All language subtitles for 07. The Dark Side of Porn Hunting Emmanuelle (eng)

This is a story of how a single
low budget movie managed to

cause a sexual revolution.

How it created a multi billion
dollar franchise with more

sequels than any other movie,

and how it transformed an
unknown twenty one year old

girl into a global sex icon.

Emmanuel premiered in the
summer of nineteen seventy four

in Paris and was
an instant success.

Although it was a simple story
of a woman's discovery of her

own sexuality, it changed
the sexual attitudes

of millions of people.

For others, it was pure poison.

I think Emmanuel was
a bad thing for women.

It was a fantasy of
dysfunctional men.

It will always be a fantasy
of dysfunctional men.

For its star, it was a journey that
would culminate in her downfall.

I knew that if I didn't get her
back to Europe, she would die.

She would absolutely die.

An estimated three hundred
million people have seen

Emmanuel around the world.

By the late nineteen seventies,

Emmanuel had become a global
brand competing with Coca Cola.

Today, the brand has generated
over eighty sequels and turned over

an estimated five
billion dollars.

Why was the movie so successful?

The critics said it didn't
even have a storyline.

One critic even compared
the film to a long dreamy

advertisement for menthol
vaginal deodorant.

But still people talked about
the film more than about the

Vietnam War, the Cold
War, Yom Kippur War,

all put together.

To understand the phenomenon,

we tried to go back in time
to the original inspiration,

to what the early seventies
were really about.

A lot of things came
together in the seventies.

Paulie Toynbee was a figurehead
for the feminist movement and

sat on the British government's
censorship committee when

Emmanuelle was released.

First of all, you had a whole young
generation that had got money,

money to be free
to buy motorbikes,

to go to other places, to be
free of their parents' houses.

And with freedom
came, inevitably,

a measure of sexual liberation.

It was okay to have
sex without marriage.

You had birth control.
You did not have disease.

There was a very important
element was that,

all of a sudden
the pill appeared.

No doubt that was a
huge breakthrough.

For a brief time,

it looked as if you could
have pleasure without

responsibility, sex
without consequences.

They felt in power.
They're like men.

We want our own revolution.
It's not men's revolution.

It's a women's revolution.

It's about us, ourselves, our
bodies, our children, our sex lives.

Open Marriage came out
by the O'Neills, a major,

major book telling everybody
that they could engage in

multiple partners.

They should engage.

Mhmm.

We had swinging and
wife swapping that hit.

Sex began to be sung about more
explicitly, talked about, thought about.

Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.

Sex. Sex. Sex.

Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.
Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex. Sex.

Sexualization of
absolutely everything.

Sex was everywhere,
but rarely on

absolutely everything.

Sex was everywhere, but
rarely on the movie screen,

unless that movie happened to be x
rated in the theater in a back alley.

Bernardo Bertolucci's last
tango in Paris broke the rule.

There was a very strong
potential in these

type of movies because we had the
example with Last Tango in Paris.

We decided upfront, we
can't get, Bertolucci,

so we have to have a
intellectual alibi.

That's why the idea of a
book The novel, Emmanuel,

was published and distributed
clandestinely in France in

nineteen fifty seven.

The story is supposedly an
autobiography of the author,

Emmanuelle Arson, a French
woman of Thai origin.

In the book, she explores
her sexuality with multiple

partners, has sex with her
husband's male and female friends,

and is guided through random
sexual errands by her mentor.

But despite all of this,

she stays loyal to her
consenting husband.

In this way, the book establishes
the prototype of the so called

liberated woman.

I read the Emmanuel. I said,
my goodness. What can I do?

What what can I do
with a book like that?

And he phoned me in the night.

He said, if it's
impossible, I can do it.

So we decide to do something
soft and beautiful with a nice

story with a very famous book.

And after that, we decide
to find, the actress.

But finding the right actress turned
out to be much more challenging.

For, the character Emmanuel,

you need absolutely

a beautiful woman, but she
has to be also very pure.

And, these are very,
very rare qualities.

So just organize,

a few castings in
Roma, in Paris.

Casting process was
suddenly nightmare.

We which kind of thing
we won't do. Erotizis?

No way. Erotizis was
something forbidden.

Impossible to find somebody.

And she has to look very
distinguished because she will

be doing a lot of
sexual things in a film.

The idea was to find
something pure, not vulgar.

Never, never should she look like
a whore because she's not a whore.

She's a liberated woman.

The filmmakers realized they
were not looking for an actress.

They were looking for an actual
living replica of the liberated woman.

What they didn't know was that
actually finding her would

upset the balance of feminism.

The search for the liberated
woman to star in the first ever

soft erotic movie,
Emmanuel was on.

But did she even exist?

The casting was going
on for a number of

months and

no Emmanuel in sight.

So one day we'll
put one tape on,

the guy who was operating
the machine rewind it and

at the beginning of the tape,

there was a little

skinny girl with short hair.

Jean Louis, all of a sudden,
as he had written the script,

he said stop, stop.

This is Emmanuel, come
back. She was beautiful.

She was sensuous at the same
time as a little bit distant.

She had all the qualities
that were required.

So we called Amsterdam, and

they didn't know
who that girl was.

It was like a real
search because

they had to find her.

She was a complete
stranger, unglamorous,

a convent educated twenty
one year old Dutch girl,

but she had elegance,
purity, innocence.

In nineteen seventy two,
she was still a secretary,

but she longed to
be something more.

I met with Juste, and, I
did so there was a camera.

And since she told me
there was nudity involved,

I had dressed I had dressed
with spaghetti tires,

or how do you call it?

And, this one
movement, I think I

didn't even have to touch it.

I could do it over
the shoulder. What?

The entire dress
fell to the waist,

And I just went on talking,

like where I lived and the
hobbies and why I could do this

film and da da da da.

And just said, I want to do
some nude photography with you.

I said, that's fine.
And it was it was fun.

So he could see that I would have
no problems with with nudity.

I I I don't know.

I knew that was that was that
was that was that was a girl.

She was the perfect woman.

She was the perfect Emmanuel,

and we knew that we were now going
to be able to shoot the patron.

All of the sudden,

that was given, yeah,
the green light.

I signed a contract,

and then we were off.

We Luca and I flew to Paris,

and then from Paris to

Frankfurt,

and

then,

off

to

Thailand.

She went to do it as a lark
because she wanted to see

Bangkok, and she
thought this would be a

good way to see it.

Nobody involved with that
movie knew what they had.

It was really
lightning in a bottle.

The crew were finally
ready to shoot,

but shooting an erotic movie in nineteen
seventies Thailand was no picnic,

especially when the director
didn't even have a script.

The production, of course,

was not very easy because
it's not very easy to shoot in

Thailand.

It was the first time
just Joaquin was,

directing a feature length film.

I I never did a feature film.

If Rousseau never did
Sylvia was his first film.

We just go there with a
book, we had to write.

And normally, the script
is the bible, you know,

for a director, but he's just,

no.

He he prefer to to work
in a in a very, yeah,

relaxed circumstances and
with ideas that that came

up, you know, on the spot.

You have a idea. Okay. Do it.

We did the decoration ourselves.

We do the light ourselves.
We do everything ourselves.

Instead of hiring a
typical filmmaker,

they hired Jeush Khan, who
came out of this exquisite

fashion photography,

soft lenses.

He knew how to shoot her.

I liked the scenes
with, with Marika Green,

and, we had a good
time, off the set also.

She was a bit standoffish
in the beginning,

but later there's this nice moment
when they go with this horse,

in the field, and there's
the scene with the little,

hat or this cap, where
it is playful and tender.

Those that is, what I like
best, which is also it shows,

really the purity, the
innocence of the girl.

The filmmakers wanted to
push the envelope of what was

allowed on screen.

Certain scenes were custom
manufactured as marketing

devices to generate
gossip and even shock,

such as the rape scene.

The rape scene was very easy
to understand why it was if it

could because Yes.

Because I couldn't see,

why how a rape could
be pleasurable.

It's terrifying. You
you join from a story.

You join from a acting scene
to something real in one end.

These two Thai people
were not, actors.

I really had to fight for
my life there. They were rough.

It seems that they enjoyed
also what they were doing.

And I kept my underwear on
because I knew otherwise,

things go absolutely bizarre.

And those guys tried to
touch her with a catastrophe.

I think it was
surely a very tough

thing to do, but she did it.

Oh, I really had no choice.

But thank God, he's a he's
a director who, uses, like,

more than one camera, so you
don't have to do the scene,

like, sixteen times in
different positions.

I mean, I came out of
that scene black and blue.

So, yeah.

The infamous lesbian love scene was
also manufactured to generate gossip.

Oh, that's right.

The masturbation scene is
with Christine Boisson.

When I read it in the script,
I said, like, oh, god.

That's the truth.

How are you gonna film this?
It was a very good idea.

He found this, this magazine with Paul
Newman on the on the spread, and he,

laid it down on the knee
of, Christine Boisson.

She took the lead,
and then I followed,

and then we kind of
dream dreamt away,

and then we got bang, the
camera went to the clouds,

I think.

And, I remember,

by now they had a translator
when it was necessary, you know.

And this and I asked this man,

do you have a smoke?

And he came back with something
that looked like a cigarette.

I thought, well, maybe it's
a hand roll or something.

And it took a couple
of puffs, you know.

It's the first time that
I I had joined apparently,

and I didn't know what's
happened what was happening.

And I said to just,
I see you double,

and I had laugh kicks,
and I said, oh my God,

who gave her this shit?

And then, well, we couldn't we
couldn't work for the rest of the day.

Things were not very, very easy.

And, after a while, we were

discovered as making
these, this, film,

and it became even
more difficult.

The crew had no license
to shoot in Thailand,

something that would eventually
prove to be problematic.

Everything went alright until
Marika Green and I stood naked

under a waterfall.

And we shot just
under a monastery.

And this was seen by some monk.

He said it was a holy waterfall.

The guy arrived, take the tail and
eat and say, my, that's my land.

That's my land.

Don't forget we arrived in
Thailand without any permission.

Then we got arrested, all
of us in a police place.

The cameraman took out the
magazine, put a new one.

He said cannot prove anything.

He had a phony script with him,

and it nothing to do with
Emmanuel or We said to them

that we came here to do a
a documentary of flowers.

But unfortunately,

he didn't remember the title
of the the fake script.

He didn't remember anything.

So I said, like, why don't I
just ask them how much they

want, how much money?

He said, if you don't shut up,

you'll be in jail
for even longer.

Okay. Okay.

I start to be crazy
or anything like that.

I can be in jail
for a long time.

But luckily enough, the Yves
Roux had was acquainted with

The cousin of the king.

And when I met him, he said,

I want to help you to be
involved with your production.

I took the next flight
to Bangkok to see again

the prince plan.

He said, well, no problem.

Come back with all your team
and And this man had studios in

Bangkok so we could proceed
with the film, in the studios.

And we send rushes to to Paris,
and they never come back.

By the time the crew were
shipped back to France,

the movie was far from finished.

So, of course, when,
we came back, to Paris,

almost kicked out of
Thailand, we were missing,

quite a few sequences.

I think that's the
film really existed,

started to take shape
in the cutting room.

We really put into the film
all the sequences, like,

for instance, the
sequence, of the little,

Thai girl who smokes
with her pussy.

This controversial sequence
caused conflict between the

director and the producer.

It later became the most
talked about scene in the film.

It was an idea of Yves
Voucheroir, by the way,

to put that in the picture.

Yves, in one hand,

want more to do a
pornographic film that I did.

I was really disappointed
when I I I saw

the editing, the first edit
editing of the picture.

If Sylvia was involved
with that scene,

if the guy or the husband,

everything was involved
with that scene,

perhaps I was against,
I refused to shoot it.

He shoot it himself.

So I helped just for editing,
you know, I get something.

I This was something like,

the butter sequence in
Last Tango in Paris.

It was a boring picture because
it was a film where people came

just to see that sequence.

And once the butter sequence
was over, you could hear the,

seats go pop pop pop pop.

And a lot of friends
told me long years after,

I love your film. Why did
you put that fucking thing?

You need to have a table
conversation about a picture to

make it a huge success.

I said, I don't did, but I
cannot go out of the theater.

I said, that's not me. I
put that thing in the film.

That's you.

I wanted to be more ambitious.

The movie was finally patched
together in the editing room,

but the filmmakers still faced a major
hurdle before getting it released.

I didn't expect it
to be, such a huge,

success.

Really, Hugo even said like, oh,

this film is never going to
reach the theaters because it

will be banned, barred
from censorship.

And, of course, in France,

they had trouble
with the censorship.

There were rumors that,

the film would be,
might be banned.

Pompidou was

very sick at that time.

So nobody wanted to
take the responsibility.

Emmanuel,

photograph

In those days, the political
situation of movies

is that you can't show anything.

And de Gaulle was the
president of France.

His wife, Yvonne,
was, very religious.

I send a telegram
to the minister.

I say, well,

we we want to release, in June.

And, you know, everybody was

hesitating, you know,

because It was really going one
step further than all the films.

Well, it was a time when there was a lot
of really wild stuff going on anyway.

But on the artistic fringes,

so we used to go to
lots of extraordinary things at the

Institute for Contemporary Art.

Shows with people no clothes on,

exotic poetry events
all done in the nude,

lots of very sexy stuff around.

To be, in favor of freedom doesn't
mean you have to approve of

everything within it.

It doesn't mean you want to
censor everything you don't like.

That's what tolerance is about.

Upwards of twenty five thousand
people demonstrated with songs

and prayers for love,
purity, and family life.

And the crowd heard a call
for the reform of censorship laws.

It was much wilder
stuff than Emmanuel.

But because it was kind of
mainstream, people felt it was,

breaking bound new boundaries.

Of course,

the film finally, got
through censorship.

I guess he had to wait until
there was a change of government.

On April second nineteen
seventy four, Pompidou died,

and people lined up
to pay their respects.

Three months later,

a similar queue formed in
front of the triumph cinema.

I peeped my head through the,

at the corner of the Champs
Elysees, and all of a sudden,

I saw there is a crowd.

It was huge

in front of the
theater, but a huge one.

So I ran the lobby
of the theater,

and I said to the
cashier, what's going on?

And she said, oh, everything
is fine. We're almost full.

So I ran back to the
restaurant and I knew that we

had a success on our hands.

More than three million
admission in Paris.

This is the biggest grossing for
any film in any city in the world.

I was already amazed that the
film came out in the theater.

So, I was like on
top of a tidal wave.

I think it even beat
West Side Story.

Emmanuel stirred up the
movie industry big time.

It was made for a
dollar seventy five,

it grossed a fortune, and
it made Sylvia a star.

The second week was higher
than the first week.

The third week was higher
than the second week.

The fourth week was higher
than the third week.

This is absolutely exceptional.

They say the biggest problem
was getting the money to the

bank every day.

I guess that's a chance to be there
at the right time, right place.

And, yeah.

So and the rest is history.

Sylvia was on her way to
becoming one of the most famous

sex symbols of the twentieth

century.

But at what price?

After wrapping the shoot
in Thailand and beating the

censorship laws to
get the film released,

it was time for the cast
and crew to face the biggest

challenge of all, fame.

I made, twice world tour
and in every country.

The picture was successful in, Venezuela,
in South of America, everywhere.

You know.

Can you believe that the film
stays thirteen years in the

same movie theater?

It was unbelievable.

There was all of a
sudden another miracle.

Women who were coming
back because it

was school time, they had read on
the beaches articles about this film.

So they said to their husbands,
have you heard of this film,

Emmanuel?

The husband, of course,
would say, no, no, no, no.

Because he didn't want to admit
that he went already to see it

with his secretary.

The film, instead of
dropping in September,

all of a sudden picked up.

We knew that we were
assisting to a new phenomena.

Spain for instance, the film
was forbidden and the Spanish

were crossing the border.

So Perpignon, town that
has maybe seventy thousand,

people living there.

And we were grossing a hundred
and forty thousand admission in

Perpignon because it was
close to the Spanish border.

As Sylvia's fame
was sky rocketing,

she figured she needed an agent.

Jacques Itard was a
press agent for the film,

so why not her
personal agent as well?

Would you like to be my agent?

She asked me.

I said, but Sylvia,
I am not an agent.

I I I don't know
the the the word,

the the work of an agent.

I said, why?

You are not an agent,
but I am not an actress.

So we can work together.

Jacques Itard took Sylvia
around the world in seven days,

starting with Japan,

where she was accompanied
by actor Ian McShane.

The weird thing is I got a lot
of letters from Japanese girls,

and particularly girls like
sixteen, seventeen years old.

We arrived in to in Tokyo.

The crowd was unbelievable.

There was these young girls
screaming their their,

heads off.

Sylvia, Sylvia, we
love you. We love you.

The popularity was so immense that
we needed the army for protection.

We were jet lagged,
and I I don't know.

I didn't realize that that
same day I had to appear

in a live show on
Japanese television.

So, McShane and I, we had had a
couple of Mai Tais in the bar.

We were both we we dropped
in a coma or so, because,

I woke up and put on the
television, who do I see?

Jacqui Ta apologizing that
I was not there.

He said, I could
not wake you up.

You are both naked
and dead on the floor.

So I mean, he said, I got
almost lynched by the Japanese.

The press in Japan painted
Emmanuelle as a symbol of liberation.

There was this
female journalist,

and she said when Emmanuelle
goes on top of her husband,

all the girls and all the women
in the in the theater stood up

and applauded and screamed
because it was a start of

feminism and it was the end of,

the overpowering
attitude of the men.

That that I had the
trouble to understand that,

but it was symbolic, for them.

It was, cute and it was welcome.

A welcome comment after the
attacks I got from feminists in

in, in Holland or, France.

The press in Europe were
coming down hard on Emmanuelle.

I think she had her
problems in Europe,

particularly the British press.

They are extremely cruel when they
sense that you're defenseless.

The journalists were aggressive.

They were saying, like, you've been
doing a porno film, this and that.

The, for me, it was tough.

I saw some of the
interviews. They were cruel.

She was sitting
there, victimized,

and nobody was keeping
the damage control

down to a minimum.

Some critics also, said
like that it is the story,

it's it's all it's too thin or
it's a poor excuse for what is,

pure exploitation.

Particularly,

some demeaning scenes,
like, the rape scene,

and then, the scene

after the boxing match,
and then a weird scene,

like this what I call the
sandwich scene at the end with,

Mario.

The heat was also coming
down on the director.

It was a really
nightmare for me after.

You, put dirt on on
movie, French movies,

and, all the Vogue, hell,

a magazine stopped to work with
me like like a photographer.

Well, I I have a a big show
for a mosquito at that time.

Nobody buy anymore.

For three years, it was put
down because the success was

was so big and boom like that.

I I was I was a.

I had very mixed
feelings about it.

On one level, delightful
erotic fantasy.

Emmanuel certainly seemed
glamorous in all kinds of ways.

It was a glamorous
fantasy world.

It wasn't about real life in any
way that anybody could see it,

and I'm sure travel and Thailand
seemed extraordinarily exotic.

And I'm sure that if Emmanuel
was shot in front in Paris,

a lot of people would
say, it's disgusting.

Do you have some people
live like that in in Paris?

I mean, I can hardly believe there's
couples that say after having

watched your show, so let's now
call the neighbors and do some,

you know, some experiment.

No. I don't think so.

And on the other hand,

a number of us had ambivalent
feelings about Emmanuel as

being on the border of this,

of indeed opening the gateway to
sexploitation on a gigantic scale.

Emmanuel has nothing to to
do with, pornographic movie.

You know? Pornography
is to fuck to folks.

You open door, you fuck, open
the door for you fuck anybody,

very weird dog, animals,
sad pornography.

When you have love
somewhere, it's eroticism.

The media was blurring the line
between the actress and her role.

Increasingly, Sylvia was being
perceived as the iconic liberated woman.

The men thought of
her as Emmanuel.

She was not.

She was not the the kind
of a woman that said, boy,

did I have a great
fuck last night.

Blah blah blah blah.
She wasn't like that.

That is what I had to explain
to to to journalists also.

It's like, John
Wayne doesn't shoot

people in the weekend, in
his day, in his time off.

So it is really unnecessary to to even
to compare me with the parts I play.

And I made it mine
as much as I could,

but it still it remains a role.

But if Sylvia Kristol
wasn't the liberated woman,

then who was?

I think the image of the
liberated Emmanuel is the man's

idea of what he would like
a liberated woman to be,

and it's rather nice, really.

She does what she wants.

Women were endlessly
available When she wants.

On men's terms
With who she wants.

They look the way men wanted
them to look. She chooses.

They did the things men wanted
them to do She's in control.

With the fantasy that they were doing
it themselves with their own free will.

Emmanuel was a fantasy
of dysfunctional men.

These kind of people have
not seen the picture.

So many women, have gone into the idea of
being liberated and ended up being enslaved.

Because it is not a
picture against women.

They're not only not married,

but they're darning
the guy's socks.

They're engaging in sexual
gymnastics that humiliate them.

And then As a contrary,

a picture for women.

Oh, but everybody can
bullshit themselves.

You know? Tony Black can
bullshit himself into a war.

I mean, anybody can persuade themselves
of anything that's convenient.

And if it's
commercially convenient

to think I'm making this
wonderful movie to help set

women free, you can
persuade yourself,

but it still beats pornography.

The liberated woman
is a male concoction.

It was concocted out of the brains
of men who did not love women.

Listen. That's a
book wrote by women.

So this is if they don't
listen Well, at the time,

I read the book of Emmanuelle
Harsand, and immediately,

it came to mind that this
is not a book of a woman.

It must have been
written by a man.

Wait. What did she say again?

Written by a man.

Written by a man. Written
by a man. Written by a man.

And it turned as it turns
out, it was written by her husband.

That is public secret.

The truth about whether
Emmanuelle Arson or her husband

wrote the book
remains a mystery,

but did it really matter?

The concept of the liberated
woman was now a cultural imprint.

And the sequel, Emmanuel two,
was about to add to the legacy.

In Emmanuel two, Sylvia Kristel
took her role a step further,

much to the concern
of her agent.

I went to see the rushes.
I was not on the shooting.

And I went and saw the rushes.

I was shocked. The sequins
were in. She's masturbating.

It was more almost pornographic for
me, you know, for me. Yeah.

And we said to Silvia,
please, you are not Emmanuel.

Well, I I accepted to do this.

You should have refused
to do that, you know.

I said, I don't know.

I don't know. I did not realize.

The second one was banned
because all of a sudden there

was a new law about
pornographic films.

And, in order to
create an example,

the French government,

banned that film as if it
was a pornographic film.

But the

government.

I won two years after.

But in the meantime It came
out in Spain, I believe,

because Franco died or and
there was also a new covenant.

And the French
crossed the border.

From Perpignan to go
over the the frontier

and see, Emmanuel in Spain.

In some countries,

the release of Emmanuel
became the testimony

of the democracy, of
liberty of communication.

Eager to step up a gear,

Sylvia began receiving
offers from Hollywood.

I didn't pay my taxes in France.

And after you've conquered
Europe, you know,

you wanna conquer Hollywood.

Although, that is not
as easy as it sounds.

She was having an
affair with Ian McShane,

who was a client of ours.

And Ian was married, so all
of this had to stay very

hush-hush at the time.

And he was working in Hawaii,

and Sylvia was coming
over to join him.

We bonded immediately. I became
immediately a Yiddishamama.

There was no question about it.

But Los Angeles wasn't
as pretty as it looked.

Because Los Angeles
is not a metropolis.

The days are long and
boring. It's a factory town.

Because I was very
lonely, in Los Angeles,

and I didn't have
anything to do.

I felt absolutely useless.

You know, she was always
a duck out of water.

She was not one of those hungry,

ambitious actresses
that would, you know,

kill to get no.

That was not Sylvia.

Because for instance, I refuse
to do auditions auditions.

I sit like that.

In Europe, I don't.

It's like putting
a shy introvert

into a world where
they have to be, ta da,

I'm out there.

It can be done, but at a price.

Also, these people,
at the time I arrived,

were so obsessed with
cocaine and freebasing.

I was caught up with
that, for a while.

The cocaine was her stimulation.

I think without her,

drinking and drugging
at that time,

she would never get out of bed.

When you came to negotiate
something or or for some event,

first thing people will
do is like make a line.

At a certain point even the
doctor who is going to check me

for, insurance for the film.

And the cost of it.

Her business manager
said, Sylvia,

a lot of my clients cope,

but none of them
spend what you spend.

She, you know,

could hardly remember what
she did the night before,

but she knew it wasn't good.

Because it was still
highly socially accepted.

They spoke spoke about it like
it was a recreational drug.

You would have thought that
after private lessons, which was

a humongous success,

the phones would be ringing
off the hooks for her.

And it's a shame that
I saw it for once.

Now I got a
percentage, you know.

And then the producer
calls me, like,

three weeks before
the film opens.

He says, do you wanna sell your points
for a hundred fifty thousand dollars?

I said, yeah, sure.
Yeah. And that was done.

But,

yeah.

But he was very happy.

So if he leads people around
in his mansion, he says,

Sylvia Kristall
made this possible.

Yeah.

Tinseltown was a letdown.

A string of unsuccessful
relationships, drug addiction,

and a downward spiraling
career hit Sylvia all at once.

It was a poor social life.
It was the wrong social life.

It was awful.

The worst of it is that she
would cope and lay in bed.

So it was a kinda
yin yang thing.

There she was buzzed
out of her head,

but not moving.

It did bad things with
my brain, I guess.

Then my business manager said
to quit or sell the house.

She was under a hundred pounds.

She looked like she had
just come out of Auschwitz.

I knew that if I didn't get her
back to Europe, she would die.

She would absolutely die.

It was not a long period
of time, but it was enough.

I mean, if you start to
have a bad reputation,

it's very difficult to,

to overcome that.

So I was glad that I could,
disappear in my paintings.

That was fun. Then finally,
I started to be a bit happy.

Hollywood almost managed
to destroy Soviet Cristal.

But for the Emmanuel franchise,

it was the perfect platform
to launch a global brand.

Hollywood had sent Sylvia
Christel into a tailspin.

A string of unsuccessful
relationships, drug addiction,

and her downward spiraling
career hit her all at once.

Meanwhile, the legacy of Emmanuel
was soaring higher than ever.

After the second sequel,

Alan Soritsky stepped
in and took control.

In our lives,

there

is very few important things.

And, love and sex, which
by the way is two words,

but it's the same thing,

is very, very important.

It's the reason why we are here.

If we can have the rights to
a character who symbolizes

love and sex, we have to
keep this character running.

After the success
of the fourth film,

Savicki moved to Los Angeles
and was on his way to shooting

Emmanuel straight into space.

Emmanuel became very
early on a myth.

Like, Rambo became a myth,
or Superman became a myth,

or James Bond became a myth.

Well, in my library, I have,
thirty two Emmanuel pictures.

I continue making them
because I hope that

one day I'll make
a really good one.

Currently, Sierrysky is on a worldwide
search for the next Emmanuel.

The character Emmanuel, in fact,

is more a spirit.

Emmanuel moves from
one body to another

because every woman at a
certain moment in her life has

to become Emmanuel.

She is a queen.

She's a goddess,
goddess of love and sex.

The first goddess of love and
sex eventually wound up back in

Amsterdam.

Not only had she lost all of
her money in failed ventures,

the taxman was now

after

her.

So it's not

for the friends that
I moved to to Holland,

but it's easy to
live here, you know.

It is it's more comfortable
for a poor person,

in the sense that,

you can you don't have to
dress up in the streets.

You can just go in a
tramway. You're not bothered.

This is Sylvia.

To see this is to know
that exquisite body.

So you see here is where
she's safe to show a

little exhibitionism

where she will draw
her body, and to look

Tsiritsky still has plans
for the liberated woman.

So far, we've made a
number of, TV movies,

but it's such a,

fabulous character.

She has so many fans out,
there in the world that,

we really would like to
bring the character to,

a theatrical picture again.

I think she deserves it and
I think we will make it.

The latest twenty first century
Emmanuel is Natasha Vermeer,

also of Dutch origin.

Alan Siwitsky's photographer discovered
her in Ibiza in a

Cave.

I know a lot of people
go to Ibiza to party,

but I was actually
just there, you know,

to really turn into myself
and to go back to basics.

So and I was completely very
zen and just like pure water

coming out of the rocks there.

I had my own vegetable garden.

And then that one morning that
I came actually out of the

cave, I bumped into
this, this photographer.

He said, Alan, I have
a new Emmanuel for you.

Oh my God. Yes. I have
to put you on film.

So we designed a
collection of films that we

called Emmanuel's
private collection.

And he promised me that he was
gonna make it very much like

the first Emmanuel.

Also, Emmanuel, it's not so
different from my own personality.

We have, like, that
similar free spirit,

and we're not being put down
because we are sexually liberal.

So I thought, like,
you know, basically,

the only thing that I have
to do is being myself.

I'm like, I think I can do that.

It's a little bit more explicit
than, you know, they told me.

So I've been filmed
back to back,

and usually a lot of people
have to go into acting school

to get that much experience.

Meanwhile in Amsterdam,
Sylvia's troubles haven't ended.

Her recent boyfriend died from
cancer just after she found out

she had cancer herself.

For the last year, she
has been recuperating.

I mean, we were at the hospital,

Marianne picks up the phone,

and I can see the tears
coming into her eyes.

I said, okay. It's
Freddy. Is he dead here?

And so he was gone.

And all of a sudden,
you feel like,

you you get to
think of mortality.

It's when you start to realize that
you're getting older when you Okay.

But I'll tell you something
great about Sylvia.

The last years, she's
lived with minimal money.

She lives very simply.

She certainly doesn't wear
couture clothes anymore,

and she's fine.

She doesn't have any bitterness

or she doesn't go
back and say, oh,

those were the glory
days, and look at me now.

There's no self pity.

Looking back, I think,
I was extremely lucky.

I have had great
opportunities. I saw the world.

And, now,

I feel like, well, I don't
really need to to go out there

and yell, look at me,
love me, etcetera.

I've had all of that, you
know. Now I can relax.

I'm still a bit in mourning,

so I'm not quite open
for other relationships.

And also, at first, I have
to recuperate, you know.

That's the main goal.

Soldier destined for Vietnam
wants to be human rather than

just a killing machine.

Tigerland on Film four
Weekly tomorrow at ten.

Now next here on Channel four,

youngsters explain why they are so
keen to get married in Teens

That Tie the Knot.