A Chronology of Erotic Cinema I

1967“Belle de Jour”: Severine’s Fantasy

Some people believe that *Fifty Shades of Grey* revolutionized erotic cinema with its exploration of BDSM; however, Luis Buñuel’s *Belle de Jour* had already explored these sexual fantasies nearly fifty years ago.

The opening sequence of *Belle de Jour* shows Severine (Catherine Deneuve) on a routine drive with her husband Pierre (Jean Sorel), during which he unexpectedly orders her to get out of the car,and Severine, confused, is led away by two men who blindfold her, tie her to a tree, and have sex with her. All of this was ordered by her husband, Pierre.

The sequence concludes by revealing that none of this has actually happened; it is all just a passionate fantasy that Severine turns to in order to satisfy her lukewarm relationship with her husband.

Most erotic scenes in movies show men exerting control over women to fulfill all their sexual fantasies, but Buñuel, with the classic beauty of Catherine Deneuve, reversed the roles and offered a much more realistic perspective on female sexuality, in which the woman dominates while being dominated, and her desire is as contradictory for her as it is for her lovers. In *Belle de Jour*, everything is fantasy and extreme desire in a society that is breaking free from preconceived notions.

1974“The Night Porter”: Or, the Stockholm Syndrome

The film sparked protests of all kinds—some due to the explicit sex scenes, which were unusual for that era, and others criticizing director Liliana Cavani’s ambiguous portrayal of a Nazi SS officer. It was one of those films from the 1970s that was rated X in several countries—including the United Kingdom, the United States, and Austria—while in Spain, where it premiered in late 1976, it was screened uncut.

The film is set in Vienna in 1957. At first, it’s a slow-paced film, but as the scenes unfold, a peculiar story emerges, in which the wife (Charlotte Rampling), the wife of a famous conductor, is seduced by a man (Dirk Bogarde) who had forced her to be his lover while she was imprisoned in a Nazi camp.After liberation, they meet again at a hotel where he works as a night porter, and a self-destructive attraction resurfaces as a personal drama. Stockholm syndrome and sadomasochism intertwine with morbid scenes of domination and role reversal.

1974“Emmanuelle”: The Dawn of Sexual Liberation

Directed by Just Jaeckin and starring actress Sylvia Kristel. It is based on the novel “Emmanuelle” by Emmanuelle Arsany, published in 1959. At the time of its release, the film was highly controversial in France and was classified as an X-rated film due to its scenes of nudity, rape, masturbation, and a scene in the “Mile High Club,” in which a dancer inserts a cigarette into her vagina, etc.—which, contrary to expectations, turned it into a massive international success, leading to “Emmanuelle 2, L’antivierge” in 1977 and “Emmanuelle 3, Goodbye, Emmanuelle,” were released. Although today we might say that, with the exception of its magnificent soundtrack, the plot leaves much to be desired, it was a pioneer of erotic cinema forty years ago, where the idea of sexual liberation broke the boundaries of the traditional couple.

The newlywed Emmanuelle (Sylvia Kristel) is encouraged by her husband (Daniel Sarky) to discover the pleasures of the flesh by having sex with other people in order to fulfill her sexual fantasies. In Hong Kong, with her husband’s approval, she engages in a passionate lesbian relationship with another young woman (Marika Green); Bangkok and the Seychelles become places of ecstatic pleasure, and little by little, more couples join in this exciting sexual awakening.

Routine causes her to grow tired of his constant desire to have a threesome; he becomes jealous and rude, and the romantic relationship ultimately fails. She embarks on a journey of sexual self-discovery with a mature man (Alain Cuny) who leads her into unusual situations.

1975“Salò, or the 120 Days ofSodom”: The Corruption of Power

Directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini in 1975 and based on the book *The 120 Days of Sodom* by the Marquis de Sade.

The fact that the director spent part of his youth in the Republic of Salò, witnessing the cruelties of war, led him to draw on those memories to create a film that he himself described as “highly symbolic and metaphorical.”

The film is set in the Republic of Salò, in northern Italy, during 1944 and 1945, at the height of the Nazi occupation. The film is divided into four segments, mirroring Dante’s Inferno in *The Divine Comedy*.

Some critics praised it for its bold spirit, but many others condemned it as a film filled with exploitation and violence, leading to its ban in several countries.

In Salò, four powerful leaders—the President, the Duke, the Bishop, and the Magistrate—plan a debauched ritual to marry off their daughters, where they can give free rein to their most extreme sexual instincts. To this end, with the help of their accomplices, they kidnap nine men and nine women, who are taken to a palace in Marzabotto, accompanied by four former prostitutes whose task is to tell titillating stories to the powerful men.

To satisfy their lust for pleasure, they devise four phases: Pre-Hell, the Circle of Obsessions, the Circle of Shit, and finally the Circle of Blood, in which they will torture and eliminate any characters who do not cooperate as expected. The film portrays the desensitization, indifference, violence, and conformity of human beings when exposed to extreme situations.

1976 “In the Realm of the Senses”: Sex as a Whole

A couple in a power-based relationship experiences love and sex in an extreme way, where a man and a woman’s desire to possess one another blurs the lines between pain and pleasure.

It is a French-Japanese co-production directed by Nagisa Oshima; a sequel titled “Empire of Passion” was released two years later. It is one of the few films that, forty years after its release, remains partially censored in its home country of Japan. The film is based on a true story that took place in Japan in the 1930s. But what sparked major controversy were the explicit sex scenes between the lead actors, Tatsuya Fuji and Eiko Matsuda, and their obsession with death; the erotic scene in which they play with an egg became famous.

1978 “Last Tango in Paris”: Sex is a pleasure with side effects:

Directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, the film begins as a romantic drama and explores human sexuality as yet another way of connecting with others when the world isolates us with its terrible realities—but at the same time, it shows how easily pleasure can be exhausted when we long to be part of the world.

The film’s protagonist, Jeanne (Maria Schneider), meets Paul (Marlon Brando).

When he shows her a rental apartment in Paris, the attraction between them is passionate, and they make love more wildly in the apartment; the famous scene where he sodomizes her using butter caused half of Spain to cross the French border.

They agree to meet there again without asking who the other is, trying to break with societal conventions, both seeking self-fulfillment free from psychological prejudices.

Jeanne gradually becomes disillusioned with Paul as she discovers that he is a washed-up man full of banality; he tries to win her over with paternalistic conventionality… etc…

1979“Caligula ”: An Orgy of Power or the Power of an Orgy?

The film is based on the history of the Roman Empire, when Caligula killed Tiberius and seized the throne, ushering in an era of despotism, excess, and tyranny. Caligula was feared and hated, but remembered for his eccentricities—and his sexual exploits were no exception.

There are two versions: the 1979 version directed by Tinto Brass, who wanted to create an epic about “the orgy of power,” so the explicit sex scenes were cut for its release in commercial theaters; and the uncensored version produced five years later in 1984,and—never has the phrase been more apt—distributed by the film’s producer, Bob Guccione, founder of the adult magazine *Penthouse*, who had filmed it with pornographic actors in 1979, without the knowledge of director Tinto Brass. This version includes scenes of intercourse, ejaculations, lesbian and gay sex, golden showers, sadomasochism, bestiality, etc… and which ultimately changed the vision and focus of the initial project—which was more historical than playful—resulting in “The Power of the Orgy.”

It was the most expensive erotic film of its time, featuring actors such as Peter O’Toole and Helen Mirren.

Even before its release, the film was already mired in scandal due to María Schneider’s departure from the project—she was replaced by Teresa Ann Savoy—but the extended version produced by Bob Guccione led many members of the crew to refuse to have their names appear in the credits. Different versions were released in each country; in Great Britain, the 1984 version was banned, and it wasn’t until 2009 that the uncut version was released—though it featured a disjointed edit and scenes that were lost forever. Both versions were commercial failures.

1986“Nine and a Half Weeks”: Seduction Taken to the Limit

Masterfully portrayed by Mickey Rourke, John Gray is the master seducer who completely manipulates Elizabeth McGraw (Kim Basinger), whose life changes radically after she begins a relationship with John, who makes her the star of his peculiar sexual fantasies.

The most sensual scene takes place when she, with her eyes covered, allows herself to be caressed with various objects—fruit, ice—as he gently traced her statuesque figure and she opened her senses to the eroticism of the senses.

John slowly drew her into his sexual games, which gradually became more intense; he dominated her will with his powerful attraction, but at the same time she felt the urge to escape the fantasy persona John had turned her into…

1991“The Lover”: Love, the Eternal Mystery

Based on the most famous book by the intense and self-destructive Marguerite Duras, *The Lover* caused an unprecedented scandal, thanks in part to the unsettling beauty of its lead actress, Jane March, who turned 18 after filming wrapped. In Duras’s autobiographical story, the protagonist is a fourteen-year-old French girl, living in extreme poverty who enters into an illicit and unequal relationship with a wealthy Chinese man—with the opportunistic consent of her mother and her violent brother—against the backdrop of French Indochina in 1929.

Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud and starring Jane March (the young woman) and Tony Leung Ka Fai (the lover), it caused a scandal more because of its tone than its form; the teenage protagonist’s relationship with a young, attractive Chinese man is impossible because the society of the time considers such a love to be improper; due to the difference in age, race, and the fact that she “is not a virgin.” The situation escalates into a tempestuous affair, plunging the couple into a secret, immeasurable passion that they both know cannot last. She speaks of a future apart from him, trying to deny the feelings she knows are impossible, but he insists on the relationship even though he must commit to a marriage arranged by his family… although it was not supervised by Marguerite Duras, it does retain some of her enigmatic and painful intensity. A heart-wrenching and magnetic love story thwarted by the social norms of its time, one that accepts its defeat from the very beginning.

1992“Basic Instinct”: Sharon Stone’s leg-crossing scene

Directed by Paul Verhoeven, this is the film in which Sharon Stone stars in the scene most famously remembered for its unabashed sensuality; even today, twenty years later, it has lost none of its allure. Her utterly sensual leg-crossing has remained one of the most steamy scenes in recent cinema history. Its success is due not only to Sharon’s alluring sensuality but also to the magnetic, mysterious, and dangerous personality of her character, Catherine, in *Basic Instinct*.

Catherine Tramell (Sharon Stone) is accused of murder. During her interrogation by two detectives, the sequence reaches its climax: “Catherine” shifts her position, crossing her legs very widely and repositioning her beautiful behind in front of the detectives, revealing that she is not wearing any underwear…

She uses her sensuality to manipulate the team of investigators, driving them to a fever pitch, and despite the serious accusations, it is the detectives who become Tramell’s victims, struggling to keep the situation under control.