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 the good old naughty days interview
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Archivist Michel Reilhac collects porn. “I don’t like porn films,” protests Michel Reilhac. “It’s just not my style.” Surprising, given that the French film archivist’s latest project is a collection of rare blue movies that date from the first three decades of the last century. And like all dirty secrets they come with a good yarn attached. Believed to have been shot on legitimate film sets by the crew on afternoons off, the films were shown in bordello waiting rooms. They were discovered in the attic of a “well known” French family, who dedicated their substantial collection to the French National Film Archive. Amid outcry from conservative groups, it was decided that the pornography should be restored, which is when film fan Reilhac came on board. “What I loved was the relationship that they created between me and my ancestors,” he explains. “Those old men and women I used to relate to only through very stiff photographs, all of a sudden came completely alive, and I realised that they were just like me.” On the one hand, the content is up there with most of today’s hardcore. “They were having sex just like all of us today and all of the sexual games they played are the games we play,” enthuses the archivist. For sure the elements are there, waiting to be siphoned off into the cynically categorised industry that porn has become today. But beyond the surface revelation that onscreen oral sex didn’t arrive with Deep Throat, there are some big differences.  One of the most striking things for example is the collection’s “any hole is a goal” aesthetic. According to Reilhac this isn’t simply the rough edge of a fledgling industry. “What mattered most [then] was the sexual need to be satisfied, and in whichever way. I think that sex today is such an issue in our lives because it’s become the only way that a man differentiates himself from a woman,” he begins. “In those days, being a man was defined from birth. You knew that you were superior to women. Now the porn industry is designed to reassure men that they can assert their superiority.” Conversely, the power play that defines contemporary porn is completely lacking in these old films. Involving a free-for-all of nuns, dogs, gardeners, and indiscriminate gay and straight sex, this collection lifts the skirts of our great grandparents’ secret history, while revealing how rigid our own sexual mores can be. There are even snippets that Reilhac chose not to include for legal reasons. “Particularly one with a duck,” he smiles. “They really felt very free.”
Skye Sherwin
The Good Old Naughty Days, on selected release 23 April 04.
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