An online friend, YogaDame, has just given a very nice five-star review to Revelations, a 1992 film by seminal “by women, for women” director Candida Royalle. Coincidentally, Revelations was the last porn video that Peggy and I watched (c.1996) before embarking on the adventure that has become Comstock Films.
Revelations is a solid, well-made porn feature, with lots to recommend it. And YD’s enthusiastic, but even-handed review is a great starting place to decide if this is one to add to your rental queue or library. Her only real reservation about the film comes in the Thumbs Down section of the review:
“My only concern is that Revelations is ambitious enough to perhaps invite comparisons to mainstream movies, which in turn can only lead to frustration and disappointment. For reasons too complicated to discuss here, the budgets of adult movies are miniscule (tiny even when compared to independent films), such that none will ever fully compete on the mainstream level. For those of us who love adult features in and of themselves, however, this one stands out for overall excellence.”
It’s been 10 years since I saw Revelations, but I still remember going into it with high hopes that it would be that magical combination of a “real movie with real sex”. And I still remember watching with a sense of frustration and disappointment. It almost seemed like two movies cut together; one a low-budget but credible dystopic-future scifi, and the other a softcore-ish erotic vignette video. And in the end I felt like the two worked at cross purposes.
As I ruminated on why I felt this way, I decided that a big part of it was simply a matter of money. The “film” part of the film was just too thin in art direction and production design, and the sex part was shot on video. Although the creative conceit accounted for the mixed media, the effect on me was that I was always aware that I was watching a production, instead of feeling like I was transported into a world where the characters lived and the action took place. I never quite got pulled into the story, and I never quite got turned on by the sex. Indeed, our own “pornumentary” approach was born in large measure as a way to try and take another tack on the problems inherent in five-figure (aka porn) budgets; which in my mind is largely a problem of managing the audience’s expectations, and avoiding unfavorable comparisons. (I’ll readily admit our approach has problems of its own.)
The most enjoyment that Peggy and I have ever gotten from a porn movie was a fairly recent viewing of The Opening of Misty Beethoven, which we enjoyed quite a bit. Perhaps some of the sex scenes dragged a little, but the movie part was so fun and sexy that it didn’t bother us. We certainly never felt the urge to hit the fast-forward button, either on the talking part or the fucking part. So I think it’s fair to count Peggy and me as people who would sorely love to see a modern adult feature that was as much fun. We knock around ideas for narrative style hardcore films, and I’d be thrilled to make a feature style, sexually explicit film that YogaDame thought worthy of a five-star review.
But as I thought about it last night with YG’s “invite comparisons” still ringing in my head, I had this thought: Who in their right mind, if they could produce something as witty and fun as Misty today, would limit their potential returns on a project by gumming it up with hardcore sex? If you only had a porn budget to work with, could you ever possibly make a feature style porn movie that didn’t invite unfavorable comparisons to better financed, better crafted films?
John Cameron Mitchell, director of the fantastic show and movie Hedwig and the Angry Inch has been saying he wants to for about five years. But as far as I know, he still can’t raise a budget ($2.5M was the figure I heard, twice that of the “big budget” porn epic Pirates) for Short Bus, his proposed explicit sex movie project; and I’ve little doubt it’s in large part because when investors look at the potential returns for a sexually explicit movie, they put their check books back in their pockets.
Now maybe some of you are saying “Money money money! Where’s the commitment to art?” Well if that thought crossed your mind, even for a moment, I’ve got a question for you:
Let us suppose that you’ve written a wonderful short story. It’s been published in some trendy erotic anthologies and even received some nice mentions in the literary mainstream.
Let us suppose that this story is all about sex, is filled with cunts and cocks and cum, and stinks to high heaven with joyful rutting.
Let us then suppose you’ve received two offers to turn your story into a movie.
One is from a well-established porn feature producer/director, who offers you $10,000 plus a percentage of the gross.
The other is from an up-and-coming independent feature producer/director, who also offers you $10,000 plus an equal percentage of the gross.
The porn version of your story would include explicit sex and would have a production budget of $75,000. (Close to the figure Royalle gave me for her more recent Stud Hunters, or that Jenna Jameson quoted for Jenna Loves Bella)
The indie version of your story would be R-rated and would have a production budget of $750,000. (About half the budget of the much lauded low-budget indie The Squid and the Whale.)
Which offer would you take?