I find odd how extremely crucial or enduringly influential craftsmen die and get ignored by tons of media, perpetuating the myth you need a PR ace under your pay to have your name do the rounds often on mainstream (or any) media.
Just Jaeckin was an artist specialized on sculpture and photography, with formal education in architecture with an interior design focus, who at some point and somehow in his early 30's had the chance to direct a decently-budgeted feature film, Emmanuelle, in 1974.
His early life was, according to official sources, a dude who left suddenly his parents to explore northern lands, live like a bohemian, photograph some stuff, return and for some reason join the military, travel some more, study college thanks to army bonds and with the money gotten by doing artsy stuff do a movie heavily focused on the erotic/banging sculptural chicks in cool, photogenic sets.
If you had to wonder what place was this lad from, you would quickly think such a human specimen would be french because only them can be this picturesque in both the good and the really bad way... and you would be right.
The influence Emmanuelle had in cinema cannot be underestimated easily as in a mere softcore flick, despite not being that good it had a tremendous influence by practically founding the genre of late-night softcore film, plenty of trademarks started here with his influence from portrait photography (diffuse lighting, backlit subjects, sepia, heavy posing) performed great by pretty good cinematographer Robert Fraisse, this influence extended in actions showcased after classic frenchfag shenanigans (banging in second-floor old town room with open windows, wine, eating seafood before banging, sucking ice cubes before slurping people, wine, kissing everything except face, exotic music in background, drinking wine from breasts, foot antics, infidelity, being a degenerate under the influence of stinking wine).
Despite not getting that much money from the immense success Emmanuelle had (including 32 sequels and/or related works using the character or something very similar to it) he went on to direct other stuff, he was offered the helms of the series but recommended a friend and carried with other stuff. Why did he do this i don't know for sure but it certainly needed a good amount of balls because he damn well knew the success, anyways he did a couple of more softcore stuff, which did not fare well, and that wasn't the exception in terms of theatrical with the 1981's release of a Lady Chatterley's Lover version, which did otherwise massively in the home market section which later became a staple in late-nite television peeping saw that one around 2004 or 2005 on TV, always looking at the door to avoid getting caught this one also starred the original Emmanuelle's protagonist, venerable and interesting character Sylvia Kristel, the pack-a-day smoker bag-a-day snorter sophisticated lounge girl (who was probably a groomed girl in the euro elite circles) who was also known for being extremely badly advised by doopy-headed friends due to rejection or ignoring several big projects and decisions due to them being high all the time and giving as higher rules of action for her sadly-not-as-high career.
The man himself made another film and a couple of TV episodes later, not as successful, and after getting hyped and getting his ideas crushed by nosey producers he decided to call it quits and use the money he had made (not as much as one would think despite his gold-printing products) to do art, sell it and just live relatively calm with his cutesy wife somewhere in i guess France; despite this it seems he decided to film some small-scale stuff once in a while, mostly commercial stuff like adverts, one for Seiko which gained some recognition later on. As a sidenote it seems the japs loved the guy and his stuff, i mean most did but they were more open about it letting him direct stuff not related to porn or chicks; also some say (tabloid headers) he photobanged both Marika Green and Marlene Jobert which is very commendable and i feel envious about it until i realize i had to be french to do that
So this dude called it quits from everything some days ago, leaving a seemingly forgotten legacy by most other than that sharp eyed fellow who interviewed him extensively a year ago out of nowhere, kudos to him and shame there's no subtitles. For us non-frog tonguers we will be left with his pictures of girls and flawed but certainly very charming film adaptations of adulterous roasties being eternally inquired by horny rich dudes bordering the cuckoldry line, something most recently von Trier successfully (and unnervingly) mimicked in his 4-hour degenerate journey called Nymphomaniac.
For us still living all we can do to serve this frenchman's memory is to remember, if vaguely, his name and what he did which is something few do in these genres' realms where everyone are, including me, just jaeckin off :^)