The Story of O: The Controversy and the Craft

Sun, 21 Apr 2024 12:00:00 +0000

Some films are best approached through the arguments they caused. Story of O, Just Jaeckin’s 1975 adaptation of the century’s most notorious erotic novel, was banned outright by the British censor and stayed banned for a quarter of a century, denounced by campaigners across the political spectrum, and defended by others as a serious attempt to film an unfilmable book. It is a difficult, uncomfortable picture, and any honest revisit has to hold that discomfort in view rather than smooth it away. Treating it as cinema means examining its craft, its source, and the fierce cultural quarrel it ignited — while keeping a clear eye on what makes it troubling.

Emmanuelle: The Softcore Hit That Played the Multiplex

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 12:00:00 +0000

In 1974 a French sex film opened in a respectable Paris cinema and simply refused to close. Emmanuelle, directed by the former fashion photographer Just Jaeckin, ran for years on the Champs-Élysées, became one of the most commercially successful films France had ever produced, and did something no sex picture had quite managed before: it made the genre chic. Couples went. Critics debated it. The poster — a young woman in a wicker peacock chair — became one of the most reproduced images of the decade. Softcore had put on a silk dressing gown and walked through the front door of the multiplex.

Just Jaeckin - vo.rs

The Story of O: The Controversy and the Craft

Emmanuelle: The Softcore Hit That Played the Multiplex