Comments on: Adieu Emmanuelle

Adieu Emmanuelle

adamvasco — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 10:58:43 -0800

Adieu Emmanuelle
Sylvia Kristel (NSFW) has died aged 60 from Cancer.
In one Parisian theater, Emmanuelle played non-stop for over a decade.
Roger Ebert Kristel actually seems to be present in the film, and as absorbed in its revelations as we are. It's a relief, during a time of cynicism in which sex is supposed to sell anything, to find a skin flick that's a lot better than it probably had to be.
Some Pictures

Thank you for making one young man´s life even more enjoyable. .

By: Ber

Ber — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:05:41 -0800

By: cazoo

cazoo — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:07:37 -0800

By: dr_dank

dr_dank — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:08:23 -0800

It was a dark day in my house when my parents dropped Cinemax. So long and thanks for all the boners. .

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:09:10 -0800

By: zombieflanders

zombieflanders — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:11:06 -0800

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:16:27 -0800

By: e1c

e1c — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:17:44 -0800

Careful at work, the first link has boobs a-poppin'.

By: Cosine

Cosine — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:20:46 -0800

The very rural, extremely small town I grew up in only had 2 channels (this was the 80's, when my city cousins had a hundred) until I was 13 when a cooky old tech-wiz in the next town literally built a pirate tv broadcast tower and began beaming 3 more channels (usually HBO, Cinemax and the USA Network though he switched it up from time to time) out over a 10-15 mile radius. On that day I received a sweaty, urgent call from my best friend urging me to go to the basement and turn to the channel 13, I did, and saw... you guessed it... Emmanuelle, I can't think of another childhood moment that pushed me further into adulthood. .

By: MartinWisse

MartinWisse — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:23:32 -0800

Careful at work, the first link has boobs a-poppin'. Ha. The main Dutch news programme wasn't shy about showing Sylvia Kristel au naturelle just now.

By: mosk

mosk — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:30:58 -0800

>Ha. The main Dutch news programme wasn't shy about showing Sylvia Kristel au naturelle just now. Yeah, well, enjoy your Libertine ways, Europe. in America, we must remain ever vigilant, for even the brief sight of a woman's bare nipple could bring down the entire fabric of our society. I'm ~~leering~~ looking indirectly at you, Janet Jackson... . for Sylvia Kristel.

By: mrbill

mrbill — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:39:18 -0800

By: Capt. Renault

Capt. Renault — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:41:58 -0800

For half of Montreal, Friday nights at 12:30 will never be the same... Safe journey, Ms. Kristel. I hope you have an easier go of things than you did down here.

By: mkultra

mkultra — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:51:18 -0800

. Emmanuelle was a well-worn, well-stashed Betamax cassette in my pubescent childhood.

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:54:40 -0800

By: Pendragon

Pendragon — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 11:55:22 -0800

By: digitalprimate

digitalprimate — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:05:19 -0800

My wife and I actually ran into her one evening when we lived in de Jordaan back in the 1990s. As in, literally ran into her. It was very odd for me how ordinary this was, that here was this icon from my youth who was simply a common celebrity for my wife, hanging out in the same 'hood. I thought "hmm, well that was unusually usual." It's a cliche, but I'll say it anyway: she was still radiant. .

By: infini

infini — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:36:50 -0800

By: Elizabeth the Thirteenth

Elizabeth the Thirteenth — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:43:29 -0800

By: Elizabeth the Thirteenth

Elizabeth the Thirteenth — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 12:52:44 -0800

And now, I have to yell loudly at the Telegraph: NO!! Ian McShane is NOT best known as "the cavalier antiques dealer Lovejoy", and hasn't been for a long time. Who's writing your bylines, dammit?? As you were... RIP, you lekker ding you.

By: IAmBroom

IAmBroom — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:07:14 -0800

adamvasco: Roger Ebert Kristel actually seems to be present in the film, and as absorbed in its revelations as we are. It's a relief, during a time of cynicism in which sex is supposed to sell anything, to find a skin flick that's a lot better than it probably had to be.

Read that as, "Roger Ebert actually seems to be present in the film, and as absorbed in its revelations as we are." VERY different sentence, that.

By: steambadger

steambadger — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:09:42 -0800

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:33:53 -0800

By: Blue Meanie

Blue Meanie — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:39:46 -0800

(.) (.)

By: afx237vi

afx237vi — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:36:05 -0800

Think I probably saw Emmanuelle for the first time when I was 13 or 14, back when Sky TV was still analogue and you could pick up German channels like RTL2 and Vox. As soon as 10pm came, it was pretty much wall-to-wall nudity. We didn't have the internet in those days, so softcore porno was like manna from heaven for a horny teenage boy. They had the American stuff like all those crappy Shannon Tweed movies, with the big hair, shoulderpads and fake boobs, but the European stuff was way more interesting to me, and the best of all were the Emmanuelle films. They were badly dubbed in German, I had no clue what was going, but holy crap, Sylvia Kristel was HOT. That scene in the first film with Christine Boisson on the wicker chairs blew my mind. About a year ago, I watched the first two films again, this time with subtitles. The first one is pretty bad, and much sleazier than I remembered (ugh... rape scenes are not sexy), but the second one (Emmanuelle L'antivierge) is surprisingly good. It's like Antonioni made a porn film. Ennui and eroticism combined with tremendous cinematography. No kidding.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:37:57 -0800

Read that as, "Roger Ebert actually seems to be present in the film, and as absorbed in its revelations as we are." More like, "Roger Ebert wishes he were present in the film..." Jokes aside, the films are such markers of the time they were made. They are pretty terrible as both erotica and film, and yet I kind of like them anyway.

By: stoneandstar

stoneandstar — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:39:12 -0800

From the Emmanuelle wiki: "Columbia Pictures only agreed to distribute it after noting that most of the film's audience in French cinemas were women. The studio reasoned that female interest meant Emmanuelle could not be regarded as mere pornography." Heh. Thank you, Sylvia Kristel.

By: Forktine

Forktine — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:40:37 -0800

(ugh... rape scenes are not sexy) I saw Emanuelle Around the World a little while back, and I started counting the rape scenes. It was either five or seven, I don't remember, but whatever the exact number, it was a very large proportion of the total sex scenes. Ugh indeed.

By: lord_wolf

lord_wolf — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:52:41 -0800

Private Lessons created my #1 fantasy as a younger man: to be seduced by an older, "knowledgeable" woman who spoke with an accent. Thanks for the memories, Ms. Kristel. .

By: chavenet

chavenet — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:55:18 -0800

I tried to compose an ascii wicker chair for this solemn moment, but failed miserably. Here's one, which for some inexplicable reason I couldn't just cut and paste into the comment frame. For Sylvia: .

By: bashos_frog

bashos_frog — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 14:59:14 -0800

. Dear Sylvia, you made working at the video rental place that much more bearable. Thanks.

By: acb

acb — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 15:42:44 -0800

By: vibrotronica

vibrotronica — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 16:32:04 -0800

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:06:37 -0800

By: stannate

stannate — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:07:41 -0800

Robert Fripp's Diary for 8th January, 1999:

18.56 This evening "Emmanuelle" is on Channel 5. All the sex scenes have pirated extracts from "Larks' Tongues II" and, eventually, I'll discover on my PRS statements a puny sum allocated to my account. This, as part of the out-of-court settlement in 1977/8.

You can make the comparison for yourself. An additional entry from 2006 discusses the unlikely King Crimson/Emmanuelle connection.

By: stannate

stannate — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:09:55 -0800

After having said the above... .

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:13:28 -0800

Forktine: "I saw Emanuelle Around the World a little while back, and I started counting the rape scenes. It was either five or seven, I don't remember, but whatever the exact number, it was a very large proportion of the total sex scenes. Ugh indeed." Jesus. From that wiki link: "also known as The Degradation of Emanuelle and Emanuelle Versus Violence to Women."

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:35:12 -0800

My entire (tiny, northern BC) town pirated and rebroadcast a few satellite TV channels back in the mid to late 70s. There was no cable or anything like that at the time (let alone internet, of course), and the only broadcast TV we could get otherwise were CTV and CBC. It was a simpler age. I remember Emmanuelle very clearly, on the rabbit-eared 12-inch black and white TV I was lucky enough to have in my bedroom upstairs, late at night, after my parents had gone to sleep. I'll draw the veil of modesty over any further details, but suffice to say that Sylvia Kristel played a pretty active role in my sexual awakening.

By: Justinian

Justinian — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 18:50:56 -0800

Oh wow, the memories. . Now I'll be in my bunk...

By: bardic

bardic — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 19:27:00 -0800

She was absolutely gorgeous. .

By: Grangousier

Grangousier — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 04:08:10 -0800

Actually, Larks' Tongues in Aspic Part II is ripped off twice in the Emmanuelle soundtrack - the bit quoted above is the charmingly-titled Rape Sequence, but there's also a slower sequence which turns up on the soundtrack as Emmanuelle Theme (Instrumental-Variation) (as opposed to Emmanuelle Theme, Emmanuelle Theme (Instrumental) and Emmanuelle Theme (Up Tempo Instrumental) which are completely different pieces of music), which is used for all the consensual sex. It's fairly left-field of Pierre Bachelet to associate soft-focus shagging with a 1972 King Crimson instrumental, I think. I'd assumed there was something 50 Shades of Grey-style fantasy about the general rapiness and Mario the geriatric shagmeister. I'm loathe to prescribe exactly whose fantasies they might be. It's all a bit French in my opinion.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:14:54 -0800

"I saw Emanuelle Around the World a little while back, and I started counting the rape scenes. It was either five or seven, I don't remember, but whatever the exact number, it was a very large proportion of the total sex scenes. Ugh indeed." Aww, man, that was my intro to the Emmanuelle series, and it always sucks to realize things you liked as an adolescent don't hold up to adult sensibilities.

By: Minus215Cee

Minus215Cee — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 11:23:23 -0800