Thoughts on erotica & caligula
Why aren't there are a thousand truly great erotic films? Why is the erotic life / imagination so hard to convey beyond pornography with idiotic narratives and dialogue? Nothing against porn, believe me, but I wish there was something that I could watch with my gf which stimulated our intellect or our hearts as well as our groins. Meanwhile, I have yet to find a good porn movie to watch with her. Anytime we look at something, we're both like, ew, stupid. So we look at pictures in a slideshow once in while instead.
There are a few truly good erotic books -- but not that many. Why? The erotic somehow seems to scare readers / publishers -- perhaps they feel that society will go out of control if everyone starts indulging in the erotic imagination, = more affairs so families will break up, or = people lying on their couches masturbating to a hot book or DVD rather than watching a Seinfeld rerun? There's been a small surge of new quality erotic literature recently, mostly couched in the form of memoirs -- "A Hundred Brush Strokes Before Bed" by Melissa P. (from Italy), the book by the self-proclaimed French nymphomaniac Catherine M. ... But in a way there are too dark to be truly sexy. In the name of being literary, they need to be edgy, which takes away from the erotic charge of the book. The Almond is brilliant btw. Perhaps b/c her sexual awakening takes place in a society that is so strict that her breaking the rules is that much more intense.
Shame is a big factor. Most people don't want to sit on a bus or the subway reading a book with naked people on the cover.
I was discussing Caligula with an LJ friend recently -- a couple of stills below the cut of the hotties that Guccione cast, thanks to his job as publisher of Penthouse. That film is a marvel in many ways, written by a famous American writer -- Gore Vidal -- with some first class actors -- Peter O'Toole, Malcolm MacDowel, Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, and also features a couple of truly first class sex scenes / orgies, along with some pretty nasty perversions such as incest and homosexual rape. Why is there only one film like this? Why aren't there ten or a hundred? Some parts are hard to watch b/c of the gross out factor, but I'm sure that the audience for this film has been huge (particularly on DVD). It's puzzling.
There are a few truly good erotic books -- but not that many. Why? The erotic somehow seems to scare readers / publishers -- perhaps they feel that society will go out of control if everyone starts indulging in the erotic imagination, = more affairs so families will break up, or = people lying on their couches masturbating to a hot book or DVD rather than watching a Seinfeld rerun? There's been a small surge of new quality erotic literature recently, mostly couched in the form of memoirs -- "A Hundred Brush Strokes Before Bed" by Melissa P. (from Italy), the book by the self-proclaimed French nymphomaniac Catherine M. ... But in a way there are too dark to be truly sexy. In the name of being literary, they need to be edgy, which takes away from the erotic charge of the book. The Almond is brilliant btw. Perhaps b/c her sexual awakening takes place in a society that is so strict that her breaking the rules is that much more intense.
Shame is a big factor. Most people don't want to sit on a bus or the subway reading a book with naked people on the cover.
I was discussing Caligula with an LJ friend recently -- a couple of stills below the cut of the hotties that Guccione cast, thanks to his job as publisher of Penthouse. That film is a marvel in many ways, written by a famous American writer -- Gore Vidal -- with some first class actors -- Peter O'Toole, Malcolm MacDowel, Helen Mirren, John Gielgud, and also features a couple of truly first class sex scenes / orgies, along with some pretty nasty perversions such as incest and homosexual rape. Why is there only one film like this? Why aren't there ten or a hundred? Some parts are hard to watch b/c of the gross out factor, but I'm sure that the audience for this film has been huge (particularly on DVD). It's puzzling.