Take A Peek At Gérard Kikoïne’s Life As A Porn Director

1970s France Was One Interesting Place To Make Porn

I know it might hard for some to believe that porn used to be played in actual movie theaters. People would pay for a ticket at the same place a mainstream movie was playing, buy some popcorn at the same concession stand, and then go into a theater to watch porn. And if you were in France during the 1970s, odds are if you went to watch a porn, you probably watched a movie by famous French porn director Gérard Kikoïne.  

From 1974 and 1984 Gérard Kikoïne was probably the best porn director in the business and most likely one of the biggest faces behind the French porn industry. With films like Education of the Baroness, Rx for Sex, and Sweet Young Girls Gérard Kikoïne really knew how to let the passion almost burst off the screen. Recently Gérard Kikoïne released a book of hundreds of pictures from his various movies entitled Le Kikobook and sat down for an interview with VICE. They talked about the adult industry in the 1970s, those who weren’t his fans, and what he thinks about porn today. Here are a couple of highlights:  

On making movies:

Well, the rolls of film were very expensive. And we had to shoot two versions for each movie—a softer one that would pass censorship and a hardcore one that would be shown in specific theaters. So we were far, very far, from the giant gangbang fantasy. In fact, everything was well organized and well prepared. Even the hardcore scenes were almost never improvised, unless the actors felt very comfortable. Each set was carefully put together, and the castings were coherent. The gas station attendant looked like a gas station attendant. The architect looked like an architect.    

What did others in French cinema think of him:

I think the industry really had the worst opinion of us. When I stopped making porn, I was blacklisted. The Americans wanted me, but nobody in France wanted to work with me.  

Porn today:

Porn has always progressed through ruptures and shocks. I directed porn for movie theaters—you'd go to a theater and see a full screen penis on a thirteen-foot wide screen. After that, you could see porn on VHS and TV. The first TV broadcast of a porn movie in France was in 1985. That was a shock, even for me. A couple of years earlier, it had been completely unthinkable for TV to broadcast porn. The fact that porn has become so accessible through giant platforms like YouPorn definitely exposed a larger audience to the genre.  

Probably none of us will ever know what it was like to watch a porn movie on a giant screen – maybe even on a date – but the fact of the matter is some great porn movies were made in the 1970s. Next time you are feeling randy, take a trip down memory lane, maybe even check out a Gérard Kikoïne film.  

You can read the full interview with Gérard Kikoïne over on Vice.com