“I know it when I see it”
Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart.
Obscene.
Pornography.
What is pornography?
As of two years ago, the sixth most visited site by American internet users was Pornhub.
Two of the other top 15 sites for American internet users: XNXX and XVideos.
The latter two sites are both owned by WGCZ Holding.
Pornhub is owned by MindGeek.
WGCZ Holding’s “country of origin” (?) is France, yet their headquarters is in Prague.
MindGeek’s “country of origin” [I suppose this means “where the company started”] is Canada, but its headquarters is in the country of Cyprus.
In our current coronavirus pandemic, it is not hard to find information about the world-wide INCREASE in pornographic viewing.
So it seems only fitting that we come to this wonderful film.
It is a beautiful film.
As beautiful as Amanda Seyfried.
But also a sad film.
Reminiscent at times of Requiem for a Dream.
There are moments, in both of these films, when their respective sadnesses could be viewed as “loss of the soul”.
In Requiem for a Dream, heroin steals souls.
In Lovelace, the porn industry threatens to steal Linda Lovelace’s soul.
But what we get in the movie Lovelace is something more specific.
Spousal abuse.
Domestic violence.
Human trafficking.
Sex slavery.
Spousal sexual abuse.
It’s not very titillating stuff.
It turns the stomach.
It’s like watching Ike and Tina as a fly on the wall.
I’ve seen Deep Throat.
I think it’s an excellent film.
But there is a dark underbelly.
Linda, it appears, was coerced (to put it mildly) into making the picture.
Lovelace (Seyfried) states near the end of our film that she was only in the porn industry for 17 days.
Yet she is probably the most famous porn star ever.
And not without good reason.
Whether it is accurate or not, Chuck Traynor (Linda’s husband) is portrayed as a scumbag.
A creep.
A really bad dude.
There is agenda setting in Lovelace.
We are SUPPOSED to see Traynor as bad.
Which makes me suspicious.
The subtlety of Dostoyevsky is nowhere to be found.
Linda good. Chuck bad.
Perhaps that is the whole story, but it would be an unlikely black and white moment in a world of gray.
But let’s enter the world of color for a moment.
Amanda Seyfried is so beautiful in this film.
And it is beautifully shot by cinematographer Eric Alan Edwards.
Interestingly, we have two directors on record as having helmed Lovelace:
Rob Epstein and
Jeffrey Friedman.
Which brings us to a familiar story.
Jeffrey Epstein.
If we go further, we realize that Hugh Hefner is played in Lovelace by James Franco.
There’s something going on here.
I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Chloë Sevigny plays a brief role in Lovelace.
Sevigny performs actual oral sex on actor/director Vincent Gallo in his film The Brown Bunny.
What are we seeing here?
How long has this been going on?
It’s clear by this wonderful movie, Lovelace, that Deep Throat brought pornography into the mainstream.
But since then, it has still hidden…and peeked around corners.
It is everywhere.
It is pervasive.
Perhaps it has lost some of its taboo.
But it is still widely regulated.
And ACTUAL hardcore PORNOGRAPHY is still rarely seen in Hollywood films.
So what do we have here?
We have Amanda Seyfried looking beautiful.
We have actors reminiscing on older actors.
We have a major industry paying homage to a minor industry which is itself becoming a major industry (especially during the coronavirus pandemic).
But I’m here to talk cinema.
Lovelace is cinema.
It skirts in and out of being a masterpiece.
Some scenes are timeless.
Others are a little clumsy.
I would say it is well worth a view.
What is particularly interesting is the role that parental judgement plays in Lovelace and Requiem for a Dream.
In Requiem…, the parental element is more of a reference.
But both movies evoke sadness.
Parents want the best for their children.
Most parents probably don’t want their children to grow up to be heroin addicts or porn actors.
There is genuine heartbreak in both of these films.
Kudos to Robert Patrick for playing Linda’s father.
He verges on a caricature of Chris Cooper in American Beauty.
But Patrick is better. Warmer. More human.
Wes Bentley is here in Lovelace.
As he was in American Beauty.
Then there was Kevin Spacey…in American Beauty.
And flying around with Jeffrey Epstein.
And Thora Birch was in American Beauty.
And her mom was in Deep Throat.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
It is a very weird spiral.
An almost-invisible web.
What does it mean?
If Trump wins the next election, we have a chance of finding out.
We are ready to unleash hell.
-PD
paulydeathwish 