JR: You can sense throughout Sylvia’s entire career, even in her weaker roles, that her prior experience with dance and movement was pivotal to her work onscreen. For example, if you watch Mysteries, the haunting Dutch film she made with Rutger Hauer on the freezing Isle of Man in 1978, you can see Sylvia utilizing her body much differently than her more trained peers like Hauer or Rita Tushingham. It’s all in her posture and the way she allows (and even invites) the cold to push her entire being forward. SOM: You write a lot about her physicality, and you connect it early on to dance. I loved the connection you made with silent film actresses, and how they had to communicate everything with their bodies. Could you talk a little bit more about that in terms of Sylvia’s approach? As Maria Theresa, Kristel led a cast that included Ursula Andress, Cornel Wilde, Beau Bridges, Rex Harrison and Olivia de Havilland in The Fifth Musketeer (1979). During the shooting, Kristel and Ian McShane, who played the wily minister Fouquet, began a highly publicised, five-year-long affair. Speaking of Huppert, probably the great role that I would have most liked to have seen Sylvia in was in Pialat’s masterful LouLou. It would have given Sylvia another opportunity to work again with the great Gerard Depardieu (who she had held her own with in the marvelous Rene the Cane) and I think would have completely reshaped her career for the eighties.

JULIA (Germany, 1974) Sigi Rothemund. Bonus features: 2K Transfer, Audio Commentary by Jeremy Richey, Theatrical HD Trailer and more tba. CINE REVUE TELE-PROGRAMMES - 60e Année N° 9 du 28/02/1980 - Les drogues qui tuent / Pourquoi ces bides au cinéma / Philippe Noiret / Sylvia Kristel / Tom Horn avec Steve Mc Queen The RRP is the suggested or Recommended Retail Price of a product, set by the publisher or manufacturer. Next, Richey focuses on the film’s production while adding his own musings, such as what scenes and sequences stand out, or detailing difficulties Kristel dealt with, such as egotistical directors and actors (see the entry on The Concorde … Airport ’79). There are some insightful observations within these film entries, such as when Richey points out that Naked Over the Fencecaptures a specific snapshot of early 70s Netherlands analog pinball arcades and the burgeoning European martial arts culture. Kristel, Sylvia (2007). Undressing Emmanuelle: A Memoir. London: Fourth Estate. ISBN 978-0-00-725695-2.After a hiatus of eight years, she appeared in the film Two Sunny Days (2010), and that same year, in her last acting role, she played Eva de Leeuw in the Italian TV film The Swing Girls. [11] She was cast to play the part of Stella in Roman Polanski's film The Tenant (1976) but, after one day of shooting, she was replaced by Isabelle Adjani. In 1977, she was invited to star as Hattie in Louis Malle's controversial erotic drama Pretty Baby (1978) but the role eventually went to Susan Sarandon instead. Several years later, the director wanted to cast Kristel as Ingrid in his next film Damage (1992), but the actress was unavailable at the time. She was friends with Sergio Leone who wanted her to play the role of Carol in the movie Once Upon a Time in America (1984); the producers did not agree to her participation and the role went to Tuesday Weld. In 1982, she was turned down by Tony Scott for the role of Miriam in The Hunger (1983); Catherine Deneuve ended up playing the part. She was considered for the role of Lois Lane in Superman (1978), which went to Margot Kidder. Sylvia unsuccessfully applied for the role of a Bond Girl in the movies: The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Octopussy (1983). JR: That connection to Silent film, and early talkies, is one of the main aspects about Sylvia’s work that draws me in. As her first director Pim de la Parra notes in his interview in my book, Sylvia was a real film scholar. She adored Dietrich and Garbo especially and their influence really shows in her great performances in Alice, La Marge and even Emmanuelle 2 (which feels to me like what a Dietrich/Von Sternberg collaboration would have been like in the seventies). My worst is all out in the open. It makes it necessary for people to tell you about themselves.” — Katherine Dunn

In June 2021 it was announced that actress Sylvia Hoeks will play Sylvia Kristel in a biopic about the life and career of Kristel. [12] Personal life [ edit ] Kristel at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival Along with Richey’s book, this hopefully is a harbinger of things to come, light shone into the caves. JR: While I hate gossip in general, I’m honestly not sure why I have never had much interest in the type of salacious-driven biographies that so many seem to gravitate towards. I recall as a child being so disturbed by Albert Goldman’s criminal book on Elvis that it still angers me to this day. I was so turned off by the invasiveness of that book and honestly so many other similar hatchet jobs that I read growing up. I don’t care about people’s sex-lives or relationships in general unless they had an obvious impact on the artist’s work, like the relationship Sylvia had with the brilliant writer Hugo Claus. I will probably go to my grave not appreciating how who slept with who offers any understanding to an artist’s life and that applies to anyone I am interested in.So, while I think it’s okay to look at missed roles in everything from King Kong to Body Heat to Once Upon a Time in America as regrettable, ultimately the great films she made make up for those. Ironically, Sylvia’s dismissal of several plum parts helped give rise to both Adjani and Isabelle Huppert.