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Erotic Cinema

With no shame about taboos. Movies about PORN INDUSTRY

Porn movies, blue movies, dirty movies, skin flicks – their name is legion, we watch them behind closed doors (alone or with partners), we rarely talk about them out loud.

Szymon Skowroński

24 May 2023

And yet, the porn industry is getting better every year. Using all the achievements of technology, such as Oculus glasses, it tempts with new possibilities. Although “adult” films are almost as old as cinema itself, they really flourished in the 1970s. In the United States, late-night porn cinemas, peep show booths, and other equivalents of prostitution became popular. Their impact on society remains enormous to this day. Interestingly, serious filmmakers do not make the porn industry the subject of their serious films that often, although it would seem that this is basically a ready-made recipe for public interest. Nevertheless, there are several works that deal with different aspects of film pornography.

Serbian Film

serbian film With no shame about taboos Movies about PORN INDUSTRY

Let’s discuss it first and get it over with. Definitely one of the heaviest and most unpleasant screenings – even for fans of pulp, gore and other areas of non-mainstream cinema. In the Serbian Film, the creators decided to throw all the shocking practices and sexual deviations into one bag and combine them with some kind of plot. So we have rape, torture and even pedophilia here. The film opens with a scene in which a young boy watches a porno film starring his father. Then it’s only worse. The plot revolves around a former porn star who receives an unusual proposal from a former co-star. He is to star in another production – soon it turns out that the backstage of the new work is much darker than usual, and the whole thing is not just a directed spectacle … Director Srdjan Spasojević tried to give the whole a symbolic value and make the film a treatise on the state of today’s society. For the less sensitive, this moral can be lost in the deluge of senselessly disgusting and shocking scenes, and for the more experienced and resistant viewers, the screening will not bring anything revealing.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

zack and miri make a porno elizabeth banks seth rogen watching model naked

A definitely lighter and more human treatment of the subject is due to Kevin Smith – a director who has never been afraid of controversy and managed to be ahead of his time several times. His 2008 comedy is about a male-female couple of friends who are looking for a way out of a financial hole. After unsuccessful attempts to earn money, they decide to record amateur porn. Although the film uses vulgar language and the industry itself is a rather iconoclastic place, Zack & Miri… is old-fashioned romantic comedy at its best. Smith filled the background with a gallery of funny and distinctive characters, wrote dozens of the usual brilliant-gross dialogue and took full advantage of the charisma and coolness of the perfectly matched actors. The show proves that it’s not that easy to make a good porno, but it also brings hope to a large group of people – guys with Seth Rogen’s figure – that they too can sleep with a chick from the league of Elizabeth Banks!

Lovelace

lovelace amanda seyfried Peter Sarsgaard in a car

Linda Lovelace may not be the first name that comes up in the context of the best porn actresses, but her contributions to the industry are invaluable. Unfortunately, what helped shape her also led to her downfall. It is worth at this point to bring at least the most important turning points of her career to understand the importance of her person. The actor was born Linda Boreman into a strict Catholic family. She spent her youth in the New York Bronx, and her mother punished the girl for any disobedience. Apparently, in high school, the girl was nicknamed Miss Saint Saint. At the age of 20, she gave birth to an illegitimate child, which her mother gave up for adoption, which led young Linda to despair and run away from her family home. Soon she met Chuck Traynor – the creator of low-budget erotic films. The couple got married, and Traynor addicted Linda to himself, drugs and participation in porn films. In 1972, she starred in Deep Throat, a title so influential and popular that it spawned an entire genre. This production not only allowed pornography to enter the mainstream and even pop culture, but also contributed to the outbreak of the sexual revolution. Unfortunately, in the case of Linda Lovelace, the revolution ate its own children. The actress went through several unhappy marriages, became a hardened activist fighting the porn industry, and died in a car accident in 2002. The biography of the actress was used by the creators of the film Lovelace as the basis for the script. Linda was played by Amanda Seyfried, and Sharon Stone and James Franco also starred in the film. Unfortunately, an ambitious approach to a controversial topic did not turn out to be a 100% success. The film won several awards and moderate reviews. It is worth seeing only because of the faithfully recreated realities of the era.

The People vs. Larry Flynt

people vs. larry flynt courtney love sitting on a desk

Another biography on the list. This time a man who for a time was public enemy number one of prudish American society. The original title of Miloš Forman’s excellent film is The People vs. Larry Flynt, which refers to court terminology and perfectly captures the message of the film. Larry Flynt was the publisher and founder of America’s first pornographic magazine, Hustler. It was in the 1970s, which today’s generations see as the time of the greatest generational conflict that has been recorded in history. For the first time, the aspects of sexuality, freedom and morality became the subject of a great discussion, which led to a moral revolution. Larry Flynt, citing the US Constitution and its First Amendment, prohibiting restrictions on press freedom was relentless in his fight, which earned him many enemies. During one of his lawsuits, he was shot by racist and Ku Klux Klan member Joseph Paul Franklin. The terrorist did not like the fact that a photo of a white woman and a black man appeared in the magazine. The paralysis of the lower body, which ironically deprived Flynt of the ability to have intercourse, did not deprive him of the strength and constipation to fight bigotry. Forman, known for his love of difficult, ambiguous, larger-than-life characters, found an excellent place in Flynt’s biography. The screenplay was written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski – one of the best screenwriters-biographers of contemporary American cinema, and Woody Harrelson played the title role, creating one of the most interesting roles in his rich and diverse acting output. The creators move around the porn industry, however, creating a much deeper and more involved image. Scandalist is the story of a steadfast man and his fight for freedom of expression, but also the consequences that these statements can bring.

Boogie Nights

boogie nights mark whalberg

1997 was definitely a very successful year for the porn industry. Then Jenna Jameson began her career and two films were made that talked about the industry in a very serious way: The People vs. Larry Flynt described above and Boogie Nights. The second full-length film by the talented Paul Thomas Anderson turned out to be a pass for the only twenty-seven-year-old director to fame and great success in the world of film. His film was compared to Goodfellas, and was also inspired by the cinema of Robert Altman and Stanley Kubrick. Whoever Anderson was inspired by, Boogie Nights showed that he is in a class of his own and a name worth watching. Anderson did not hide that as a creator he was shaped by the VHS era, of which pornos were an important and inseparable element. His debut – an amateur short titled The Story of Dirk Diggler – is a kind of prequel to the 1997 film. Anderson returns to the character of the young very generously endowed actor he created and turns his life into an epic story that is not only an insightful portrait of the environment, but also a reflection on the changes in customs at the turn of the 1970s and 1980s. The symbolic scene of New Year’s Eve 1979 is, in a sense, the element of the message around which Anderson built the entire plot. What’s more, there is one shot in this film, which in itself is a brilliant summary of what the director is talking about. The tragicomic Little Bill, played by the specialist in this type of character, William H. Macy, enters the room where his wife is cheating on him with a well-built actor. Little Bill, a marginal and overlooked character, goes to the other room, takes a revolver from a cabinet, puts several bullets into an unfaithful wife and her lover, and then commits suicide. Anderson does it in one take. It seems to tell the viewer: look, this is the porn industry. This is where the greatest passions of man come together – both good and bad: love, hate, lust, revenge, sex and death.

Humpday

humpday

A lesser-known, but noteworthy production. Worth attention especially because it touches on a topic that is considered taboo even in liberal times. Well, the story of Lynn Shelton’s independent comedy revolves around two friends – men – who decide to shoot an amateur porn film and send it to a local festival of independent cinema. They make the decision drunk, but it turns out that the case has gone so far that they can’t back down from their crazy idea. As I mentioned – the topic of male-male relations is still considered a shameful thing. Especially when it comes to experimenting – both gentlemen are heterosexual, and one of them – a happy husband. While a woman’s desire to get to know the other side of sexuality has rather positive associations, a guy trying to have sex with a friend is considered rather abnormal. Therefore, it is worth getting acquainted with the Shelton’s film, which was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Is this a movie only for tolerant viewers? Judge for yourself.

Szymon Skowroński

Szymon Skowroński

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