Today, any quack with a camera can claim himself an "artiste".

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btw, you didn't mention Alex de Renzy. That is a huge oversight in my book.

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Edited by - jimmyd on 2/9/2003 5:31:51 PM

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Case in point -- I just watched Taboo II again the other night. A smoking hot movie -- why? I look at the scene between Kay Parker, Aunt Peg and Kevin James, in an attempt to determine why it turns me on more than some of he stuff I see today.

It came down to Kevin James and Aunt Peg trying to get Kay Parker off. No one tried to get the girls off these days -- it's all about humiliating them or using them as cum dumpsters... not about making them feel as good (in theory) as the male.

If I look at most of the RLD stuff, any BJ tape, etc. all the focus seems to getting the load to the acresses face, and ramming her ass for good measure. Nothing is paced to give her pleasure; merely enough to get the guy off...

You watch Kevin James and his hips are moving and he's kissing and fondling and stuff; as is Aunt Peg.

Watch most of today's stuff and there's none of that -- no one kisses anyone -- the chicks will, but usually only to swap cum -- and if they do, the kissing is not necessarily done because kissing feels good, it's because the tongue needs to be somewhere.

So there's an urgency (for lack of a better word) in a lot of today's porn that ruins the pace for me.

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And please define cinematic.
Be careful with your answer. This is a trick(y) question.

Edited by - Walter Burns on 2/9/2003 6:16:16 PM

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But when these "classic movies" were being made, I don't remember them being quite so cherished. The prevailing mantra was "isn't anybody ever going to make a decent adult movie? is it even possible?"

As for no good movies after 1990, I think two Paul Thomas movies - Justine-Nothing To Hide with the awesome Roxanne Blaze, and Fade To Black are every bit as good if not better than the "classic" films.

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It depends upon what genre you're looking for and what you decide to purchase.

There's still some stuff out there, but sometimes it tends to get buried with the volume of stuff that is released now days.

DenverDon

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Furthermore, I am surprised that you really believe that Thomas' sense of "location, timing, teasing, creating suspense, dramatic pauses" can be compared in any way to even just a halfway decent TV-series. I must have seen the wrong Paul Thomas flick all this time. (Yes, I have seen his Steamy Windows .)
The guy can't even explain what his style is supposed to be in a coherent way. I have read he describes his style as "subjective", while the classical filmic storytelling, on which he relies, is not only often flawed in his works, but also relies on a very central norm, which he doesn't seem to grasp. Classical filmic storytelling is based on an "objective" and "latent" narration, a narration brought forward by interaction between characters.

Jues Jordan on the other hand, doesn't rely much on narrative structures, which are hardly cinematic in principle at all, to convey his erotic vision. He uses cinematographic tropes, such as ""crippled midget" P.O.V.s." and certainly has an eye for timing and rhythm, which can be controled through use of a combination of mise-en-scene techniques, camerawork and graphical and temporal editing schemes.
Your contention that Jules doesn 't know how to handle a plot is completely irrelevant, just as it is irrelevant to note that Thomas supposedly does. Are you in fact saying that filmic or cinematographic art HAS to be narational in nature?

btw, I have far greater respect for Doris Wishman than for Paul Thomas, as FILMmakers.

Edited by - Walter Burns on 2/9/2003 6:47:45 PM

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Edited by - tilldawn on 2/9/2003 7:24:22 PM

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Koyaanisqatsi is narrational.

Andy Warhol´s Empire is not.

Any doubts?

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btw, why this insistence on plot or a good narrative structure as a guideline to judge cinematic quality? It doesn't make any sense at all. It really doesn't. Not in porn, not in non-porn (I would have said mainstream, but mainstream cinema IS in historical terms basically narrational in structure).

Let me explain this again with the help of an example. This insistence on "good narrative structure" is reminiscent of many classical film critics, who dismissed the films of the Marx Brothers because they
didn't meet the classical criteria of thematic significance, character consistency, narrative unity, causal logic and psychological realism. Fact is that
those critics missed the point: they were applying aesthetic norms to a specific film form which was based on a different set of aesthetic norms, the "Vaudeville aesthetic". They missed the point because they could only see the films of the Marx Brothers as failed classical narratives, while the real vitality of those films was located elsewhere, in the heterogeneity of their material, the virtuosity of their performances and their wild and wonderful violations of classical storytelling.
I believe that at least some of you make the same mistake here. You are judging all different kinds of porn with the same, idiosyncratic and very personalized set of norms, regardless of the norms they can be related to. Ah, I hear you say, but isn't this the job of every critic? Well, no it's not. The job of a critic worth his salt, is to judge how well different kinds of films or porn realize their potential within the aesthetic norms to which they adhere. To do otherwise, is to miss the point of those films. It means that you're really not judging films at all, but aesthetic norms themselves, which you will not or can not appreciate and understand from your own, very personalized set of norms.

To get back to PT. Since he and the company he works for are priding theirselves on the fact that their porn movies have a plot, I use the classical norms to which they are said to adhere. Well, every PT movie I have seen fails the classical criteria of thematic significance, character consistency, narrative unity, causal logic and psychological realism. I am not even talking about vraisemblance problems and the fact that thematically speaking, PTs stuff is laughable at best. Can anybody here say that PT's versions of "Dr Jeckyll" or "Artemisia" had any mainstream cinematic value at all?
This leads me to the conclusion that the classical Hollywood cinema and the porn aesthetic are more or less incompatible. Therefor I can understand your challenge putting together "5 or 6 sex scenes lasting about 15 minutes each, and still maintain a good narrative structure and other cinematic elements." I am saying this can't be done. Look at the failed attempts by mainstream directors to do just this. Sure, Empire of the Senses is an interesting film, but it is not porn.
The last thing for now. Before you jump on this, let me make it clear here and now that my conclusion that the classical Hollywood cinema and the porn aesthetic are incompatible, does NOT mean that I believe that narrative structures or elements don't come into play within the porn aesthetic itself. But maybe it is about time that porn stopped looking at mainstream cinema and develops its own voice, complete with its own ideas about the functions of narrative structures. I know 1 pornmaker has already done this more than 20 years ago.

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Koyaanisqatsi is narrational in a non-classical way.

Empire is just the vanity work of an overrated quack with a camera.

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Then again, I guess you already gave up discussing with me when you stated that I couldn't make you define the concept cinematic.

Edited by - Walter Burns on 2/9/2003 10:35:16 PM

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Edited by - Mythsong on 2/9/2003 11:08:49 PM

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Me, I´d rather spend those same eight hours in bed with a pair of taiwanese twin sisters called Me Me Lai and Wai Mi.

Edited by - Planet Sex on 2/9/2003 11:18:41 PM

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1. "But just about everyone [in AVN's Directors Forum], Old Schoolers in particular, were in agreement on one key point: porn's so-called Golden Age is just so much overly-romanticized hype, its films not holding a candle to today's productions." --AVN, Jan 03
2. Of course there is plenty of porn about women acting like adolescents. It's probably the largest subcategory of porn: Wax Lardcore, Extreme Teen, Fast Times at Deep Crack High, The Babysitter, Inner City Black Cheerleader Search, etc etc. [Maybe f.o.p. should tell his dad to get some new porn, since it's rumoured he's not old enough to buy it himself.] jimmyd--You must be from outside the U.S., because I've seen legal porn with people pretending to be babies.
3. Planeta: you know better than to deify the "days of yore". There were loops and wall-to-wall in those days too.
4. RAME critics and other online porn reviewers are not of one mind. It's that the threads for negative reviews are often much longer. Pay attention to sales. Dreamquest doesn't stay at the top of the sales charts *just* because Jenna's in it (although that's the biggest of many reasons).
5. Jeff: you reveal more about yourself than the state of today's porn. If all you watch is assembly line porn, then your view is gonna be limited. Peter North makes it a point to have hot kissing sesssions in almost every scene of the various series he owns. And if you think women only kiss to swap cum, you need to rewatch all of Jenna J's g/g scenes.
6. Walter: Is Empire of the Senses also known as In the Realm of the Senses? Also Walter you said that movie was "not porn". How do you define porn?

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With the exception of one feature (that I've directed, rather that being the DP), everything I've done has been improvisational. Interesting to note I've twice been nominated for Best Screenplay, although I've only written one.

In that particular screenplay, "Succubus" from VCA, I attempted some form of narrative structure in that the flick had three, clearly defined acts, preceded by an introductory setup, and ending with a denouement.

But for the most part, most of what I've done is thematic, i.e., I'll take a theme or a subject, and present it in a way that sometimes seems as if there's a linear story, but there is not. My flick "The Sopornos" is a good example of this. It certainly has the bare thread of a story running through it, but it's mostly stand alone vignettes, designed to either motivate, support, or carry the sex scenes, and bridged by using an O.S. narration that each time begins with a conversation between two characters that are at that time outside of the thread-bare story line. This flick only mimics having a narrative structure and this I did quite intentionally. why? Mostly because of all the reasons I listed in my previous post. Also because I don't think most of the audience gives a rat's ass about narrative structure in porn. The only reason I gave the same rat's ass about it was I needed to get some heavy cable sales for the flick, which I did. Very heavy I'm happy to say--though I certainly didn't see any of that money. By the way, this screenplay-less movie was nominated for Best Screenpaly as well. Also for Best Director.... go fucking figure.

But I must tell you. I'm here to learn from you guys. Who would have guessed such an intelligent exchange could take place on a subject of such dubious artistic merit.

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Welcome JimmyD! I'm not sure if SueR was just joking with you or not, but for anyone who isn't aware - JimmyD is director James Digiorgio, and webmaster of SimplyJimmyD .
Dude, you really should warn people about that pussy pic you posted. Oh my God. Was that from a coroner's medical book, or what?

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The name of that movie?

Casablanca.

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Plus, I wasn't talking about g/g scenes, specifically.

A lot of modern porn (and there are always exceptions when making gross generalizations like this) ignore the woman. Their presence is required merely because a dick sliding in a male ass is unacceptable. :-)

But seriously, can you really look at a flick like Flesh Hunter 2 and say that Jenna Haze's behavior is anything resembling normal (meaning "of the norm"), or something I might be able to act out with my SO?

Hardly.

Her behavior is abnormal, as are most sexual acts depicted in modern porn. This was not so much the case with older porn. Sure, they had golden showers, scat, etc. then -- but it was marginalized, never passed off as something "everyone" does like most of today's porn tries to convey.

Cinematics aside -- This, to me, is the main difference between porn of the past and porn of today -- it was present in their loop carriers to their features. No one spread a gal's asshole so wide you could see her colon in 1982. It had become damned near standard practice in 2002.

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Pontus

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You're being specious . Now go watch Anal Addicts and tell me that Peter doesn't like to kiss. Then if you're not convinced, go watch all 36 North Poles.

And you dodged my point: that you, of all people, should know that the porn we watch says more about us individually than the it does about the gigantic porn industry. A person could watch a porno a week that fit your requirements for not "ignoring the woman" and never run out. You, AMF, just have to choose the stuff you, of all people, *know* focuses on men pleasuring and worshipping women. Like Veronica Hart, Rodney Moore, Buttman, Jill Kelly, Jules, Seymore Butts etc etc. You know all this, AMF. You're a porn expert. What's up here? You gone jaded on us?

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Good ole Ron J in some of his 'classic' days.

DenverDon

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