Just Jokin' With Just Jaeckin
October 9, 2007

Here's the second part of my conversation with erotica auteur Just Jaeckin, whose 1974 film Emmanuelle starring Sylvia Kristel virtually launched the international softcore marketplace. Lionsgate will issue a Special Edition DVD of Emmanuelle tomorrow.

VB: What are feeling about today’s kind of softer, sexy films that you can see on late night cable television?

JAECKIN: I think they all go too far. They don’t express enough feeling before the lovemaking. It’s not as beautiful. I liked Jean Jacques-Anaud’s film The Lover (1992). Do you know that he took my director of photography Robert Fraisse and my make-up girl for that film because he admired the way I framed my scenes and my lighting and how it looked on the color of the skin. It was flattering—he saw I did something well and he wanted to do it like that, too.

VB: So, you proved to be an influence to another generation of filmmakers. Who were your biggest influences?

VB: All classic Hollywood directors who did their best work with women.

JAECKIN: Exactly. I am a women’s director, not a men’s director. I love women and I love to work with women. There are many women on my crews. They give you so much.

VB: I’ve got to ask you about something crazy I read in “I, Kinski,” the crazy autobiography of Klaus Kinski, the co-star of your 1977 film Madame Claude, about the renowned French madame.

JAECKIN: What did he say?

VB: He said, “It’s an insult that I have to do the movie “Madame Cluade” and here in Paris to boot. The salary is also wretched, but we need the money. The girls who play Madame Claude’s prostitutes in the movie fuck like professionals, especially the very young ones.

JAECKIN: Funny, funny.

VB: Is he as crazy as we’ve heard?

JAECKIN: No, no, Klaus is so nice. He’s the kind of person who plays a role, but you learn not to address the way he acts--you laugh about him in a nice way. Then he looks at you and says, “Why is this guy laughing back at me?” So, if you laugh in a nice way, you can be friends. But if you act aggressively in front of him, he’ll kill you.

VB: That sounds sort of crazy to us! Was he popular on the set with the ladies?

JAECKIN: Oh yes, yes, he was so charming. But he was quite frightening to them with those eyes and that voice!

Posted by Laurence Lerman on October 9, 2007 | Comments (0)