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?

The true meaning of porn, especially bad porn, continues to be discussed in the little corner of the blogosphere I wander (did I use “blogosphere” correctly), and no discussion of porn would be complete without a detour into taxonomy and/or semantics – what is porn, when is porn art, where’s the line between porn and erotica – that sort of thing.

My films get labeled all sorts of things: couple’s porn, women’s porn, erotica, amateur (on film?), pro-am (wha?), docurotica, pornumentary, all sex, educational (ouch!) and most recently “artisan porn”. Mostly I don’t really care what people call my work, so long as they buy in sufficient quantities that I can pay my bills, continue my work (which I like very much) and put some money away for a rainy day. That said, I don’t really like the word porn, and wish there was some other word for the films I make.

I don’t like porn because I think for too many people the word (rightfully) connotes a film or video that is going to demand the viewer lower their expectations with regard to conception and craft below tolerable levels. Make no mistake, expectation management is the indie filmmaker’s first and most important skill. But porn has leaned too heavily on the idea that the audience will forgive almost anything to see a little pussy. I won’t do that, and a lot of other people won’t do it either.

Another reason I am uncomfortable with the word “porn” is because for many people, porn means something is going make them feel bad if they watch; they’ll feel bad about themselves, or bad about the people on the screen, or bad that they’re aroused by something they know is cheap and shabby, made without care or craft. That last thing in the world I want my films to do is make people feel bad, and it breaks my heart a little that my films are (deemed to be) part of genre that makes so many people feel bad about themselves or bad about sex.

This is why I don’t like the word porn. It’s too laden (justifiably) with all sort of negative baggage, and more than that I think it keeps my films from being seen by people who would enjoy them.

So then how about erotica?

Well yes, almost. I like the word erotic, so erotica should be fine. Except it’s not, not for me at least.

My awareness of the word “erotica” goes way back to when Dworkanites and social conservatives first banded together and began together began to float the idea that “pornography” did all kinds of bad things to people and society (rape, murder, that sort of thing), and that it should be banned, or at least more heavily regulated. Up until then, porn was chic (remember pornchic?); no need for a euphamism, porn was porn.

But by the early 80s, the video camera was already sucking the creative life out of porn (you’ll never see The Opening of Misty Beethovan ever again) and the moral tone of the country had changed. Now porn was bad, and something needed to be done about it. (I still have a picture of Ed Meese going into a Times Square porn shop burned into my memory – talk about erototoxins!)

Anyway, “erotica” became code for “porn that fits my moral code”. No one ever wants the sexually explicit stuff that they like banned, so it becomes erotica. Erotica is fine, but nasty stuff that other people wank to is porn. Ewww! This always made me think, “Oh, so if you diddle your clit while reading erotica, it’s okay. But if I want jack to pictures of a buxom brunette with her ass in the air, that’s not okay. That’s porn.” That sort of parsing of what turns people on didn’t fit my moral code. (It also probably had something to do with the fact I am a photographer and took exception to the idea that there are things you can write about, perhaps even paint, but can’t photograph.)

And then as the Meese Comission cloud descended on the erotic landscape, and Penthouse and Playboy started dispearing from 7/11s, “erotica” became a code for sexually themed photos or videos you hoped would be explicit, but never were (*cough*skinamax). “Erotica” was about knowing there’s no place in descent society for cunts, cocks and cum.

And so just as I don’t want to use a label that makes think our films are going to make them feel bad, I don’t want them to think they’re not going to get to see cunts and cocks and cum in a Comstock production, because absolutely you will. Our films are about cunts and cock and cum. So sorry “erotica” is out. Maybe it’s just me, maybe I’m still pissed the Dworkinate for making me feel like I should be ashamed of loving ass so much, or still pissed at Skinimax for not delivering the goods, or maybe I’m still pissed that of all the truly horrible things I’ve trained my camera on in 20 years of photojournalism and documentary filmmaking, the thing that gets people the most upset is a nice pink pussy. But whatever it is, I don’t like the word “erotica”, so it’s out.

So then what should you call Comstock Films? If you enjoyed Xana and Dax and you want to tell a friend about it, what kind of movie should you tell them it is? I say I make sex films, or films about sex. Hardcore love stories could work, but I think somebody is using it.

Maybe we don’t yet have a word for the kinds of films I make. (Ack doesn’t that sound pompous!) But I am absolutely delighted with the words that people use when they say why they like my films; words like “passionate” and “tender”, words like “real” and “raw”. That’s what I feel when I have sex with my wife. Isn’t that what we want to feel when we watch a film about sex?

-TC