Emmanuelle is a long-running Erotic Film franchise, based off the Erotic Literature novel of the same name by Emmanuelle Arsan (Pen Name of Thai-French writer Marayat Bibidh).
The film franchise started in 1974, in an adaptation of the book directed by Just Jaeckin, which follows Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel), a French expat who lives in Thailand with her diplomat husband, Jean. After returning from a trip to Paris, Emmanuelle becomes swept up with a dark and decadent world overseen by a man named Mario, who teaches her how to be more open with her sexuality. Coupled with her open relationship with Jean, Emmanuelle learns to let lust guide her actions in the future.
Despite being branded as "porn", the original film (and the book it was based on) proved to be very popular upon release. It became an international phenomenon, launched Kristel's career and had a sophisticated highbrow reputation during The '70s. It even had a bit of critical cred—Roger Ebert, for one, professed himself a fan on several occasions.
Two more direct sequels followed, Emmanuelle 2 (1975) and Goodbye Emmanuelle (1977). In the former, Emmanuelle reunites with Jean once again, and they scheme to seduce the stepdaughter of one of his lovers. In Goodbye, Emmanuelle and Jean continue their open relationship in the Seychelles. Jean becomes jealous when Emmanuelle is seduced by a film director, leading her to question her lifestyle of decadence.
Several sequels followed, most of which serve as an Alternate Continuity to the original trilogy:
- Emmanuelle 4 (1984): Fed up after another failed romance, Sylvia (Kristel) gets extensive plastic surgery and becomes a 20-year old woman, who plans to take Brazil by storm in the only way she knows how.
- Emmanuelle 5 (1987): Now a Legacy Character, Emmanuelle produces erotic arthouse films, and is torn between a wealthy dictator who is obsessed with her work and a young millionaire who seeks to take her away from her decadent lifestyle.
- Emmanuelle 6 (1988): A Remake of the original film.
- Emmanuelle 7 (1993): The final installment, which saw Kristel return to reprise the title role. An Older and Wiser Emmanuelle uses virtual-reality erotic simulations to aid her clients' love lives, and helps an old friend rekindle her relationship with a film executive.
Numerous spinoffs, sequels, parodies and copycat installments (not to mention a licensed video game) were produced bearing the Emmanuelle moniker, including a series of TV movies starring Kristel and George Lazenby in 1993, the Black Emanuelle (note the spelling) series starring Laura Gemsernote , and the Emmanuelle in Space spinoff starring Krista Allen, which produced just as many films as the mainline series!
A Continuity Reboot, starring Noémie Merlant in the title role, Naomi Watts and Jamie Campbell Bower, was released in September 2024.
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Tropes Present in Multiple Works
- All Women Are Lustful: Nearly every main female character in the franchise, regardless of age, is shown as either being extremely repressed (and wanting to go at it with the first person they see) or completely onboard with the idea of hedonism/being in polyamorous relationships.
- Bloodier and Gorier: The Italian spin-off series Black Emanuelle starring Laura Gemser features, among other things, took the franchise in a completely different direction, being much more graphic in terms of violence and torture. Not surprisingly, most movies of the Italian series are directed by infamous exploitation masters Joe D'Amato and Bruno Mattei.
- Continuity Reboot:
- Emmanuelle IV: Kristel is no longer the title character, but instead a woman named Sylvia who gets experimental plastic surgery to "become" another woman, christening herself as "Emmanuelle" in the process. This continues through 5 and 6, which are completely-disparate plots that treat Emmanuelle as a Legacy Character who has differing backstories and motives.
- The 2024 reboot is a straight example of this, acting as a pseudo-remake of the original film.
- Everybody Has Lots of Sex: Emmanuelle is told that monogamy is dead and is seduced into having sex with both men and women. Every film has many sex scenes, and virtually everyone does it. Emmanuelle herself must have had dozens of sexual partners in the films.
- Legacy Character: Every film after the fourth mainline installment has some form of this trope. Sylvia Kristel had felt she'd become typecast and stepped away, while a rotating stable of starlets took over the title role through the various spinoff films.
- Negative Continuity: Owing to its long-runner status, imitators and spinoffs, the franchise more-or-less resets everything between films. Notably, Emmanuelle's status as a glorified lapdog for Mario in the original film is disregarded in the sequel, Sylvia in 4 (who is played by Kristel) becomes a totally new woman who is also named Emmanuelle, and Kristel returns in the seventh and final theatrical film without any explanation of how she reverted from her younger body three films prior. That's not getting into the tie-in TV movies, which also feature Kristel returning as the title character, but having little-to-none of the Older and Wiser qualities she'd had in 7, nor featured the same actress who portrayed the younger version of herself (despite being released in the same year).
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: Used to a depressing degree throughout the series. Emmanuelle and the people she comes in contact are often SA victims, but either rationalize the act or contextualize it in such a way that If It's You, It's Okay.
- Questionable Consent: Runs rampant throughout the franchise, dating back all the way to the original film, when Emmanuelle is offered up as a "prize" for a fighting championship by Marlo, and clearly looks uncomfortable when the eventual winner "claims his prize".note Later works will have Emmanuelle subjected to all manner of questionable encounters with men who chase her down or do something just as bad (if not worse) to a supporting character.
- Really Gets Around: The Series. In the original series, Emmanuelle and Jean are French expats who have an open relationship, and she has liaisons with a lot of people. Most of the sequels and spinoffs dispense with this setup, and have Emmanuelle as a sexually-liberated woman who mostly goes around tagging anyone she can get her hands on, with thin motives for an Excuse Plot.
- Scenery Porn: The original film was shot on location in Thailand. Subsequent films in the mainline movies would be shot in different destinations, including Spain and other international locales.
Emmanuelle IV
- The Cameo: Kristel shows up for approximately fifteen minutes of the film, just long enough to have a couple of scenes before she's transformed into a different person. She appears in brief flashbacks for the remainder of the film, "teaching" the younger version of herself about love.
- Excuse Plot: As opposed to the previous three films (which at least had a clear throughline of following Emmanuelle and Jean's open relationship and her descent into hedonism), this one dispenses with all of that by having the plot follow an otherwise-unaffiliated character (also played by Sylvia Kristel), who has plastic surgery to become "Emmanuelle", forgets about her job in Los Angeles and spends the majority of the film touring Brazil before getting back together with her ex by the end of the film.
- Informed Ability: Sylvia is stated to be a columnist for a Los Angeles-based newspaper, and jumps at the opportunity to undergo plastic surgery to become a younger-looking woman for the purposes of a feature article. Not only is no evidence of her work ever shown or spoken on-screen, but she completely forgets about the article she was writing once the procedure is completed, and spends the rest of the movie.... well, taking Brazil by storm.
- Kick the Dog: After being otherwise helpful during Emmanuelle's physical therapy, Donna deals with the issue of her virginity by sending her to a biker bar and letting her get raped by one of the patrons, displaying no remorse in the process.
- Pet the Dog: At the end of the film, Marc admits to Emmanuelle during their dinner date that he treated Sylvia terribly (not knowing they're both the same person).
- Random Events Plot: Unlike the first three films, where there's a general throughline of plot progression, much of what happens in Emmanuelle IV has little, if anything, to do with anything else. Sylvia is a journalist who, after taking experimental plastic surgery on a whim, never goes back to her job and is instead more content to loaf around for weeks in a foreign country. Marc is Sylvia's ex-lover, who (via Contrived Coincidence) goes from last seeing her in Los Angeles to encountering her again (when she's Emmanuelle) at a random party in the middle of Spain. The experimental plastic surgery Sylvia gets not only makes her body type much smaller, but also.... ahem, resets her purity, purely to drive a minor source of conflict with her physical therapist. It even undercuts the reason why Sylvia got plastic surgery in the first place (to escape the spectre of her ex-lover) by having her willingly go back to him — and even stalk him! — in the last act of the film.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After seeing her former lover at a party in the opening scene, Sylvia is so panicked that she starts shaking, runs out the front door of a mansion and flees through the streets.
- Surgical Impersonation: This fuels the plot, as Sylvia is tired of having her former lover harassing her, and gets extensive plastic surgery to become a 20-year old woman.
- Third Is 3D: While it's the fourth film in the series, the film was released in the 1983-84 time period and takes advantage of 3-D technology, with elements that "pop" out of the screen (such as Emmanuelle's levitation at a party). Notably, for its American release, additional 3-D sequences were shot and composited into the original French version.
The original film series and its various sequels/spinoffs provide examples of:
- Adaptational Curves: In the original book, Bee was slender, to the point that in the Crepax adaptation she's flat-chested. Marika Green, the actress who played her in the original movie, was not.
- Adaptational Sexuality: In the original book, Mario is bisexual with a strong preference for other men. In the film, he's portrayed as straight.
- All Gays are Promiscuous: Emmanuelle has a lesbian affair with Marie-Ange, who just happens to visit her at home.
- Audience Shift: The original film was intended for a male audience, but ended up attracting many female viewers as well. When the filmmakers were informed about this, the movie and its sequels were marketed with more emphasis on the fact that it was both more high-brow/stylish than a regular erotic film, and that women could enjoy it too.
- Bed Trick: Happens several times in Emmanuelle in Space where Emmanuelle and Haffron use alien technology to appear as someone else to sleep with them.
- Bedroom Adultery Scene: Seen frequently during Emmanuelle and Jean's trysts.
- Cult Soundtrack: Pierre Bachelet's soundtrack to the original film is probably the most well known soundtrack to an erotic film ever.
- Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female: Emmanuelle and Ariane's sexual encounter on the squash court is rape, with Ariane as the aggressor, but is treated as if it's consensual.
- Exact Words: At the beginning of the original film, Emmanuelle tells Jean that she didn't cheat on him while she was in Paris. As she tells Marie-Ange later, she didn't cheat on him in Paris, but she did on the flight back.
- Fight Dracula: Emmanuelle fights Dracula in 2004's Emmanuelle vs. Dracula.
- The Film of the Book: The first installment was based on the novel by Emmanuelle Arsan. The sequels... not as much.
- Haven't You Seen X Before?: In the fifth movie:Emmanuelle: What's the matter? Why are you so shy? Have you never seen a naked woman before?
- The Immodest Orgasm:
- Cynthia Van Damme's character in Emmanuelle's Magic does an over-the-top wail while having intercourse with an african villager, complete with an echoing effect.
- This is actually a plot point in the 2024 remake: Despite having various liaisons with men, Emmanuelle can't reach this state through normal intercourse. It takes a male character coaching another man on what to do that finally results in the film's climax (pun intended) as Emmanuelle is finally able to achieve a physical release.
- Mile-High Club:
- In the first film, Emmanuelle has a sexual encounter with a man while on the flight to Bangkok.
- A similar sequence occurs in the opening of the 2024 remake.
- My Girl Is a Slut: Jean encourages Emmanuelle to sleep with other men (and women), although he does get angry when she runs off with Bee.
- Nature Adores a Virgin: Played straight and discussed:
- In 2, Emmanuelle and Jean seek to seduce Anna Maria, specifically because she's a virgin.
- In 4, Donna refers to virgins as "the most evil kind" of people, and seeks to make Emmanuelle lose hers by sending off to be raped by a bar patron.
- One-Word Title: Protagonist Title, First Name.
- Polyamory: The original trilogy involves Emmanuelle and her husband Jean eventually learning to live with and accept a polyamorous marriage, both seeking pleasure with each other and others... until the third film Goodbye Emmanuelle ends with Emmanuelle falling in love with another man and leaving both Jean and polyamory behind.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis: In the 1970s it was a blockbuster. Younger generations will know the title and the genre of this movie, but the amount that have actually seen any of these films is much lower. Many are only aware of these movies because of Diamanda Hagan's review of three of these movies (4, 5, and the ripoff Emanuelle in America) or because of the Recycled with a Gimmick series starring Krista Allen.
- Protagonist Title: Emmanuelle is the first name of the protagonist.
- Recycled with a Gimmick: Inspired an American spin-off called "Emmanuelle in Space", which spawned 8 installments!
- Rich Bitch: In the novel, film, and comic book series, there is Ariane de Saynes, a bossy French countess whose most notable actions in the original film are raping Emmanuelle and introducing her to Mario.
- Sequel Goes Foreign: The second movie begins with the lead character taking a boat trip to Hong Kong, where she stays as an expat for the rest of the film.
- Sequel Non-Entity: Mario, the man who encourages Emmanuelle to explore her sexuality in the original film (albeit in a increasingly abusive way, to the point that she basically becomes his lapdog by the end of the film) is completely ignored in the sequels.
- Shout-Out: Emmanuelle was such a 1970s phenomenon that even the long-running British comedy Carry On... Series made a parody called Carry On Emmannuelle, where her name was deliberately spelled with an extra "n".
- Sidekick: The made for TV sequels from the early nineties had a silent indian mystic called Atisan Khan as Emmanuelle's follower and sidekick.
- Skinny Dipping: A famous scene has Emmanuelle swim in the nude in scenes that were shot underwater.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: In Emmanuelle 2, Anna Maria appears to be a stand-in for Marie-Ange from the original.
- Talking in Bed: Bee actually dumps Emmanuelle while they're in bed together after sex.
- Too Dumb to Live: In Emmanuelle 5, the protagonist is warned by multiple people that Prince Rajid is a violent and dangerous despot. She disregards them all and accepts his invitation to go to his country and promote her film. Unsurprisingly, he turns out to be just what everyone said he was, and forces Emmanuelle into his harem against her will.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Ariane really is a terrible friend to Emmanuelle, only encouraging her sexual adventures in order to increase the likelihood of Emmanuelle sleeping with her.
- Writing Around Trademarks: Some of the rip-offs of "Emmanuelle" spelled her name as "Emanuelle" to avoid lawsuits for copyright infringement. (And the Carry On... Series satire, Carry On Emmannuelle, went with a different spelling, "Emmannuelle").