Henri Pachard Speaks AVNInsider.com Managing Editor Heidi Pike-Johnson recently lunched with industry icon AVNInsider columnist Henri Pachard. Over iceberg lettuce salads, Pachard had a load of things to say. Pike-Johnson files this report:
AVN Hall of Fame director Henri Pachard has won a ton of accolades from many, AVN included as a member of the AVN Hall of Fame and winner of numerous AVN Awards. He has directed and produced hundreds of films and videos — three of which made AVN’s list of the 101 Greatest Adult Tapes of All Time. This didn’t please him much as one would think. Read on and see.
Heidi Pike-Johnson: So you are father to Ralph Parfait and Nate Woodburn?
Henri Pachard: They are both my sons from my first marriage. [Pachard has been married six times.] They are thirty-six and thirty-four and they both wanted to do what I did. I’m not sure why. They were born in New York, were raised in Woodstock, New York and they migrated out to California on their own to be closer to me, which I thought was great. I’m very proud of my children. They are very good sons and I have been very lucky. A lot of absentee fathers have sons who have a lot of problems, that are dysfunctional in some way. My sons were fortunate enough to be well-raised. They survived their childhood very well. I am very happy, very grateful.
Heidi: Can you tell me how you started making porn?
Henri: It was a matter of survival. In 1967, another young artistic director said that he knew how to make an adult movie. In those days, they were softcore. They were shot on black and white. They were called "nudie-cuties" or "sexploitation" films. I had saved some money so I said, "Okay, let’s make one." We made Scare Their Pants Off. It was my first film as a director and a producer. We just stumbled through it the best we could and it wasn’t much of a movie but I made a few hundred dollars more than I paid for it. In doing that, I found a way to get someone else to put up the money to do a film that I could direct. I did a movie called Lust Weekend and it was great. It was a thrill to direct. I had to do it again.
Heidi: Who else was in that group?
Henri: Graham Place— you’ll see his name as an executive producer a lot of places now. There was Arthur Marx, who is dead. There was Don Walters who is retired. Marty Scorsese worked on one movie but went on his own to do some stuff. The guy that directed Rocky and Save The Tiger with Jack Lemmon [John G. Avildsen] — he did a softcore porn back in those days. Stallone did one. Robert Downey [Senior] did one. I stayed with it.
Heidi: Can you tell me about the first porn you ever saw?
Henri: I saw a black and white film when I was a teenager and I don’t remember a thing a bout it but I knew that I wanted to see it again. The first stuff I ever saw was the little "bible" things with the black and white sketches on them. Those are wonderful! That was my introduction to porn and that was great. The other pornography I had around me was what I read. To me, that was the best porn. What I could read was more important than what I could see. I love that.
Heidi: Is that why you did a lot of storied stuff?
Henri: It’s why I do weird stuff I call "mindfucking." I set up unusual situations and I will quite often have people discuss what’s going on with them in some obscure way rather than say "Oh, I love you…Oh, it feels so good." I hate that. I don’t need that in a movie. John Leslie was one of the best for me. He didn’t need to be told what I wanted. One time in a movie, the girl said to him, "Are you going to fuck me?" and John Leslie in character says, "I don’t know. Turn around." That’s my man! That’s exactly what I was trying to create! By the time I was shooting hardcore porn, the audience was well-accustomed to what they were going to see but they had no idea what they could hear. That’s where I had my audience where I wanted them.
Heidi: Film or video?
Henri: Either one of them. It used to matter but today, video is just as good as film. The only difference there ever was between video and film was the sound, not the picture. Good lighting, if you work it right, can make video look like a film. That’s never bothered me, whether I shoot film or video, except for the sound. Sound is more important to the human mind than sight. Our ears are a thousand times more sophisticated than our eyes.
Heidi: What were you really trying to accomplish when you were making videos like Blame It on Ginger and the like?
Henri: I was trying to fuck Raven Touchstone. I wanted to impress her. She did the production and the continuity. It was her script [on Blame It on Ginger] and she wrote a lot of my stuff. It was our first movie together. It was on location; we stayed up in little motels and this was 1986, I believe. I wanted to fuck her. And I did. That’s what spurred me on to do a good job on that movie. I have always done good when I have had a woman to show off for. If I had a chance to get in her pants, I could pull it off. I love women. I just love women, even as a young kid I did. As a little kid, you show off to get their attention. I will always protect the child in me and I hope we all do. There’s a child in all of us and that is why I love the movies. It’s like children at play. "Let’s pretend we’re this."— but because we are adults, let’s do something naughty.
Heidi: What kind of porn do you personally like to watch?
Henri: I have moved from more story-driven porn back to gonzo, the reality based stuff. I want to shoot the truth. I think that’s far more interesting, but it’s even better if I can fuck with the truth a bit myself. I started out back in the '70s when all we could do was story-driven porn because it gave us some kind of justification for putting our stuff in theatres. We had to have something we could defend ourselves with. There are two different markets today. Story-driven porn is for people who really don’t like pornography. They don’t like this balls-up-against-the-wall pornography.
Heidi: Any directors that impress you right now?
Henri: John Leslie. I was interviewed by SCREW magazine back in 1986 or 1987 and they were assuming that I regarded myself as the best in the business and one time, I did consider that I was. They put a question to me in the interview assuming I still believed that and I corrected them. I said "I’m not the best. John Leslie is the best." He does wonderful stuff. He was the best actor I ever had. He saw the article when it came out a month or two later and he said, "Have you seen SCREW? I’m reading a article about you and you told the guy that I was the best. Why did you do that, man?" "Because it’s true, John." I told him. I said, "I wish it wasn’t true."
Heidi: What about Bruce Seven?
Henri: Bruce was good but he was not the best. He loved his women and he made the movies only for himself, what he liked to see. Bruce’s stuff bored me a bit, too much girl/girl. Girl/girl scenes bore me, especially when they do it the way that they think men want to see it. Making Conflict with him was fun because we got drunk together. We liked each other and I always respected his work. He obviously had a tremendous following. It just wasn’t for me. It wasn’t the kind of scenes I would structure. He liked doing bondage. To me, bondage is boring. I like fetish movies. I like domination, obedience, discipline, all that stuff. Bondage takes too long and once you’re tied up, you’ve got to end the movie. It doesn’t work for me for a movie I don’t like watching men dominate women in movies. I would much rather watch women dominate men in movies. The reason for that is that in my personal life, I am dominant. I am not comfortable being submissive. Therefore, it’s more interesting to watch what I don’t do. I shoot a lot of dominant women. A lot of fetish movies that I shoot are dominant women and submissive men. It’s stuff that I am interested in shooting but not doing. I’m a voyeur. It’s much more fun to watch a woman put a male slave through his paces, rather than some guy who naturally is dominant over a woman.
Heidi: What projects are you pursuing currently?
Henri: A video line I would like to try to develop is Big Ass Black Girls. I want to do a transvestite comedy line but I want that for cable. I want to have it where a woman is constantly getting her husband or boyfriend into drag. It’s like a constant embarrassment and I want it to be a half-hour comedy. I want to do a feature about a ventriloquist who loses his penis. His penis abandons his body because it’s dangerous.
Heidi: Why would having a penis be dangerous?
Henri: His penis leaves his body because his owner is dangerous because of his lifestyle. He is in trouble with the mob, he gambles, loan sharks are chasing him. One time when he got caught, because he was a ventriloquist, they got him behind an alley and they sewed his dummy to his lips with a saline needle and sent him to the hospital. That’s kind of embarrassing and that’s why his penis left him. That’s a story I have been working on for ten years. I like to do video lines rather than single features however because I believe that the business that we are in, we publish motion pictures rather than distribute them. Once it’s there, people should be able to find it again, like a magazine. There’s not too many things I need to shoot anymore. What I would really like to do is stop shooting and help some company build and create and package new lines, where I can work with new pornographers. It’s time for me to get kicked upstairs to middle management. I can put together a good package and I know how to sell and promote and it is time for me to do that. I’m a senior in the business and I don’t want to go the way Alex deRenzy did. Poor man died too soon. He was suffering with his liver and everything. He had to shoot for the money. I understand that- believe me. He was a hard-working, dignified man who would never complain. He would work for his money. He was down here, shooting and dying. I don’t want to end up that way. I learned a lot from Alex. I have been learning stuff from him for twenty-five years and my final lesson from him was that. I am not going to kill myself on a set. They are just movies.
Heidi: What do you see in videos today that you would rather not see?
Henri: I don’t like seeing the bukkakes. I don’t like seeing the spitting and slapping but you have to have the right to do it. I mean, I don’t like it but I think the marketplace should decide that. I don’t like seeing people vomit on each other. I even wrote something about that for AVN once in an article called "Finessing the Freak Show". I think we’re going to see that elements of fetish go into mainstream porn. I think we are going to see a lot of acts that we don’t associate with mainstream porn. I think that pornography is a lot like the dictionary. It is a conservative instrument that over the years progresses the language along. Pornography is on the outer edge and will show how we as people move towards that new sexuality. Kids and their teens and twenties are doing things now that I wouldn’t do today. They are doing things that are incomprehensible to my generation but what I was doing in my time was of course inconceivable to my grandparents’ concept of things so it’s the progression of things.
Heidi: If you had an unlimited budget and an unlimited amount of time, what would you make?
Henri: I hope I never have that offer.
Heidi: Why not?
Henri: I don’t think I would know what to do with that. All my life, I have lived with limitations. Everyone does. In fact, I think the first sign of maturity is when a man realizes his limitations.
Heidi: So you wouldn’t want to make something immature?
Henri: I think that everything I have made has probably been immature! Boy, what a wonderful question that is. I don’t think I would want to do it that way. I like having "you have to do this for this much money". That has always been the fun part for me. I like being able to say, "I can do it better than that guy for the same amount of money." I can’t give you an answer for that. Give it to one of the new moviemakers.
Heidi: Like who?
Henri: Aside from my sons, I like Robby D.. I think he’s really going to be something, an excellent moviemaker. I think this guy is an artist.
Heidi: What movie are you proudest of?
Henri: That’s got to be Outlaw Ladies. I think it took more balls for anybody to get behind that than anything — a fem dom type movie. It was sophisticated piece of business and it holds up today. If there was ever a piece of woman’s porn, this was it. There was nasty anal sex, anything you want, and it was done with the woman in control. The idea was "Why do I have to be treated like an outlaw, just because I want to fuck this way?" Boom! That was my title. Outlaw Ladies. I think that’s the one I’m most proudest.
Heidi: You have three movies in the Top 101 that AVN did recently.
Henri: Yeah, what was that all about? I was hoping you wouldn’t ask me that question. I go the issue and I was like- get me a pen, I was going to count them up! I was thinking I would have like fifteen on that list. I have three. I was thinking I would have fifteen or twenty. Fuuuck. And Conflict was only half a movie! Bruce Seven did the other half! (Henri Pachard had #78 Blame It on Ginger, #81 White Women and #84 Conflict on the AVN’s list of the101 Greatest Adult Tapes of All Time, published in the August 2001 issue.) Now, White Women was one of the dumbest pieces of shit I ever directed. It was really stupid. I had to make two movies for Coast to Coast Video. One was New York Vice and the other was White Women.
Heidi: Do you believe what was said about your movie in the description we wrote about it? (Click here to to read what AVN said about White Women in the August issue.)
Henri: I absolutely do not agree with that. I was trying to shoot this movie to fulfill a contract. I had already shot New York Vice, which was the far superior of the two. I was extremely high on cocaine when I made it and if it was edgy, it’s because I was edgy. I would put that down on the bottom one hundred if anything and I would put Conflict on the bottom one hundred. What was the other one?
Heidi: Blame It on Ginger, number 78.
Henri: Well, I can’t agree with that either. I know that it won a lot of awards. [Blame It on Ginger won AVN awards for Best Couples Sex Scene- Video for a scene with Ginger Lynn and Joey Silvera, Best Total Sexual Content-Video and Best Video.] It sold a lot of product because of Ginger Lynn, Barbara Dare…there were a lot of good people in there. Remember, I was a director in transition between New York and Los Angeles. Paul Thomas was trying to become a producer and he got me to come out and direct for him. That was a feather in his cap and I needed to come out and shoot. I think this was the first thing I directed for Vivid and I worked my ass off because Vivid was a new client. I had two days to shoot it in and I had good people.
Heidi: Let’s talk about some people who worked for you. Ginger Lynn.
Henri: I always wanted to fuck her and I never did.
Heidi: Barbara Dare.
Henri: I always wanted to fuck her but I never did. Both Ginger and Barbara were very good actresses. Ginger Lynn was excellent.
Heidi: Lois Ayres.
Henri: I never got to fuck her…but I liked her because she was adventurous.
Heidi: Little Oral Annie.
Henri: Boring.
Heidi: Rhonda Jo Petty.
Henri: Interesting.
Heidi: Sharon Kane.
Henri: I love Sharon Kane. I think she is one of the most talented, wonderful women I have ever known in my life.
Heidi: Nina Hartley.
Henri: Great performer. I have put Nina in a lot of my movies.
Heidi: Jamie Gillis.
Henri: Sad man. He’s great for pornography, great for the industry. He’s a brilliant man but there is so much sadness in his life. I wish we were closer but Jamie’s not close to anybody.
Heidi: Joey Silvera.
Henri: I love Joey. He’s a funny man, an artistic man.
Heidi: Peter North.
Henri: I don’t think we give him enough credit. He would make up ways to act dumb. He never want anyone to catch him being smart.
Heidi: Jon Dough.
Henri: Jon Dough — if he can survive himself, he will be a great talent, a great moviemaker.
Heidi: Paul Thomas.
Henri: I owe him a lot. He is the laziest artist I ever met.
Heidi: What is coming up for you?
Henri: I wish I knew. I have no idea. I was just the villain in the new Johnny Wadd movie. Bob Chinn wants to keep doing those old-fashioned 1970s melodramas and doing them well and I am so thrilled that he thought of me to be in his movie. Whenever one of my peers asks me to play a part for them, I’m flattered. It’s hard for me to charge them money but I do. It’s such a pleasure to do it.
Heidi: What else have you been up to?
Henri: The most exciting thing I have done in my career in the last ten years has been writing for you guys. To me, that’s thrilling. I have wanted to write for AVN for a long time because I always thought I had something to say. I like having my foot in the door with AVNInsider. I want to learn to be a better writer and being able to say it here on Insider give me an edge.
Henri Pachard does a weekly column, "A Pornographer’s Journal" on AVNInsider. It can be accessed on the main page of this site.
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Henri Pachard @ AEBN
Posted - Dec 10 2002 : 9:52PM