It's actually pretty gruelling. For me close to the equivalent of watching a year end baseball round-up.


If you're going to buy every Criterion DVD solely because of the label name you deserve Baise Moi. Boo hoo, it's not filmmaking genius. At least the women who made it came from the sex industry, it's not even 90 minutes and Costes, who delivered music's greatest couplet, "My cock is my dog/Looking for poops", is in it.

Hey! Enough of that, dammit.

Tribe

(EDIT for reasons best left to myself I have muddled the Snuff Movie thread with this thread. Let it stand - the same readers are probably perusing both. I suppose there is a philosophical/existential connection. But I'll stick with porn..)


Of course the most shocking, provocative depiction (simulated) of this ugliness occurs in Henry Portait of a Serial Killer, after which the two perpetrators watch the video of their murders over and over again.

The execution of the African man in Antonioni's The Passenger is often alleged to be real footage, but I am sceptical of that claim.

Back on Topic: Nine Songs comes closest I've seen to a mainstream title with frequent real sex (but the music is definitely not my taste.) Also any recommended gay titles? LA Plays itself or other Fred Halstead stuff from the 70s? These are of some interest for students of esoterica. Early Casey Donovan? The Hard core edition of Radley Metzger's bi Score? (The Image disc is cut to ribbons.)

Unfortunately I am always distracted in pre-AIDS/pre 80s porn, both gay and straight by the fashions, home decor and terrible coiffures - just can't get over those curls, handlebar 'taches, high heels, bad flock wallpaper and tinny music..

I'd love for Criterion to release a disc of L.A. Plays Itself. I wonder if it and Halsted's Sextool are still the only hardcore films in the MoMA permanent collection.

Casey Donovan's only worthwhile early feature, Boys in the Sand is already out in The Wakefield Poole Collection. He is in Metzger's Score, which would be a good Criterion disc, especially since the characters reference Michael Powell.

What I'd really like is for Criterion to wrestle away from Strand Releasing the original film elements for Pink Narcissus and to give it a proper transfer and some contextualization. Strand really fucked up their own DVD release of it and they didn't even bother to create any special features involving the creator of the film.

Isn't the Pink Narcissus disc cut? (I don't have it for that reason.) I understood the masturbation footage in both the oriental/hammock and the sailors' scenes was cut.

Score with the hardcore footage restored would be a bonus but I undertand the original hardcore film elements are gone.

Poor Casey deserves as much recognition as Wakefield Poole for those early features -and Boys in the sand beat Deep Throat by six months for first feature length porn film. I saw it in opening week in NYC December 1971 with a very enthusiastic crowd. Indeed a number of the early performers who are now gone from AIDS really deserve a tribute from those of us who gained so much pleasure from them. (And this is really what it's about.)

Criterion could release Caligula. That's got tons of graphic sex, and is actually a rather good film, in my opinion.

Not buying into a debate about this. The Image disc (which I shamefully confess to owning) is atrocious - as are virtually all the performances. Movie for me is only partially redeemed by the relatively few hardcore scenes (directed by second unit?? They look so much better than Brass) - I particularly like the penthouse pets in full 70s makeup and coiffs whooping it up with the Italian rough trade in the pre"Britannia" sequence. But it needs much MUCH more of this.

Not too OT I hope but has anyone else ever given thought to porn directed by someone estimable, or at least with the taste and sensibility to make it compelling? I have often fanastised that Cukor could have made incomparably elegant porn for instance (and of course Genet via Cocteau does in un Chant d"Amour)....

What about Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses? I think that could fit your bill. Or does it have to be erotic at the same time?

This raises a very interesting idea (still In Topic I hope.) A lot of directors began to include sexually explicit scenes in movies from the early seventies for a while - Oshima with Empire of the Senses of course, Ferrerri in la Derniere Femme, Bellocchio in Diavolo in Corpo, Borowczyk (reputedly) in la Bete, Liliana Cavani's Beyond Good and Evil and several others. But none of these films are in any way arousing/erotic. The same goes for the more recent spate of explicit/controversial movies from Europe and the UK - Romance, the risible Anatomie de l'Enfer, Baise-Moi, la Pianiste, Sex and Lucia, Cachorro, Intimacy and most recently 9 Songs. The latter is the only one to come close to regular porn in terms of quantity and explicitness.

Is the unerotic nature of them related to the need to skirt around the various ratings/censorship authorities? God forbid they might turn the audience on!! Mind you 9 Songs did abysmally at the BO in Oz - simply not seen as a date movie I guess.

Afterthought - I must be getting old. I was playing the Continental ballet from Gay Divorcee last night on a battered old VHS. Quite frankly the spectacle of those hunky guys and gorgeous dames in multifarious black and white suits and gowns throwing each other around seemed wildly sexy to me - so much more so than the current buffed and gynecological CUs fashionable for these things nowadays.

"Beautiful music... dangerous rhythm..."

Do you consider Lars Von Triers "The Idiots" a porn flick? Who labelled it that? Just because Trine has 5 secs of sex and flash her titties? I hate that movie, but loved Lars' idea. I'm really not wishing for more Von Trier in the CC catalogue and especially not this one.

The hardcore scenes were done by bodydoubles anyway.

Either you have never seen a porn or your too young, but these are definitely not porn flicks.

Until that film gets made, read Terry Southern's Blue Movie.

Well I assumed that art porn would be more like Devil in the Flesh/Caligula. Though if we are discussing art films involving bukakke all over jenna jameson's face lensed by a decent director I dont see that ever happening, well maybe Von Trier..whatever.

Suzuki is Criterion's answer to porn so far and the next thing that they should do is to release 'in the realm of the senses' in a 3 disc set, with the second disc devoted to a detailed discussion of sex in art cinema and the third disc including 'deep throat' as bonus material.

i think the main attraction for me would be a porn film with a commentary track by either actors/director or critics. doesn't matter what film, but preferably something like Deep Throat,Behind the Green Door,Roommates,Sexcapades- i don't know really. I've watched Opening of Misty Bethoveen with the commentary by actors- that was kind of entertaining and much more so than the actual movie. I believe there's also a commentary on Barbara Broadcast DVD.

I think, if you release a bad taste movie with good taste features then it's cool

We have no plans to release H. R. Muff N' Stuff, Brassiere to Eternity, Indiana Joan and the Black Hole of Mammoo, or Beyond the Valley of the Ultra Milkmaids at this time. Maybe in 2006.

Best,
JM

Just a quick observation of the frequent mention of Caligula. Surely - given there is only maybe four or five minutes of actual hard core in the whole tedious 2 hours plus, it hardly rates in this discussion.

Also, while it clearly takes some "inspiration" from say Salo (another kettle of fish, as they say) it and Brass other' sleazo Nazi pic Salon Kitty (no hardcore) surely rate only in the "exploitation" category. Brass just doesn't cut it as a porno auteur (or even a director of any competence.)

Yes I raised Taxi zum Klo (but it must have been in another thread.) Ripploh is still alive, and history of it would make good commentary given its first release on the dawn of the plague. BTW it's available from amazon.de.

Criterion should release some Doris Wishman films... Maybe her last film: Dildo Heaven.

Nude on the Moon was always my favorite.

Yes, Nude on the Moon is good... But Dildo Heaven doesn't have a DVD release and has such a much funnier name... Hell, let them just release a box set.

Seven Samurai Bukkake Party....

Not funny at all, but I'll never be able to think of Peter Becker as anything other than a sock puppet now.