Sylvia Kristel: From Emmanuelle to Chabrol

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Her Emmanuelle typecasting image followed her to the United States, where she played Nicole Mallow, a maid who seduces a teenaged boy in the sex comedy Private Lessons (1981). [9] Another mainstream American film appearance was a brief comic turn in the Get Smart revival film The Nude Bomb in 1980. It was important to me to draw comparisons to the silent cinema you mentioned, as Sylvia shared so much in common with some of these earliest cinematic trailblazers. Of all of her directors, I think Claude Chabrol understood these qualities the best. JR: That connection to Silent film, and early talkies, is one of the main aspects about Sylvia’s work that draws me in. As her first director Pim de la Parra notes in his interview in my book, Sylvia was a real film scholar. She adored Dietrich and Garbo especially and their influence really shows in her great performances in Alice, La Marge and even Emmanuelle 2 (which feels to me like what a Dietrich/Von Sternberg collaboration would have been like in the seventies). SOM: You write a lot about her physicality, and you connect it early on to dance. I loved the connection you made with silent film actresses, and how they had to communicate everything with their bodies. Could you talk a little bit more about that in terms of Sylvia’s approach?

Well, we went in with a phoney script called something like Memories of the Heart, and filmed most of the sex scenes in secure locations. However we did get caught once. Myself and another woman were being filmed nude under a waterfall and the police turned up. We were thrown in jail for a night while the producers sorted everything out.

SOM: There is a moment where you describe the reaction to one of her roles, in Because of the Cats, where she had to play a “blonde bombshell”, and it wasn’t the right fit for her. She loved Brigitte Bardot, but the Bardot “thing” wasn’t her “thing”. How did Sylvia think about her own persona onscreen? Or did she?

My publisher, Cult Epics’ Nico B., is Dutch as well and he was able to offer up some vital suggestions and tips for the chapters in the book that cover her Dutch films. Nico was extremely helpful and supportive in general so I will always be heavily grateful and in debt.

Emmanuelle. Le magazine du plaisir.n°17- 7 Questions A Sylvia Kristel L'anto-Vierge - Kate Millet Mariee, Les Bienne Et Feministe - Max-Pol Fouchet L'art Erotique Au Nepal The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer. Neuer Film-Kurier Nr. 201. - Emanuela 77 (Darsteller: Sylvia Kristel, Joe Dallesandro, .) März-Folge. Because of the Cats” walks a real tightrope throughout its ninety-eight-minute running time. While its primary function is as a crime thriller, the film also has an evident desire to appeal to a more youthful audience without making fun of them, particularly difficult for the post-1968 film market. Rademakers keeps the film’s portrayal of the young gang as grounded as possible. It never slips into the full-blown caricature it might have in the hands of a less skilled director, with no small amount of the credit going to Claus’ original script as well.

Speaking of Huppert, probably the great role that I would have most liked to have seen Sylvia in was in Pialat’s masterful LouLou. It would have given Sylvia another opportunity to work again with the great Gerard Depardieu (who she had held her own with in the marvelous Rene the Cane) and I think would have completely reshaped her career for the eighties.Emmanuelle 4 (1984), starring Kristel and new Emmanuelle Mia Nygren, had hardcore scenes shot, but they were never used. These scenes, which did not involve the main actors, were included in television versions and turned up as extras on European DVD editions of Emmanuelle 4 and in a version called "Emmanuelle 4X" on a VHS in France in the 1980s. So, while I think it’s okay to look at missed roles in everything from King Kong to Body Heat to Once Upon a Time in America as regrettable, ultimately the great films she made make up for those. Ironically, Sylvia’s dismissal of several plum parts helped give rise to both Adjani and Isabelle Huppert.