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
 

Goodbye Emmanuelle

The Goodbye Gal

Goodbye Emmanuelle
aka Emmanuelle 3
Directed by François Leterrier
France 1976
Severin Films Blu Ray

Warning: Some end of movie spoilers here.

Goodbye Emmanuelle is a bit of an outlier in terms of the original Emmanuelle trilogy (if you choose to group them like that… and many people do). Perhaps the giveaway is in the opening credits where it states it’s based on the character Emmanuelle rather than actually taking any of Emmanuelle Arsan’s books as a source inspiration. That would certainly explain a couple of things.

Two big things which make this stick out like a sore thumb, plus one aside about the trilogy of films’ ‘supposed’ status of softcore pornography (they’re not but then I’m loathe to pigeonhole anything under the ridiculous  label ‘art film’ either). 

One is... it’s structured like a more mainstream movie, which I’ll expand on in just a second and the other is that, despite not being based on one of Arsan’s novels, it actually, for the first third of the film, upholds the original writer and her husband’s ideologies of an open marriage with no jealousy. More so, I think, than the first two movies did. However, the rest of the movie does go on to completely betray that open spirit, it seems to me and, I suspect Arsan herself would not have been happy with the direction this movie takes.

Once again, Emmanuelle is played both sensitively and intelligently as a somewhat more naive character, it seemed to me, by the great Sylvia Kristel. And Umberto Orsini returns from the previous film as her husband Jean.

Okay, so the film actually has a storyline of sorts, dealing with Emmanuelle’s pursuit of a film director, played by Jean-Pierre Bouvierre (Kristel’s soon to be real life romantic partner Ian McShane failed the audition for this part because he couldn’t speak fluent French, it would seem), who is scouting locations in her neighbourhood. When they get it on, leading to a temporary rejection of her by this new guy, Jean becomes uncharacteristically jealous and it all ultimately leads to he and Emmanuelle splitting up at the end and her leaving the country, in pursuit of this new guy. Which, as I said, completely fails the tenets of both her characters’ and the original author’s (or authors’, depending on what you believe) philosophies on love and eroticism.

Now, the thing about the structure of the movie is that, while it has a few erotic episodes… with even less sex than the previous instalments… it’s not as episodic in feel to the previous two movies, nor indeed, the novels those movies purported to be adapting. So it’s not as loose and even the acting is more ensemble in nature than those previous two (almost as if someone had asked Robert Altman to direct an Emmanuelle movie).

There’s even a metaphor at one point, when an old man tells Emmanuelle and her latest lover a story about his wife getting eaten in front of him by a shark. It turns out not to be true and a story the guy tells because he can’t face the fact his wife ran off with another guy but, I think by this point in the film it’s more a comment of the rocky marriage of Emmanuelle and Jean in a metaphorical way, more than anything else.

The sex scenes are much more expressionistic impressions than even the previous two (which were similar but not quite as brief as these ones) but they do at least punctuate the film at regular intervals as though one of the producers, who was about to become mayor (or much higher I believe) wanted to maintain the impression that it’s still an erotic movie of sorts, without wanting to offend his voters.

Another thing is that the ensemble scenes and the noisy ‘gathering’ scenes (where Kristel performs a cute but overly long dance) have the effect of imbuing the long, quieter sequences with the impression of it being a much more reflective film than it, perhaps, actually is.

Also... different times. When Emmanuelle beds her maid at the start of the film (with her husband arriving home and joining in half way through), she has to make up a ridiculous story for her to tell the woman’s waiting husband because of his jealousy. Later on, the same housemaid has a big black eye because her husband caught her sitting on another man’s lap. But nothing in the dialogue or acting seems to express that he was wrong to hit his wife and… yeah.. like I said, different times.

The saving grace of the film (and that’s not Serge Gainsbourg’s score and his dodgy title song) is the absolutely beautiful cinematography, which matches the previous movie for sheer beauty… and of course, a fair few shots of the beautiful body of the lead actress… she seems to be very photogenic, for sure. But that’s about it for me and the movie Goodbye Emmanuelle. The film ends with a long held note of melancholy and its sad to see Sylvia’s ‘almost swan song’ - she would return briefly for the fourth to have her appearance somehow magically altered at the start by plastic surgery into a much younger actress* - in the role see her go out on such a sad note, almost of betrayal (I’m siding with Jean in this one) but there it is. It’s still an enjoyable watch though and in some ways does still feel like it belongs with the previous two, to an extent.

* I’m not quite ready to open the can of worms of Sylvia returning to the TV movies of Emmanuelle decades later... but I have looked up their availability, for sure.

 

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

Arsan About

Emmanuelle
Directed by Just Jaeckin
France 1974 
Severin Films Blu Ray

Trigger warning: Taboo and illegal practices discussed and condemned. 

The 1974 film adaptation of Emmanuelle was a big thing when it came out back in 1974, even to a young six year old like myself, who had already been working as a child model for the last five years. I remember, whenever I went down into London to do a shoot, the posters for the film were on display in places like the tube stations in London... not to mention the book being sold in ‘most reputable book shops’. The two posters I specifically remember were the very clever drawing of the snake symbolising temptation, unwrapping its coils from around an apple shape which turned out to be a lady’s derriere plus, of course, the famous Wicker Chair shot of lead actress Sylvia Kristel, which I think was also used in various newspapers and magazines like Time Out, to sell the film. 

And this is actually, kind of, a good adaptation of the book Emmanuelle (which I reviewed just here) but with scenes rearranged a little and some characters either cut out or, in one case, given a bit of a resolution. There is also a contentious addition which I’ll talk about too... which puzzles me a little, both in terms of what the heck it’s doing here and also why the lead actress was pressured into doing it.

First of all... the film is beautifully shot and edited. Sweeping views with establishing shots which sometimes have the actors walking into the back of the shot (which is a good idea and really works) and even some beautiful, pace changing, hand held camera movements in a couple of scenes which really add to the atmosphere of the story. Such as when a houseboy chases one of the maids around the grounds of Emmanuelle and Jean’s house. Incidentally, her husband Jean is played here by Daniel Sarky but, the way the character is written here is with a more emotional viewpoint... so there are times when he feels the absence of Emmanuelle when she’s off galavanting. Which, I won’t lie, detracts from the spirit of the novel a little bit.

And it’s rather well acted too, particularly by Sylvia Kristel, who gives a very naturalistic performance. It’s quite a striking turn in a way because, even from the opening scenes where she gets up and prepares her breakfast (in a not dissimilar sequence in intent to the opening of the movie version of The IPCRESS File, reviewed here, where Michael Caine goes through a similar preparatory routine), she uses her facial expressions and body language in a very considered performance but, at the same time, it’s a performance which underlines somewhat the naivete of the character... so, yeah, I can immediately see why audiences were drawn to Kristel’s rising star... not in terms of her looks (yeah, she looks fine, obviously) but more from the way her screen presence takes over.  

I’m not going to go through the whole story because it’s almost exactly the same as the book which I reviewed on the link earlier... Emmanuelle joining her husband in Thailand and having sexual encounters with various men and women... but there are differences. 

For example, her infatuation with the character of Bee is expanded and handled in a much more satisfying way... showing the love the two women share and ending with Bee’s ultimate rejection here... whereas in the novel she just kind of quickly drifted out of the narrative in a non-commital way.  And there are things like the relocation of the opening plane sex sequences from the book, replaced to a flashback sequence later in the movie (and with no children watching in this version, thank goodness).

Now then... the intensely boring scenes with Mario, played here by Alain Cuny, are downsized and made less boring by the way it’s presented in different locations in a kind of montage but... there’s a scene here where he takes Emmanuelle to be gang raped and, while the philosophy behind the character does support this kind of act in the book (and I was surprised something like this never happened in the book itself), it’s shown in a brutal way but with absolutely no consequences and change in the relationship between Emmanuelle and Mario after. And, yeah, I did think it was kind of going against the spirit of the novel here, to be sure. 

Now here’s a thing about that last point... Kristel did not want to do that scene but the director was insistent because it was in the book. Which makes me wonder if a) Kristel had actually read the book or b) if there’s a more expanded version of the book I’ve not read because, honestly, I finished the book two days before I watched the movie and I don’t remember this scene in there. 

Now then, the obvious  problem of underage sex which bizarrely permeates the book is not actually present in the film... except it is. Basically, if you know the book then you kind of know what’s going on in certain scenes and, if you’ve not read the book, no disclosures about the ages of certain characters are given. For instance, Emmanuelle’s masturbatory and dominant friend Marie-Ange was played here by Christine Boisson, who shot this film when she was just seventeen and, though she looks very young in the movie, there’s nothing given away here vocally that the character is supposed to be 13 years old. It’s all very iffy and I was torn between my love of a faithful adaptation and the fact that, nobody wants to see underage sex in anything thank you very much. So that material is not nearly as insidious in its inclusion as it was in Emmanuelle Arsan’s original book but, if you know the book then it’s kinda there if you want it. And if you want it then there’s probably something wrong with you, to be honest. 

This beautiful transfer of the film I watched is part of Severin’s wonderful Saga Erotica - The Emmanuelle Collection, which includes both the slightly shorter Director’s Cut and also the original release version, which is what I watched, that includes the small sequence the director didn’t want in of the Thai lady using her vagina to puff away on a cigarette as part of her nightclub act. And that’s me just about done with the 1974 adaptation of Emmanuelle but... I’m certainly not done with the character and her various, spelling challenged spin offs yet. See you back here tomorrow, I hope.

 

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