Jean-Daniel Cadinot

Jean Daniel Cadinot

Cadinot in 2007
Born 10 February 1944
Paris, France
Died 23 April 2008 (aged 64)
Other names Tony Darcq, Tony Dark
No. of adult films 72 as director (per IAFD)
Website
http://www.cadinot.fr

Jean Daniel Cadinot (February 10, 1944 April 23, 2008) was a French photographer, director and producer of gay pornographic films.

Biography

Cadinot was born during World War II, in German-occupied Paris, in the Montmartre hill area of the Batignoles Quarter. His parents were tailors who custom fit clothes. Cadinot later remarked that while his parents had clothed men, he earned his reputation for undressing them.

As a teenager, Cadinot hoped to become a painter and, due to parental opposition, ran away from home at the age of 17.[1] In the early 1960s, he studied at École des Arts et Métiers and at the National School of Photography. He then began his professional career at Valois Studios, where he directed mainstream films for French-speaking audiences.[2]

He first pursued a career in photography, which took on a homosexual angle with his nude portrait of writer Yves Navarre and singer Patrick Juvet. His erotic photographs appeared in the first edition of Gai Pied.[3] He began to sell nude photographs and finally moved to directing movies in 1978. By then, he had published 17 photo albums, with total sales of over 170,000 copies.

Setting up his own production company, French Art, Cadinot made dozens of 16 mm films.

Characteristic of Cadinot's films was an emphasis on plot, much more so than in typical porn films. His plots were often based originally on incidents from his own life, but he was known for adjusting the plot during filming to incorporate experiences of his actors. He insisted on realism in his films, especially in sex scenes, saying that the actors "do not portray things that are imposed on them by me, but things they like to do themselves".[2]

By 1998, he had directed fifty-four films, some under the pseudonym Tony Dark.[1]

In 2004, he won a FICEB HeatGay Award for Best Director (Les secrets de famille - French Art).[4]

Death notice

Cadinot's grave on Montmartre Cemetery

On April 23, 2008 Jean Daniel Cadinot's official website posted the following notice:

Dear friends, critics and others,
If you're reading these words I will have put down my camera, switched off the lights, drawn the curtains and taken my final bow. May all the efforts and work of a whole life, the quest for the moment of pure truth in the sublime communion of two beings under the spell of the undefinable desire for the other, inspire those who inherit my heart.
The human being is made such that it only remembers the good and the beautiful, therefore I leave you with a free mind and a head overflowing with a myriad of young men, sometimes strong and vigorous, sometimes fragile and sensitive. All of them gave me these unforgettable moments of their most tender intimacy, moments that only a few really know but which I made into images to allow you to admire them over and over again.
Never were success or personal fortune my creed. You offered me gratitude and I thank you for that because I wanted nothing else. Cadinot salutes you. Remember a kindly fellow, an extreme observer given to rages and contradiction but who listened to others and was full of love.
"An erect phallus is a symbol of life, a cross a symbol of death."
Jean Daniel Cadinot, photographer and film-maker, passed away on the 23rd of April at age 64 following a heart attack.[5]

After Cadinot's death, the company French Art was being headed by François Orenn, a classically trained pianist who started working for Cadinot as a score composer and who managed the company from 2002. Two unfinished films by Cadinot, Subversion and Le Culte d'Eros, have since been released by him. Orenn has also begun directing films of his own in the typical Cadinot style (Anges et Démons and L'Avarice) and with Cadinot's technical crew.[6][7]

In 2013, StudioPresse and PinkTv jointly acquired the Cadinot trademark and exclusive distribution rights on all Cadinot movies, including previously unreleased material. The website "Cadinot.fr" is owned by StudioPresse, which is known to own other gay labels such Jnrc, Citebeur, GayArabClub etc.

Partial filmography

See also

References

  1. 1.0 1.1 (Aldrich, 2001)
  2. 2.0 2.1 George Koschel: Cadinot, Jean-Daniel in glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture, accessed 2010-10-10
  3. (Martel, 2000) p.107
  4. 2004 Award winners & nominees at the Wayback Machine (archived October 11, 2004)
  5. Cadinot Official Site:"http://www.cadinot.fr/cadinot/index.php?entry=122"

External links

Awards
Preceded by
Chi Chi LaRue as Taylor Hudson
for The Rise
AVN Awards for Best Director-Gay Video
for The Traveling Journeymen
(Le Désir en Ballade)

1992
Succeeded by
Chi Chi LaRue
for Songs in the Key of Sex