zinetta 8 - teclux

At the movies
08 by John Rijpens Knack, 27 February 1974
Deep Throat: a hard act to swallow
© CAPRICORN/ANP
38
The most talked about film since Last Tango in Paris had
its European premiere last week. No, not in London, Paris,
or Amsterdam, but in Antwerp, which is quite something.
It all went off rather secretly. The event was carefully shielded
from the press, but the organisers still hoped to draw enough
people for the two showings to have to turn some cinemagoers
away. After all, the film had never, and was not now, going to be
shown free of charge, as it had already brought in an estimated
six million dollars for the producers. The Belgian organisers
were undoubtedly influenced by the decision of the American
Supreme Court to prohibit public showings of Deep Throat and
the hesitation of our northern neighbours to show what the
Amsterdam ‘Movie’ Theatres have called The Godfather of
porno films.
In New York and elsewhere around the world, Deep Throat has
been called a sociological phenomenon. Everyone wanted to
see the film. Every day has witnessed silly giggling emanating
from shuffling rows of onlookers as yet another stately
limousine stops outside the New Mature World Theatre so that
the film may be shown to the richest and most famous
celebrities in the United States. This is because Deep Throat is
now regarded as a must.
For Antwerp, the matter has now grown into a somewhat
melancholy event. It is a poignant but artificial situation. No
expensive fur coats or flashy hairstyles. No chauffeurs driving in
the area around the Borgerhout Drink. Neither do you see the
somewhat hardened regulars of the nude circuit in their faded
raincoats, glancing to the left and right in order to drift in as
unobtrusively as possible. No, the viewers who came to see the
film in Antwerp were film enthusiasts and intellectuals.
Where they all came from suddenly, who knows, but it is
obvious that in Belgium as well ‘Deep Throat’ has become one
of the most prominent discussion topics in receptions, editorial
offices and film circles. Wim Verstappen and his buddies at Vrij
Nederland were busy for weeks talking about ‘The breakthrough
of hard porno films’ and other matters in which the film was
always the focus. In the December edition of Playboy 1973, the
leading lady, Linda Lovelace, was with her frizzy hair described
as the heroine of America’s hottest porno hit, Deep Throat, and
proclaimed the sexiest female star of the year. The rest is, as
one says, history. She has recently written a much talked-about
autobiography (Inside Linda Lovelace) and she has never
minced her words as a victim or celebrity in interviews for the
London Times, Screw, Women’s Wear Daily, and, of course, in
Playboy. She made an impressive contribution to the colloquium
New Sexual Life Style.
Pound for the elite
It was inevitable, I think, that porn would permeate through to
the elite. Lazlo Kovsaka and Francis Ford Coppola had already
filmed hardcore porno before they respectively made Easy
Rider and Five Easy Pieces or The Godfather.
Deep Throat has some elements which were lacking in all the
previous porno films: a professional approach, colour, and on
35mm film (instead of second-hand 16mm cameras and no
sound), plus synchronised hi-fi sound. In other words, Deep
Throat could count on the finishing attributes which make a film
a real film, despite the fact that it was shot in barely six days in
Florida with a budget of 25,000 dollars.
The film was also shot in a relatively professional manner
(written, directed and cut by Jerry Gerard) and even has an
original music score. The copy used in Antwerp was simply
pathetic, and that is a pity because now it looks as though this
was the umpteenth attempt to take the public for a ride, which
is by no means the case here. Quite the contrary, since what is
merely suggested in other so called sex films is shown here in
full detail.
Deep Throat only lasts sixty-two minutes, i.e. half an hour less
than a ‘normal’ feature film. During that hour, the viewer
witnesses fifteen sexual acts, ranging from vaginal intercourse
to sodomy, fellatio and cunnilingus. Nothing is left to a decent
cinema visitors’ imagination. You could use the clinical close-up
fragments for training films for a new Kinsey Report or for
teaching material for gynaecology students.
Unlike most porno films, Deep Throat offers a (truly rudimentary)
bit of intrigue. The film is about a timid girl who cannot
experience sexual pleasure until a doctor comes to the
staggering conclusion that her clitoris is in her throat. Really.
You can guess the rest.
Scandalous success
According to reports, the producer of Deep Throat wanted to
make it a comedy porno film. The smutty jokes are certainly not
of a very high intellectual or witty level, but that’s another matter.
The film only becomes really witty at moments when the makers
did not intend it to be that way. The style of the entire picture
leans towards baroque, rude, coarse and badly written army
sketches and large parts of the film are also painfully tedious.
For some viewers, the sixty-two minutes seemed more like sixtytwo
hours. So why the appreciation, interest and scandalous
success? Linda Lovelace? Most actresses in porno films make
a coarse, stupid, and somewhat slobbery impression. 22-year
old Linda from Texas is young, lively, quite pretty and has a
supple figure. However, it is relatively clear that she doesn’t
know the first thing about acting. A film authority at the New
York Times expressed it like this: she has immense talent for
fellatio. She performs her numbers in the art of oral sex (even
five times) with the vigour of unsurpassed sword bearers.
Another reason why the multitudes flock to see Deep Throat lies
in the fear that one day certain authorities may take the film from
film clubs to the evidence room of a judicial court.
In the United States, the decision by the Supreme Court was
clearly aimed at the flood of porno films which is swamping
America at the moment. The ‘obscenity rules’ (which have
become notorious in the meantime) were phrased so
ambiguously that indecency could be applied to almost
everything. What is obscene? A lecture on abortion or
euthanasia? Is there a writer anywhere from any literary genre
whose work contains nothing which can be interpreted as
obscene? Which films or texts from pop songs can pass this
test? The best way to remove so-called obscenities is to let
them prosper. Outlawing pornography only stimulates its
popularity and drives it straight into the hands of the mafia.
Pornography was certainly in decline in the US before the
Supreme Court intervened. Deep Throat has been very
fortunate and has definitely been boosted by a publicity
overdose. I have seen ‘serious porn’ with just a few people in
the hall. The Antwerp audience which saw Deep Throat gave no
impression of being sleazy. Those under 21 were prohibited in
any case, so who has to be protected? No one forces you to go
and see porno films. Wanting to save us from a feigned
immorality is a form of hypocrisy and shows a disregard for the
intelligence and individual freedom of choice of ordinary people.
Deep Throat will undoubtedly never be shown to the general
adult public here in Belgium. In some respects, that is a pity. For
if everyone had seen Deep Throat, there would have been no
need to go and see Deep Throat II, which Linda Lovelace and
co. are currently filming. Let Deep Throat loose on the masses
and no one will talk about it any more.