Inside Deep Throat

Deep Throat, the notorious and game-changing smut flick starring porn icon Linda Lovelace, hit mainstream theatres all around America in 1972 and propelled the ongoing sexual revolution to dizzying heights. Not only is it by far the highest-grossing pornographic film, it is also the most profitable independent film in motion picture history: its production cost $24,000, the actors were paid a pittance, and it went on to make an estimated $600 million around the world, according to the makers.

It was written and directed by Gerard Damiano, a former hairdresser who was inspired to make blue movies because he kept hearing sexually frustrated wives complain about the lack of intimacy in their relationships. He came up with the simple but revolutionary plot for Deep Throat after witnessing his leading lady’s special talent, an oral sex technique he deemed unique enough to build an entire picture around: Linda Lovelace, who plays herself, consults a doctor about her perpetually unfulfilled sex life. When he examines her, he discovers that her clitoris is located in the back of her throat, generously offers his help, and the rest is history.

In Inside Deep Throat, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato examine the reasons behind the film’s success and its tremendous impact on American society with the help of some members of the cast and crew (including Gerard Damiano and stock footage of Linda Lovelace herself) and other interviewees like John Waters, Larry Flynt, Ruth Westheimer and Hugh Hefner. It focuses on the controversy and witch hunt surrounding the pop culture phenomenon that was banned in 23 states and nearly got Lovelace’s co-star Harry Reems arrested for five years on obscenity charges, and aims to illuminate both sides of the coin.

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PORN! At what age did you come into contact with it? I was born in the mid 80s and when my friends and I entered puberty and became interested in something we had no idea of, namely sex, we had no Internet (or only a very few of us) and so we gathered our initial impressions from stolen magazines, because no one had the guts to pay for them. Another source of information was the French Canal+ channel (for the real stuff) or DSF’s Sexy Sport Clips (for the softporn stuff) from Germany. In order to get access to those, we had to wait until our parents went out with some friends in the evening, stay up late and not fall asleep before mom and dad returned. A few years later, when computers became more popular, suddenly this guy who had a CD burner and provided everybody with what was wanted and needed stepped on the scene (I am sure all of you knew a buddy like that back in the old days).

So what am I driving at, beside the fact that the only way to test my infantile sexuality was to use my imagination? Well, while we were growing up, pornography never played an important role, we never faced a sexual revolution or anything like that. Porn existed, we knew where to get it, we watched it but never made a big deal out of it.

After I saw Inside Deep Throat for the first time I was really satisfied as the documentary delivers information not only about the times when the porn business wasn’t an industry but ruled by independent “actors” and “directors”, but it also focuses on Deep Throat and the rise of a cinematographic, socio-cultural phenomenon.

As I have never seen Deep Throat and knew very little of it, the documentary was able to gratify my shallow curiosity. But when we decided to write about it in our “Docommentary” section, I re-watched it and it was during the long and quite intense conversations with Anna when some kind of ambivalent feelings towards Inside Deep Throat emerged in my head. In the next few lines I will briefly note down a few personal thoughts on the documentary about the most profitable porn film of all times and pornography itself.

During the 90 minutes there is talk of a culture war between sexual revolutionists who claim to crusade for women’s empowerment and libido liberation, and the American right-wing politicians and government which outsourced the report of the commission on obscenity and pornography in order to justify a nationwide ban of Deep Throat. I think that the directors succeeded in capturing meaningful, exploratory, questionable and even suspect opinions and insights of Deep Throat in a very objective and journalistic way. If you are curious about the historical interest and cultural impact of the 1972 porn classic and different views/opinions of umpteen talking heads like Dr. Ruth Westheimer, John Waters and the usual suspects, you should give Inside Deep Throat a try. Personally, I got the feeling that the documentary overestimates Deep Throat‘s influence from time to time and never seems to take itself too seriously.

In my personal definition, a documentary should not only delve into one specific and cohesive issue but should encourage viewers to question what they have seen and inspire them to search for further information. Inside Deep Throat could have served as a perfect medium for an important subject like pornography. Unfortunately it doesn’t raise any questions and hardly provides a basis for discussion. To my way of thinking we need a sincere, realistic and public debate about how we deal with pornography, the portrayal of women in sex films and its influence and effects on the youth. There is no need for over-dramatisation but the democratisation of technology with the enhancing availability is responsible for the increasing consumption of pornographic material and this should not be belittled but simply thematised. An omnipresent subject like pornography and sexuality needs educational work. I am not saying that all this should have been included in the documentary but there were several occasions where the directors could have at least indicated the importance of some subjects mentioned above. To conclude, I was not disappointed by Inside Deep Throat itself but in the end I was searching for an introduction to my never-ending quest to seek new cinematic and socio-pedagogical paths, and that’s where the documentary can’t keep up with.

-Luc-

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There is a lot to say about the porn industry and American censorship laws, more than could be put into a 92-minute documentary. I can see that. I’m sure the makers of Inside Deep Throat tried their best to turn the spotlight to adherents of the anti-pornography movement and let them address their various issues with pornography in as much depth as the limitations allow, but at the end of the day, it is very clear that we’re not really supposed to see eye to eye with the pious right-wing crusaders and radical feminists featured in the film. We walk away having learned that the American government bent over backwards to jail an individual for having sex on film — a ridiculous notion — and that’s about the bottom line here.

In reality, it’s not that easy, of course. It never is. And in that sense, Inside Deep Throat is a discussion starter more than anything else. I liked the documentary for what it is, a feel-good portrait of a film that sparked great controversy and paved the way for an awakening industry, but the most interesting questions remain unexplored.

Linda Lovelace was an ambivalent figure who made a lot of conflicting statements depending on who she was talking to during her lifetime. Due to the frequent contradictions and reversals of opinion, it is impossible to figure out to which degree her accusations of rape and abuse are true and whether she really was coerced into entering the adult business. Sadly (and perhaps unfairly, as any educated being knows that it isn’t unusual for victims of abuse to return to their tormentors and continue the cycle of violence), she lost much of her credibility in the public eye when she once again turned to the porn industry several years prior to her death. It’s a classic “he said she said” situation and the most important witness is dead, which makes it hard to treat the case in a film supposed to stick to pure facts.

But even with that in mind, the way they handled it doesn’t sit well with me. Following archived footage of Lovelace testifying on talk shows alongside feminists, there’s Damiano offering his perspective in a few concise sentences:

“Linda needed somebody to tell her what to do, and as long as she had somebody telling her what to do she was happy. So when she made the movie, she was happy making the movie. After the movie, somebody said ‘hey, you shouldn’t have made that movie’, so she became unhappy about making the movie. Which wasn’t true! She was very happy about making the movie.”

And that’s it for Lovelace, basically. It seems like an exceedingly biased, flippant, dismissive conclusive assessment to me, and I would’ve liked to see one or two more statements to balance it out.

Furthermore, as Luc already pointed out, in spite of the fertile ground for extensive debate, the discussion on the ethics of pornography is kept relatively shallow. The documentary scratches the surface, but definitely doesn’t spend much time analysing the more dubious and problematic aspects of the industry that Deep Throat practically unleashed. This may again be attributed to the lack of time and relevance to the central subject matter, but it still irks me. As author Erica Jong pointed out in her interview, the premise of Deep Throat is a little shady in itself. It caters to a male fantasy, the idea that by thrusting their penis down a woman’s throat, she gets as much pleasure as they do — and in retrospect, it seems like a foreshadowing of the direction in which heterosexual pornography is currently facing. It is based on male fantasy, which is interpreted as fact, so the expectation of the women involved is to conform to this fantasy. These dynamics, too, ought to be questioned and properly addressed and not merely touched on.

~ Anna ~

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Watch the trailer below and give the documentary a try if you come across it. If you have already seen it, please tell us your opinion in the comment section.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2cNTQMAtCM]

August Burns Red – Rescue & Restore


If there is one sentence that I’ve heard too often from bands it’s: “this new record is the best one so far, etc etc”. More often than not, this promise is not kept. In the case of August Burns Red‘s new release Rescue & Restore however, it is more than just true…it’s an understatement: their fifth album is nothing shy of an absolute masterpiece.

In their early days the band were a pretty standard metalcore band, a good one admittedly, but with their third record Constellations they slowly started expanding their sound. Number four, Leveler, broke new ground with the occasional addition of certain atypical instruments and polyrhythms which added a certain epic feeling to their music. However, their newest endeavor goes even further and broadens the entire spectrum of what metalcore can be.

The guitars and drums are absolutely insane and I can guarantee you that you will find new licks and fills each time you re-listen to the eleven songs. While that has already kind of been the case on the predecessor, it is even more pronounced this time around. The same goes for the use of unconventional instruments…I’m not sure if I managed to identify all of them correctly but here is a, possibly incomplete, list: marimba, trumpet, flamenco guitar and violin. I am aware that this sounds ridiculous when you read it…but it fits so well into the song structures that the ingenuity is hard to deny. But you will have to be judge of that for yourself, I for one completely dig it.

The vocals have not changed a lot, nor has the production value: both are still at extreme high level. There are now certain spoken word passages that help quiet the songs down and thereby make the sonic array more diverse during these forty-eight minutes. If you know the band, you know that their lyrics are generally-speaking influenced by their faith without them being too much “in your face” about it. This has not changed, which I welcome because they are a major part of what ABR is all about.

All in all, as mentioned above, I’d say that this is definitely the band’s strongest record to date and I can only recommend every metal(core) fan to give it a go. One thing’s certain: June has brought forward another strong contender for my personal top 5. You can find more information about the band on their Facebook page, and you can listen to a song below. And just because I can: this has been my fiftieth music review, here’s to another fifty!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkLttNn7dhU]

~Yannick~

Pity Sex – Feast of Love

Fear not, gender fascists! Michigan based band Pity Sex have what it takes to be politically correct. Having both male and female vocals Feast of Love provides variety in songwriting for not drifting into boredom. Pity Sex could be described as a lo-fi college rock sounding band that reminds one of Jimmy Eat World on benzodiazepines, which can be pretty cool, actually.

The opener Wind-Up and the second track Keep are the right kick in the face to start your day right. Uncompromising, catchy and short. Are Pity Sex able to keep that pace up?

The answer is mixed, frankly. Honey Pot and St. John’s Wort keep the rhythm of the opening tracks and really suit my mood for this time of the year. What I really dislike, are songs like Fold and Smoke Screen but that’s not Britty Drake’s fault. She’s a good singer but the tone of her voice reminds me of Dolores O’Riordan from The Cranberries and that really destroys me. Call it a trauma, but I rely on my preconception that there really is no good band from Ireland, and no, Two Door Cinema Club are from Northern Ireland, but they still suck and yes; I am that obnoxious and luckily, Pity Sex are from the US.

I have to admit, in all fairness, that the songwriting is really good, though. It varies from powerful, bassdriven parts with a slight gothic note to parts with a more post-grunge a.k.a. “I don’t give a fuck” attitude. It’s just the slower songs that don’t really attract my attention.

You can get the album on Bandcamp for 5 quid, I say the album is still worth the money despite the parts that remind me of that one band from Ireland…

The Stuff

Finally I got my hands on this classic satirical horror film from 1985 and I have to tell you that I quite liked it. First because it is entertaining and ambitious and secondly because of its social criticism. A lot of B-Movies are ridiculed by reviewers because the financial restrictions, the bad acting and the hilarious and most of the time exaggerated plots tend to result in cheesy and trashy outcomes. If you examine The Stuff on a cursory level, this may be true, but it still works.

The premise of the film is built on a white, ice-cream like, gooey substance marketed as having no calories but being sweet and saturating, which soon becomes a nationwide moneymaker. David “Mo” Rutherford is hired by some worried ice-cream industry and fast-food moguls who see their business at risk in order to find out what secret hides behind this anti calorie bomb. While the story evolves, “Mo” teams-up with Jason, a boy who has witnessed how The Stuff has affected his family and Nicole, the advertising executive of the product. Together they, with a few rather weird people, try to relieve America from the addictive dessert.

For a “trash” horror flick from the 80s, the “special effects” are above average and director Larry Cohen even managed to shoot one scene in the popular Nightmare On Elm Street rotating room:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uokeVw6ldDI]

On the one hand, the rather professional look and approach of the film have been achieved inter alia through the estimated 1,7 million dollar budget. On the other hand there is always some kind of unprofessional attitude leaking out which results in a lot of highly visible and typical b-movie “mistakes”, like the really bad editing. At first I was not sure if I borrowed a cut version of the film but after I checked this out I came to the conclusion that the editor simply must have been high all the time because some of his work simply doesn’t make any sense at all.

As mentioned before, The Stuff tackles a rather interesting subject. It caricatures the western (fast) food culture, the blind and excessive consumerism (of unhealthy food) and the importance of marketing strategies in order to sell the crap. The Stuff highlights that we live in a simple minded consumer society in which the customers have become zombies complying with the media-dictated beliefs, values and norms without questioning anything. And above us all there are the big food conglomerates who pull the strings and do whatever they want. To conclude, you can see The Stuff as a nice little horror movie with a lot of charm or you can see it as a critique towards nutrition in modern societies which are heavily marked by pseudo-individuality and TV commercials. Give this one a try!

I The Mighty – Satori


Post-hardcore fans rejoice: the drought is finally over! June marks the release of I The Mighty‘s debut album Satori which, to me, is the first true release of the genre this year! When the band released their single Speak To Me in April I was severely stoked and was expecting to be completely blown away by the entire thing. Want to know whether my hopes were fulfilled? Read on then.

To be blunt with you: the quartet from San Francisco does in no shape or form introduce any new elements to the genre, but instead use the known elements with utter perfection. Starting with the musicianship, the guitars are in perfect tandem and deliver an endless shower of riffs which are mostly in the melodic department but also cross to the heavy side every now and then. The drums and the bass are on the exact same level of pure goodness and keep the groove going at all times, giving the ensemble the appropriate background.

Luckily, the production does the thirteen songs justice in every way, which makes the experience even more enjoyable. However, it doesn’t stop there. These guys just know how to write interesting and well-thought out songs which is definitely noticeable, especially after consecutive listening sessions. Trust me, these fifty-two minutes will become shorter every time you re-listen to them.

As if all of the above wasn’t enough, you are treated to a top notch singer whose vocals have quite a broad spectrum, ranging from cleans to screams in pretty much every pitch you can imagine. In addition there are guest vocals by Colleen D’Agostino of the band The Material on the song Four Letter Words, which simply give the song the extra special flavor it needs to be among my favorites on the record.

If you are wondering if there’s any downside to this record then I have to disappoint you: nope. It has quickly catapulted itself to my top 5 releases of the year thus far and even though I am still expecting quite a few good albums, I wouldn’t be angry if this was the pinnacle of 2013. I absolutely urge you to listen to it, whether you are into post-hardcore or not. For more information you can go to the band’s Facebook page, and the above-mentioned song can be heard below. Enjoy and you stay classy, San Diego…err San Francisco.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo0JPviuK5c]

SADA – All Hail The Beeflords


All Hail The Beeflords is one of those albums that seem to sound exactly like the cover looks like, or the title sounds like. The British quartet provides a dry and riff loving LP with some downs, many ups as well as many ‘Fu Manchesque’ or 90s moments.

The short opener already predetermines the direction of this almighty bull. Hard riffs, changes in tempi and songs that rear up until the climax is smashing the listener’s ears as heavy as finest stoner rock can do. The production is characterised by an authentic live sound, giving the drums another pushing trait. Yet, songs like XII Rocks never overdo the madness by slowing down the pace from time to time.

The vocals stick to the cliché, which works most of the time, although one has to say that especially the lyrics are way too platitudinous. SADA surely is a band that should be cherished for their riffs instead of their poetic deepness, to put it that way.

All Hail The Beefloards and _ are two songs that interrupt the stampede, the first one being a psychedelic Fantômas moment, the latter a kind of banal 90s ‘ballad’. Holst and Devil Woman represent the more metal-like approach of the album, giving the second half of it a different but still hard rocking feeling. Bride of Cuntenstein kind of resumes the whole idea of All Hail The Beefloards: an awesome song name, speed changes, a hundred riff ideas, psychedelic moments and bull screams.

Conclusion: a nice little piece of live sounding stoner rock for not so calm moments.

Srpski Film (A Serbian Film)

Today I want to write about a movie that came out three years ago and that, due to its extraordinarily shocking and graphic content, quickly achieved cult status and has consequently been discussed to absolute death. Everything I’m about to say, I’m sure someone else has put more eloquently and intelligently before. And still I felt that this would make for a worthwhile review for the simple reason that I rarely come across films that elicit such a strong reaction out of me, and seeing as I’m not alone with this sentiment, it might be interesting to get yet another take on why it’s stirred so much fuss.

It’s been two years since I first watched Srdjan Spasojevic’s A Serbian Film, and to this day I regard it as the movie that messed with my head the most and for the longest time. To get the plot out of the way, for those who have been blissfully unaware of its existence: the retired porn actor Milos is struggling to make ends meet with his wife and kid in a poverty-stricken Serbia. He gets an ominous, albeit financially enticing offer to star in the newest project of a director who claims to make “artistic pornography”, and after a brief period of consideration, he agrees to sign the contract. We then watch him as he enters a swirling downward spiral and gets sucked further and further into a vortex of violence and insanity. In an interview, Spasojevic concisely explains what he tried to express with this heavily-layered metaphor:

[…] first of all this film is an honest expression of the deepest feelings that we have about our region and the world in general. Concerning our region, the last few decades have been dominated by war and political and moral nightmares. The world in general is sugar-coated in political correctness, but it is actually very rotten under that façade. So we’re talking about problems in the modern world, only they’re set in Serbia. And it’s a struggle against all the corrupt authorities that govern our lives for their own purposes. So yes, there is anger in the film.

A Serbian Film seems to divide people in three camps: the fans who think it’s an experimental chef d’oeuvre, the highbrow moviegoers who lump it in the same category as Human Centipede, and the ones in the middle who find it impossible to rate this movie because they can’t figure out what it’s trying to be. The first category disagrees with the criticisms of the second fraction, namely that the film is made for simple shock value with no other purpose, and then there is the latter group, the people who think they see value in it, but are undecided whether they can get behind the extreme images used to deliver the alleged bigger message.

I am one of the undecided folk. Make no mistake, I don’t “like” A Serbian Film. In fact, it makes me nauseous.

But what makes it so psychologically confronting for me is that I can’t dismiss it as a sole cinematic genital wart. It’s not August Underground or Slaughtered Vomit Dolls. It is truly, thoroughly fucked-up, but it doesn’t feel like the excessive violence is the essence of the movie or meant to titillate the sadistic impulses of the viewers. It’s kind of tricky to pinpoint why, though, because once it surpasses a certain point, despite all aspirations of being an “art film”, it becomes little more than an orgy of seizure-inducing gore. Still, there’s the — in my opinion — beautiful lighting and shot composition, the efficient acting and the quiet, intimate scenes that humanise the protagonist and his family leading up to the break of doom. There are scenes that I think are truly stunning visually — my favourite is the one in which Milos goes for a run while his brother talks to his wife in the kitchen — but so disturbing in content that it leaves me with a strange, confusing kind of fascination. The family is actually likable while the other characters are corrupt and seem to exist only in a sick parallel porn universe (a political allegory that’s not even far-fetched), and their victimisation does not leave me cold. I know only bad things will happen to them because the film has a consistently grim vibe, but it bothers me that they cannnot escape. Something about this mix makes it seem like it’s not just senseless, exploitative torture porn. It feels more like a tragedy.

Art is subjective, and we can and will argue about it until our planet bursts into flames (which is great, life would be boring if we just left it alone.) I don’t understand the Oscar-nominated impressionistic picture Tree of Life and see no beauty in it, to someone else out there it is most likely the single most touching movie ever made. I think Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is an overly pompous, pretentious attempt at combining art with exploitation, but you might well be sitting in front of your computer screen shaking your head right now because that is exactly how you feel about A Serbian Film, which I personally think comes closer to achieving the juxtaposition of ugliness and beauty.

I hate many scenes in this film because I think they are way over the top and its nihilism often strikes me as juvenile, but I am confident that it does not deserve the label of “shlock.” I would not recommend watching it, however. There’s only so much outrageous, inventive violence you can defend before you must admit that while the basic approach is admirable, the content oversteps the mark one time too many. I maintain that A Serbian Film is intriguing in a soul-shatteringly ambiguous way: it’s far too well-made to be laughable, yet too perverse and vile to be placed alongside provocative (but comparatively vanilla) masterpieces like the 1997 Funny Games. And it may well be that this means that the film has fulfilled its purpose.

Jon Hopkins – Immunity


Truth be told, I have never heard of Jon Hopkins before, if it wasn’t for a friend who pointed out that he collaborated with Coldplay years ago with his song Light Through the Veins being the intro snippet for Viva La Vida‘s opening track Life in Technicolor. As the ambience and emotions caused in that track were far more stunning than Coldplay‘s LP, I was eager to hear what he was capable of doing as a solo artist and it turned out that Jon Hopkins can do way better than composing Chris Martin‘s delivery room soundtrack.

If it was to summarize Immunity in one, simple sentence I’d say that this LP is a perfect electronic / neoclassical hybrid. The opener We Disappear reminds me of Burial‘s wonkiness, especially during his Untrue phase. This is minimal electronic music as it should be and no overinflated bass-driven techno madness. Solid structure, fragile content.

Open Eye Signal sucks you right into the dancefloor. The pumping beat and the deep atmosphere make you forget time and space and you’ll be pleasantly noticing every fibre of your body moving to this groove. One of my favourite tunes on this LP.

Personally, I think that Breathe This Air stands out as the best example of Hopkins’ capabilities as a composer. He masters the quiet / loud game like a boss and captivates the listener with his unique blend of deep electronic compositions with frail classical elements. Collider, on the other hand, is straight-forward, hypnotic and stomping. This could be my soundtrack for cruising through urbanisation at night.

Fortunately, Hopkins did not opt to release a pure electro album. Tracks like Immunity or Abandon Window are the proof for his real talent, which is evoking moods with placidity. The soundscapes remind me of Sigur Rós, during their heyday (from Ágætis byrjun until Takk…), with the fragility of the tracks being the strongest point on this LP. This is as naked and intimate as music can possibly be.

Maybe it’s too early for my verdict but I somehow feel the urge to name Immunity as my personal biggest surprise for 2013 and I’m pretty sure this album will be on my top 5 for this year! I recommend this album for fans of Brian Eno‘s Ambient 1: Music for Airports who are not afraid to go full electro for a minute or two.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q04ILDXe3QE]