When mainstream Hollywood producer Brian Grazer came looking for someone to tackle his pet subculture project on the making of the porn film Deep Throat, who better than the creators of a six-part mini-series titled Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization? Documentary queer filmmakers and life partners Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey had that and a lot more provocative stuff on their joint resume (past subjects have focused on calls boys, gay Republicans, Hitler’s purported gay sexuality, club kids, Monica Lewinsky, and Tammy Faye for openers).
But with Inside Deep Throat, their new film, the duo may have made their own documentary equivalent of Citizen Kane, so perfectly does the subject matter match up with the particular gifts of this talented duo. This movie about how America’s covert dual passion and repulsion for pornography temporarily broke into the mainstream and ignited a culture war via the extraordinary success of the first ‘legitimate’ adult film is thoroughly unsettling, thought-provoking, funny, and immensely entertaining.
The film arrives with an NC-17 rating because it includes the infamous scene of Linda Lovelace’s performing fellatio on Harry Reems. But how could Barbato and Bailey not include it? Indeed, in view of Those Of Whom We Do Not Speak’s determination to swing the country back toward ultra conservatism (SpongeBob is a threat to kids?), the inclusion of 15 seconds of grainy fellatio from 30 years ago seems like an act of sexual terrorism—and not just for gay people either. What a lucky break for these filmmakers! Act up! Fight Back! Suck Dick! I say God bless ’em for not only keeping it in the movie but for showing it in slow motion. The intake of air from everyone in the screening audience, followed by audacious laughter immediately after the scene, had the effect of energizing the audience for the rest of the picture.
Barbato and Bailey’s knack for presenting their tantalizing subjects with non-judgmental detachment has been a hallmark of their work and is evident here. They’ve managed to track down the majority of the survivors who participated in the making of Deep Throat, found a handful of those who dared to show it and those who wanted it stopped and everyone involved in creating it punished. The duo also include cultural observations from Gore Vidal, John Waters, Erica Jong, and others on the forefront of sexual liberation (Hugh Hefner, of course, is included), while Dennis Hopper narrates. No matter how bizarre or sleazy the setting, however, Barbato and Bailey always seem to find their share of hilarious characters and situations that allows them to lighten the mood.
Also, because it’s a Barbato-Bailey doc, in addition to the heavy doses of humor (is it prejudicial of me to point out their unerring gay sensibility in this area?) the film has a soundtrack that’s ramped up to underscore narrative points often made through musical montages. The movie’s use of ’70s pop and disco songs like Melanie’s ‘Brand New Key’ is distinctly reminiscent of the fictional Boogie Nights. Unlike the ironic, mixed message of that terrific film’s oddly affecting theme of creating family where you find it, however, Inside Deep Throat instead traces how the movie’s huge financial success simultaneously kick started both the moral backlash and the adult film industry into high gear and left no one unsullied along the way. Both ends of the spectrum cut a very wide swath.
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A boyfriend once gave me a Nina Simone cassette but when he asked to hear it a week later I made an excuse about the machine eating the tape. ‘That’s OK,’ he said, ‘You don’t have to pretend. You either get Nina or you don’t. You’re just not ready.’ He was right, but about five years later I happened to hear her quintessential version of ‘I Loves You Porgy’ and suddenly I got Nina Simone fever in a big way. Even if you ignore her amazing array of gifts—that distinctive, one-of-a-kind, angry-yet-sensuous voice, the killer pianist skills equally adept at classical and jazz improvisation, the unfaltering sense of rhythm and timing, the poetic compositions and ear for material—nothing, based on the evidence in Nina Simone, Love Sorceress, a 1998 documentary of a European concert she gave in 1976—could be more mesmerizing than Nina Simone live.
This is a riveting, transcendent film that makes me wish I’d made more of an effort to see such a great artist while I had the chance (Simone died in 2003 at the age of 70). Her concert selections in the film—when she finally deigns to perform them for an audience that she seems to alternately covet and be contemptuous of—are sublime, beginning with a rapturous blending of ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘Little Girl Blue’ and continuing with ‘Backlash Blues,’ and Simone’s take on Janis Ian’s ‘Stars.’ This musical cliffhanger (you really do wonder what she will do next), regal and haughty one moment, kittenish and forlorn the next, actually gets some feeling into the dreadful pop song ‘Feelings’ and taunts with the intro of ‘Sinner Man’ but delivers some African dance instead. Is it possible that Simone simply had too much talent and couldn’t figure how to let it out? Love Sorceress seems to say yes. Highly recommended. Two nights only, Sunday, Feb. 13 and Wednesday, Feb. 16, at the Siskel Film Center. See www.siskelfilmcenter.com.
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Film Festival of Note: Just a short 90-minute drive from Chicago, The 2nd Annual Notre Dame Queer Film Festival runs Thursday, Feb. 10 through Saturday the 12th and kicks off with one of my favorite films of 2004, Saved!, the hilarious black comedy set in a fictional Christian high school and a big bonus: an after-screening Q&A with out writer/director Brian Dannelly. Other highlights include the documentary Gay Pioneers that features early gay activist Barbara Gittings, who will be on hand for an after screening Q&A, as will writer of Love! Valour! Compassion! Terrence McNally when the film based on his hit Broadway play is shown. The fest also features two discussion panels with a dazzling line-up of queer talent: McNally and Dannelly will be joined by John Cameron Mitchell and Opposite of Sex director Don Roos to talk about the filmmaking process while Chicago’s own Rick Garcia, political director of Equality Illinois, joins the discussion panel on the future of gay marriage. www.ndqueerfilmfestival.com.
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