I first saw Deep Throat about 15 years ago on grainy bootleg VHS tape [remember those?]. At the time I thought that Cinemax Friday Nights after Dark were more scandalous and titillating. However Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbatos documentary Inside Deep Throat schooled me just as it will school everyone else who forgot or never knew what an impact the seminal porno film Deep Throat had on this country. Through brand new interviews with Deep Throat director Gerard Damiano, Norman Mailer, Harry Reems and archive footage of Linda Lovelace we find out just why Deep Throat polarized America and ended up grossing over $600 million.
Check out the official website of Inside Deep Throat
Daniel Robert Epstein: Recently I got to speak with Joe Berlinger who has been a documentary filmmaker for many years. At one point he made an independent film [Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2] that didnt do well commercial or critically then went and did another documentary [Metallica: Some Kind of Monster] that has been very well received. You two were in the same situation with the narrative Party Monster.
Randy Barbato: Particularly the non-critically acclaimed part.
DRE: Were you two happy with Party Monster?
RB: We were happy with it but sad that other people werent as happy with it. We think that there isnt much difference between dramatic narrative films and documentaries. They are about telling great stories and making your subjects or actors feel comfortable. For us it is always about telling truths. We are always going to go back and forth between the two. It wasnt like we fled the world of dramatic films.
Fenton Bailey: It was interesting because we also made the documentary called Party Monster as well. In both instances the story is not a feel good story but a feel icky story. The reception of the documentary was also very muted and very polarizing. Whats exciting about Inside Deep Throat is that it has more of a feel good quality like The Eyes of Tammy Faye had.
I think the thing about all the characters involved with Deep Throat is that at the time they were essentially doing something potentially illegal but certainly something outlaws did. They were definitely courageous and werent going to pay attention to what other people did. Almost by definition these were eccentric characters who had a strong sense of self and werent going to let other people tell them what to do. It wasnt that we had to pick and choose to talk but all the people that were still alive and we talked to all had this richness to them.
DRE: Was it easy to get them to be in the documentary?
RB: We interviewed over a 100 people for this film and first we tried to find people who were directly involved with the making of Deep Throat and virtually everyone needed persuading. I think that a lot of people who were involved with the sexual revolution arent that eager to talk about it today. I think they would rather just erase it.
DRE: How about [Deep Throat writer/director] Gerard Damiano?
RB: He needed a lot of persuading. He made a number of incredible adult films and is a significant filmmaker from that golden age of porn but he had a tragic life. He never made money from the films and ended up being a golf caddy for many years before he retired and moved in with his kids. It took close to a year of talking to him and his kids to get him to do it.
FB: He still had some considerations because the mob is still out there and he was even apprehensive about the government because he characterized them as another kind of mob. He felt like his years on the road as a witness against his own film really pained him.
DRE: Was this film always going to be NC-17?
RB: Yeah it was never going to be anything else. We couldnt make a film called Inside Deep Throat and not include the act. We also felt it was important to make a NC-17 film because now we are surrounded by so much sex but it seems to be closeted with a prudish attitude. We wanted people to come to the theater and see a film with sexually explicit acts.
FB: In anemic, instead of sex we just have violence that no one seems to have a problem with.
RB: Back in 1972 suburban couples went to the movies and saw Deep Throat. The experience of sex and sexuality has, for several generations since then, been television or downloading from the computer.
FB: The message of Deep Throat was different strokes for different folks. Its nothing to be ashamed of.
DRE: Who would you like to see this film?
FB: We want college students to see it because its more about ideas than fellatio. There is a strong connection between the movie Deep Throat and the Watergate scandals Deep Throat because they are both in a way outlaw voices that speak the truth. One was the truth about Nixons government and the movie was speaking a sexual truth that the government found unacceptable and tried to stamp out.
DRE: When you are doing what is basically a talking head documentary, how exciting was it to get those real moments such as when you were talking to the aged former theatre in Florida and his wife behind him starting yelling at him to not say that stuff because it was dangerous?
RB: I think every single person we interviewed for this film is a star and not just the obvious characters but even Norman Mailer, John Waters and Camille Paglia. For all of them you just want the camera to keep rolling. I bet there is about 10 reality series which we could spin off from this film.
DRE: Where did the footage of the debate between Harry Reems and Roy Cohn come from?
RB: Bill Boggs used to have a show in New York midday. Harry wiped the floor with Roy Cohn on that.
DRE: What do you think of Linda Lovelaces assertion that her participation in the film was rape?
FB: I think that the Linda Lovelace story has tended to occupy the entire debate about this film. Her story is actually far more complicated and elusive than has been reported. There is no question in our minds that she was in an abusive relationship with Chuck Traynor but that was at a time before the whole notion of domestic abuse wasnt discussed. Its also completely clear to us that her participation in Deep Throat was in no way forced.
DRE: Its so sad to see how Linda Lovelace ended up penniless while Jenna Jameson has a billboard in Times Square.
FB: We can now accept the idea of porn star as celebrity that couldnt be accepted at the time.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official website of Inside Deep Throat
Daniel Robert Epstein: Recently I got to speak with Joe Berlinger who has been a documentary filmmaker for many years. At one point he made an independent film [Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2] that didnt do well commercial or critically then went and did another documentary [Metallica: Some Kind of Monster] that has been very well received. You two were in the same situation with the narrative Party Monster.
Randy Barbato: Particularly the non-critically acclaimed part.
DRE: Were you two happy with Party Monster?
RB: We were happy with it but sad that other people werent as happy with it. We think that there isnt much difference between dramatic narrative films and documentaries. They are about telling great stories and making your subjects or actors feel comfortable. For us it is always about telling truths. We are always going to go back and forth between the two. It wasnt like we fled the world of dramatic films.
Fenton Bailey: It was interesting because we also made the documentary called Party Monster as well. In both instances the story is not a feel good story but a feel icky story. The reception of the documentary was also very muted and very polarizing. Whats exciting about Inside Deep Throat is that it has more of a feel good quality like The Eyes of Tammy Faye had.
I think the thing about all the characters involved with Deep Throat is that at the time they were essentially doing something potentially illegal but certainly something outlaws did. They were definitely courageous and werent going to pay attention to what other people did. Almost by definition these were eccentric characters who had a strong sense of self and werent going to let other people tell them what to do. It wasnt that we had to pick and choose to talk but all the people that were still alive and we talked to all had this richness to them.
DRE: Was it easy to get them to be in the documentary?
RB: We interviewed over a 100 people for this film and first we tried to find people who were directly involved with the making of Deep Throat and virtually everyone needed persuading. I think that a lot of people who were involved with the sexual revolution arent that eager to talk about it today. I think they would rather just erase it.
DRE: How about [Deep Throat writer/director] Gerard Damiano?
RB: He needed a lot of persuading. He made a number of incredible adult films and is a significant filmmaker from that golden age of porn but he had a tragic life. He never made money from the films and ended up being a golf caddy for many years before he retired and moved in with his kids. It took close to a year of talking to him and his kids to get him to do it.
FB: He still had some considerations because the mob is still out there and he was even apprehensive about the government because he characterized them as another kind of mob. He felt like his years on the road as a witness against his own film really pained him.
DRE: Was this film always going to be NC-17?
RB: Yeah it was never going to be anything else. We couldnt make a film called Inside Deep Throat and not include the act. We also felt it was important to make a NC-17 film because now we are surrounded by so much sex but it seems to be closeted with a prudish attitude. We wanted people to come to the theater and see a film with sexually explicit acts.
FB: In anemic, instead of sex we just have violence that no one seems to have a problem with.
RB: Back in 1972 suburban couples went to the movies and saw Deep Throat. The experience of sex and sexuality has, for several generations since then, been television or downloading from the computer.
FB: The message of Deep Throat was different strokes for different folks. Its nothing to be ashamed of.
DRE: Who would you like to see this film?
FB: We want college students to see it because its more about ideas than fellatio. There is a strong connection between the movie Deep Throat and the Watergate scandals Deep Throat because they are both in a way outlaw voices that speak the truth. One was the truth about Nixons government and the movie was speaking a sexual truth that the government found unacceptable and tried to stamp out.
DRE: When you are doing what is basically a talking head documentary, how exciting was it to get those real moments such as when you were talking to the aged former theatre in Florida and his wife behind him starting yelling at him to not say that stuff because it was dangerous?
RB: I think every single person we interviewed for this film is a star and not just the obvious characters but even Norman Mailer, John Waters and Camille Paglia. For all of them you just want the camera to keep rolling. I bet there is about 10 reality series which we could spin off from this film.
DRE: Where did the footage of the debate between Harry Reems and Roy Cohn come from?
RB: Bill Boggs used to have a show in New York midday. Harry wiped the floor with Roy Cohn on that.
DRE: What do you think of Linda Lovelaces assertion that her participation in the film was rape?
FB: I think that the Linda Lovelace story has tended to occupy the entire debate about this film. Her story is actually far more complicated and elusive than has been reported. There is no question in our minds that she was in an abusive relationship with Chuck Traynor but that was at a time before the whole notion of domestic abuse wasnt discussed. Its also completely clear to us that her participation in Deep Throat was in no way forced.
DRE: Its so sad to see how Linda Lovelace ended up penniless while Jenna Jameson has a billboard in Times Square.
FB: We can now accept the idea of porn star as celebrity that couldnt be accepted at the time.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 10 of 10 COMMENTS
Thanks, Daniel.
P.S.- I just saw that Jenna Jameson billboard in Times Square last night when heading to China Club. Genius. Regardless of what one may think of her, she's still a superstar in the world of porn. And anyway, I'm glad to porn back in Times Square in such a grand way.