The Emmanuelle Collection

Severotica Arsan

Saga Erotica - 
The Emmanuelle Collection
11 Disc Boxed Edition

Hi all, much like I did with my entry on Severin’s beautiful Al Adamson The Masterpiece Collection Blu Ray set (right here), I thought I’d finish up my recent season of Emmanuelle Arsan at NUTS4R2 reviews with a quick breakdown of some of the extras found on Severin Films’ beautiful Blu Ray collection, with links back to the reviews of the films in the set on the blog, a couple of lines about a few of the extras I’ve actually got around to watching plus, if you like, an index review at the end of all my reviews in this season. So you can use this page as a link page to some stuff and also maybe to understand why you might maybe want to pick up a copy of this set for yourself, while it’s still available.



EMMANUELLE
Disc 1 
UHD in two cuts with an audio commentary With film historian Elizabeth Purchell (Director's Cut Only)
French Trailer


Disc 2: Blu Ray contents as the above disc but also with the following special features.
A Slightly Scandalous Character – Interview With Actress Marika Green
Producing EMMANUELLE – Interview With Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
Filming EMMANUELLE – Interview With Camera Operator Robert Fraisse
Fabric & Fantasy: Costume As Character Development – Video Essay By Fashion And Costume Historian Elissa Rose
The Channel – Actress Liane Curtis On Her Mother, Dubbing Artist Paulette Rubinstein
    
Interview With Marayat Rollet-Andriane (aka Emmanuelle Arsan) On The Set Of THE SAND PEBBLES (1966)
This is a short, black and white, fairly standard interview with the lady herself doing promotion for the The Sand Pebbles (which I reviewed here). She reveals she has been signed to Fox for a number of pictures and she’s looking forward to making another film soon. Sadly, the only other Fox project she was involved in was an episode of The Big Valley and it was not until her role in Laure (reviewed by me here in another Severin edition) that she had any other experiences on a movie set.

The Joys Of Emmanuelle, Part 1 – Interviews With Star Sylvia Kristel, Director Just Jaeckin And Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
This is the first of a three part documentary directed by Severin co-owner, the great David Gregory and reveals all about the making of the film. How Kristel got involved almost by accident and then went for it because her boyfriend said nobody would be able to see it as, if they were doing the book, it would be uncertifiable. Also, the director of the movie tells about the day they all got arrested and spent a day in a Thai prison for filming in the wrong place at the wrong time. Also, just why he didn’t want the ‘cigar smoking’ scene in the film, feeling that it would turn it into cheap, softcore pornography which is what he didn’t want for the movie. Also, the producer tells a story which I’ve heard a number of times on a number of movies in that, the film was so succesful that there weren’t enough prints to cope with the demand and so motorcyle couriers had to rush back and forth between cinemas, delivering each reel as it became free, from one cinema to another. 

French Trailer
U.S. Trailer

Disc 3: Blu-ray (Special Features)
Signed, Emmanuelle Arsan – Interview With Camille Moreau, Author Of Emmanuelle Arsan: Biography of a Pseudonym
Very much on the same page as me on my best guesses on who Emmanuelle Arsan really was, Arsan biographer Camille Moreau talks about the combined pseuedonym of their collaborative creation and also the use of the name by other writers, by the time they were putting the Emmanuelle magazine out in France (much like, I suspect, Michael Moorcock’s loan to many New Worlds writers of his Eternal Champion variant jerry Cornelius for a time). Not only is Moreau convinced the pseudonym was a collaboration by the wife and the husband (who was in the French resistance during the war, it turns out) but she also gives us her opinion that the rumours of Arsan’s alleged involvement with Steve McQueen while the two were making The Sand Pebbles were just that... a rumour (I’m still unsure myself, now I know what McQueen did directly after finishing that film... if anyone was running from somethign it was surely him at that point?). She also gives vent on her hatred of the use of the famous wicker chair to sell the movie versions as their iconography.

Interview With Director Just Jaeckin For FILMO TV
    
A Hard Look (2000) – TV Documentary By Filmmaker Alex Cox
Well it’s hard not to recommend anything directed by ALex Cox and this critical look at the first Emamanulle film, its impact on popular culture and the various cinematic strands it spawned is no exception. It also takes a very ‘ask the public’ approach to both the films and the sexuality it inspired in its audience. My one criticism is that, at some point, it must have had some captions explaining who the various talking heads were but, unfortunately, this print of the documentary has none. 

Emmanuelle In Ontario – Video Essay On The Canadian Censorship Battle By Journalist Eric Veillette
A short 'does what it says on the tin' documentary listing the banning, then unbanning but severely mutilated screenings of the film in Ontario in Canada. These censors are, like all of them seem to be, completely evil and should probably be destroyed. 



EMMANUELLE 2 (1975)
Disc 4: UHD (Film + Special Features) 
Audio Commentary With Film Historian Elizabeth Purchell And Filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat
International Trailer
U.S. Trailer

Disc 5: Blu-ray (Film + Special Features)
Audio Commentary With Film Historian Elizabeth Purchell And Filmmaker Gillian Wallace Horvat
Audio Interview With Director Francis Giacobetti
Producing EMMANUELLE 2 – Interview With Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
Filming EMMANUELLE 2 – Interview With Cinematographer Robert Fraisse

Mondo Emmanuelle – Ethnography And Softcore With Dr. Jennifer Moorman, Assistant Professor Of Communication And Media Studies
One of the best extras in the set, for my money, Dr. Moorman looks at ethnography and anthropology and talks about what she calls the ‘porno-ethnographic colonising gaze’ of the Emmanuelle films and the way various peoples and cultures have been depicted in American and European cinema... starting off with Nanook Of The North from 1922 and taking us through with films like Mondo Cane in 1962 until she gets to the films featured in this set. This look starts off with The Great Exhibition in London’s Hyde Park in 1851 and the Chicago Worlds Fair from 1893 to demonstrate how the various cultures are represented in a posed way to live up to certain Western expectations.

Filming Report For Swiss TV

The Joys Of Emmanuelle, Part 2 – Interviews With Star Sylvia Kristel And Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
David Gregory’s second featurette covers Emmanuelle 2 and tells how the producer was told by the French board of censors that his film was definitely not pornographic. However, they wanted to make an example of it so they slapped it with an X certificate anyway. In response, the producer held a press conference and told the French people that he would not screen the film in its home country of France until that censorship decision was overturned... and he proceeded to release it to much success internationally instead. It took two years for the censorship decision to be overturned and so the release was delayed for two years in France. 

International Trailer
U.S. Trailer
Radio Spots

Disc 6: Soundtrack CD


GOODBYE EMMANUELLE (1977)
Disc 7: UHD (Film + Special Features)
Audio Commentary With Film Writer/Professor Of Modern Culture And Media Dr. Veronica Fitzpatrick
International Trailer
U.S. Trailer

Disc 8: Blu-ray (Film + Special Features)
Audio Commentary With Film Writer/Professor Of Modern Culture And Media Dr. Veronica Fitzpatrick
 Beyond Emmanuelle: Sylvia Kristel's Life And Career – Interviews With Jeremy Richey, Author Of Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle To Chabrol, And Leila Wimmer, Senior Lecturer In Film Studies At London Metropolitan University

Audio Erotica – The Music Of The Emmanuelle Series With Soundtrack Journalist Daniel Schweiger
A nice little extra. All I’m saying is... as always... if you want somebody to come in and talk about soundtracks, get Daniel Schweiger.


The Joys Of Emmanuelle, Part 3 – Interviews With Star Sylvia Kristel And Producer Yves Rousset-Rouard
The third part of Gregory’s documentary comments on the third movie plus some of the bandwagon films which came out. Also, a lovely moment in one of the interviews where Sylvia Kristel shows us some of her paintings, which she exhibited in her gallery in Amsterdam. Nice to see.

International Trailer
U.S. Trailer
Radio Spots



I, EMMANUELLE (1969) 
The best film in the set I reckon but I just haven't had the time to watch any of the extras... sorry folks.

Disc 9: UHD (Film + Special Features)
Audio Commentary With Film Historian Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Trailer

Disc 10: Blu-ray (Film + Special Features)
Introduction By Kier-La Janisse, Author Of House Of Psychotic Women
Audio Commentary With Film Historian Dr. Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
A Director À La Française – Interview With Director Cesare Canevari
Memoirs Of Emmanuelle – Interview With Actress Erika Blanc
A Man For Emmanuelle – Interview With Actor Sandro Pizzochero
Protagonist And Subject – Video Essay By Filmmaker Carl Elsaesser
Concerning Emmanuelle – Archival Interview With Cesare Canevari
Trailer

Disc 11: Soundtrack CD

 

EMMANUELLE ARSAN AT NUTS4R2

Novels
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge
Laure

Movies
The Sand Pebbles 
I, Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle (1974)
Emmanuelle 2 
Good Bye Emmanuelle
Laure
Emmanuelle (2024)

Saga Erotica - The Emmanuelle Collection
 

Emmanuelle 2 - L’Anti-Vierge

 

Boat Full of Sea Men

Emmanuelle 2
Aka Emmanuelle L’anti-vierge
Directed by Francis Giacobetti
France 1975
Severin Films Blu Ray

Trigger warning: Taboo and illegal practices discussed and sometimes condemned. 

Okay, so I enjoyed Emmanuelle 2 a little more than the first movie in the series (reviewed here). That being said, it doesn’t really play with your expectations much in that it’s more in line with what I’d expect from a soft core erotic movie of the time and, I’m sure this is probably more the film that many audiences were expecting the first film to be.

That being said, for this audience member it certainly set up unrealistic expectations because its proper French title on the print is Emmanuelle L’anti-vierge and claims to be based on that book by Emmanuelle Arsan. However, having already read that book in preparation for watching this movie (you can read my review here), I’d have to say that very little of that book works itself into the ecosystem of the film adaptation. More on that a little later.

The plot, or anti-plot in this case, since it’s almost a reboot of the previous film and it’s practically non-existent, starts with Emmanuelle getting on a boat full of sea men and then travelling on a ship, in a dormitory with a load of tempting women, to be reunited with her diplomat husband Jean, who has been away on business for a couple of months. Then, with their ‘open marriage’, the film becomes a series of sexual encounters between the two of them and various lovers.

Sylvia Kristel reprises her role as a somewhat more intelligent (it seemed to me) iteration of the character (she seems to have lost the naivete of her book incarnation to some extent here) but, this time round, her husband is played by Umberto Orsini… who seems much more likeable.

The film has fantastic cinematography and every location, with slow fluid camerawork which seems to explore the environments in order to ‘find’ the characters, looks absolutely beautiful. Needless to say (or needles to say, if commenting on the ‘sexy acupuncture’ sequence) this also goes for the sex scenes and all the actors come off well in these.

Highlights for me would be that somewhat silly but fleshly decorative acupuncture sequence, a slight scene where Emmanuelle sexes up a tattooed guy in the changing rooms of the local polo club and their sounds are expertly mingled with the sound of the match outside and the panting horses… and a six way massage scene where the two take their friend Anna-Maria (played by Catherine Rivet) to a parlour where they are laid out on three tables and given erotic, body to body massages by three women simultaneously.

And here’s the thing about that last scene I talked about. The saucy masseur who sexes up Anna-Maria is an early appearance by none other than the great Laura Gemser, who would of course begin her long, iconic run as Italy’s Black Emanuelle (with one M only, for copyright reasons) the same year.

One other scene of note is when Emmanuelle is looking through some kind of cine-viewfinder while someone takes her from behind and the BDSM, double penetration, strap-on cartoon she is watching is intercut into the sequence. I love it when live action films present prominent animated scenes as part of their make up (it’s a pretty neat cartoon actually).

Okay… so there are some problems too. A prominent character from the first book, Christopher, makes it into this movie in some scenes from that book, kinda. Anna-Maria is more baffling because she’s treated here as a completely new character, played by a different actress to the pseudo-iteration of her in the first film (who had a slightly changed character name too, if memory serves). So that’s confusing.

And a big long monologue from Jean to that character in the second book is chopped up and interspersed through three scenes, with some overlaps to other characters and versions of those sentiments from the first book. Which is actually a better way of doing it in terms of the pacing within a cinematic context, I would say.

So most of the book is gone, including some really interesting scenes, characters and locales and, I have to wonder why, since the second book seems to have many more opportunities for cinematic opulence which have all been ignored here. Certainly, Emmanuelle Arsan’s philosophy of giving oneself to anyone regardless of your own desire is not adhered to or raised here. The only moment where there is a trace of her and her husband’s outlook on life regarding that particular aspect seems to be that, after making love to three sailors (not at a prince’s party with many sailors, as in the book) in a brothel called the Jade Garden (which, again, is nothing like the secret glass palace which serves a more intense version of it in the book), she at least takes money for her services. So that, at least, is an echo of boring character Mario’s ideas (and, fortunately, he doesn’t make a similar appearance in this movie at all).

As for the vile underage sex theme which somehow subtexts the novel, I’m pleased to say it’s been circumnavigated by this version completely. Emmanuelle and Jean do, indeed, deflower Anna-Maria towards the end of the movie (both together in this version of events) but it’s clearly stated here that she’s 18 years of age… and not five years younger as in the books.

All in all, although really a lot less interesting in terms of ideas found in the book it misleadingly purports to be an adaptation of, I found Emmanuelle - L’antivierge (or Emmanuelle 2 as it is more popularly marketed as, in many countries) to be a much lighter and entertaining picture than the first although, to be fair, it does also lack the substance and gravitas of the original Emmanuelle.

 

EMMANUELLE ARSAN AT NUTS4R2

Novels
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge
Laure

Movies
The Sand Pebbles 
I, Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle (1974)
Emmanuelle 2 
Good Bye Emmanuelle
Laure
Emmanuelle (2024)

Saga Erotica - The Emmanuelle Collection 

Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge - the novel

Arsan Around

Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge
aka Further Experiences of Emmanuelle
aka Emmanuelle 2
By Emmanuelle Arsan 
Granada
ISBN 9780583125741

Trigger warning: Taboo and illegal practices discussed and sometimes condemned. 

“But the borderlines of my love aren’t identical with the frontiers of her flesh.”
Jean, Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge

Originally published in a clandestine edition in 1960, following on from the ‘official publication’ of the first novel in the series from the year before (and reviewed here), Emmanuelle L’Anti Vierge has a few different titles like Further Experiences Of Emmanuelle but, the title I have managed to get hold of is a British Granada paperback tying in with the name of the second movie, Emmanuelle 2. And, of course, the actual authorship of this volume is an enigma as to whether it was Arsan or her husband writing all these novels but, I suspect it was a collaborative arrangement. Much like the declared state of being by the main character and her husband as a combined, erotic creature and, one supposes, based on the real life experiences of the two who, as I mentioned in my review of the first tome, influenced Thai culture and brought about the swinging sex scene there. Although I now suspect something far more sinister was lurking underneath that but… yeah, not sure and, all I have to go on is the subject matter of these fictionalised exploits.

Now, I have to say that I think this sequel is infinitely better than the first novel. You may remember I talked about the ‘stops dead tonal shift’ when an excessively boring character called Mario dominates the last third of the book and pontificates about the duty and intricacies of a self sacrificing erotic pathway for humanity. Well, sad to say he’s back in this one and the first twenty pages or so are more of him and his boring philosophy. However, he happily leaves the narrative for most of the book and his further interruptions are nowhere near as tiresome and, although further elucidation and exploration of his philosophy are much invoked by various characters, it’s all mixed in with the sexual shenanigans one would expect from ‘an erotic novel’ and so the pill is significantly sweetened.

Now the ‘plot’ of the novel is very simple. Emmanuelle continues to explore different lovers of various gender (and multiples thereof) throughout the tale, as part of her ‘free marriage’ to Jean, while further exploring her path extending Mario’s original line of reasoning. So, yeah, it’s very simple, for sure, but there’s a lot of interesting and downright unusual stuff going on too.

For example, a prince gives a party where Emmanuelle is sexed up by many men (and women). Another scene at a fancy dress ball where she takes part in a happily obscene tableaux as one of many dressed as specific birds conjures up satisfyingly surreal images of something like Max Ernst’s Une Semaine De Bonté or the bird mask worn in the 1960s update of Judex. Or how about being anally taken by a buddhist monk who presents a golden dildo to her in return for services rendered by her to his religion.

Another thing which features heavily in a couple of chapters is a huge glass building with thick glass walls that don’t reveal what’s going on inside due to the sheer density of glass. It’s at a hidden location and can only be entered by driving to a secret, underground entrance and being raised into the ground floor of the building. This is basically a high class brothel with very specific rules where Emmanuelle plies her trade, once her character is taken with the idea that to be truly free, one must prostitute oneself to all and sundry. It’s here, in the only truly emotional high point of the novel, that Emmanuelle finally finds her ex lover Bee but, out of conscience, rejects her advances. It’s one of three powerful moments in the novel but the other two are decidedly strange…

And are as follows…

There’s one scene where Emmanuelle is coerced by a Dr. Marais (I couldn’t find any history on whoever his real life counterpart is) who is experimenting with a course of drugs that makes women easy to control and manipulated erotically. The book turns almost into a horror novel at this point but Emmanuelle says, after her first dosage and evening of debauchery, that she will not be back for another shot and… the book makes no mention of it in the following chapters and it’s all forgotten about, it seems. Until… until, much later in the book, a headline from a newspaper is read that Marais is wanted in connection with a police enquiry regarding a dead woman found his flat. I guess it was a lucky escape for Emmanuelle but, it makes almost a weird non-sequitur of a scene, to be honest.

But not as unusual a non-sequitur as the random scene which just appears out of the blue half way through a chapter, where two lovers, fleeing an authority and being chased by dogs, end up in their dishevelled state making love in a ditch. It seems completely divorced from the content and characters in any of the rest of the book and is a bit of a curio. I was expecting the other shoe to drop later on in the novel as it did with the murderous doctor but, no... no clue. The best way, then, to take it is that maybe it’s a metaphor for the pursuit and practice of Emmanuelle and Jean’s erotic principles but, if that is the case (and I’ve no reason to assume my best guess is right here) then maybe it would have been better relocated towards the end of the book when Jean and Emmanuelle are expounding those theories.

Now, I’d hoped the underage sex thing which permeated the sensibilities of the first novel would be happily absent from this second volume and, for the most part they are. But, when they do come they are much more blatant and I really don’t know why this vile spin is allowed to be published now, even in the wake of the court cases revolving around Lady Chatterly’s Lover, I think this kind of morally reprehensible stuff has no place in adult literature. However, Emmanuelle’s treatise at one point (though discarded by the main character soon after) includes ‘younger people‘ in it and, towards the end of the book, Emmanuelle ‘deflowers’ her best friend (before dripping sperm from her own mouth into her friend’s mouth after she is taken by three brothers on a beach). Nothing wrong in that per se but, you will probably at some point remember that her friend is only 13 years old in the previous novel and that this one is set six months later. So you can do the maths on that yourself!

However, this vile ingredient of the books aside, in general I enjoyed Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge quite a lot, with the obvious exceptions. At least now I can watch the second movie with somewhat of a critical eye to adaptation. So that’s next on my list.

 

EMMANUELLE ARSAN AT NUTS4R2

Novels
Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle L’Anti-Vierge
Laure

Movies
The Sand Pebbles 
I, Emmanuelle
Emmanuelle (1974)
Emmanuelle 2 
Good Bye Emmanuelle
Laure
Emmanuelle (2024)

Saga Erotica - The Emmanuelle Collection