Cinema Erotique Joins the Growing Legions of New Pornographers
Posted at 4:34 PM May 30, 2008
Cinema Erotique is one of a small flurry of boutique-style porn content producers that have begun to move onto the scene over the past few years. The website offers original content produced by the company itself - their smut is plot-driven, lushy photographed, and they brag that they even use professional sound equipment. They are striving to make a different kind of erotic content, but they also have their feet firmly planted in the ideals of what works in mainstream smut: skinny, young, conventionally pretty female stars, hairless bodies, and hardcore action.
Naked City editor Audacia Ray picked director Cherry Chapman's brain about the extent to which the idea of "porn for women" holds water, standards for performing and producing porn, and the trick to directing smut.
Audacia Ray: Often "porn for women" is thought of as being classy porn, while porn for men is thought of as being more base and more sleazy. Do you think there's something in particular that women want in their porn that is different than what men want?
Cherry Chapman: I don't think that it is just women who want different forms of erotic material, I think taste divides up on class and geographical lines too. I also have a personal point of view too, that is that I don't find "porn" exciting or erotic. A large factor in porn and its audience is its history as illegal and forbidden; the idea that forbidden fruit tasting sweeter. I think that porn is the product of religion and sexual repressions. Now we are in an age where more and more people see sex as normal and healthy and do not get the excitement from viewing "dirty forbidden materia.l" So the erotic will need to change meet that new market.
I find the tremble of the lip more exciting than the non stop pumping...sex for all of us is in the head and that is where we are aroused. So we need ways of creating the sexual fantasy in people's heads, both men and women. The differences in our fantasies are reflections of the sexual and class divides of our society, as well as the different positions held by men and women. The history of women with regards to their subordinate position, their exploitation, and the sexual roles played by men and women mean that woman's fantasies are different.
AR: The argument over whether or not porn should have a plot will continue until the end of time. Why did you decide to create story-based porn instead of filming wall-to-wall sex?
CC: We came at erotic film making from the mainstream film industry. We saw that for the first time we could script, shoot, edit and distribute films all ourselves free from producers, the TV executives, the censors. To make more porn would be harder for us as we had no experience and everybody can and is doing it. So we though that we must try and do what we know about and that is using the film language. Also it is a lot of fun to think of the most un-porn film to make. The film that will get people to say "what the fuck was that? " Like the striptease in the park with squirrels and birds
flying around.
We are now planning a film based on a Guy De Maupassant short story. We hope it will have no home, it won't be porn and it won't be conventional cinema.
AR: The porn you're making for your website Cinema Erotique is very much a boutique kind of porn - stylish, carefully made. Beyond the standards for technical quality, what are your standards for the action in your content? Are there sex acts you aren't interested in filming? If yes, which ones and why? If no, please explain what you choose to put in the films.
CC: That's very kind to say, I hope we are getting there. It has being a rough job trying to learn the new skills needed to make erotic films, they are quite different from normal film making in the way it exists on the fringe of society. The standard for action is imagination, to think of ways of creating an exciting image or moment that will arouse the viewer. I have no objection to any act but I don't think that is what is the key, the key is the performance. A girl sucking another girl's finger could be hotter than anal sex. I feel where I am failing all the time is in obtaining that or being able to create the conditions for that to happen. What actually happens in a film depends on many factors, one what the performers do, what level they work to and what makes sense in a story.
A lot of sex acts are built around the degradation of women, double penetration gang bang etc. As a fantasy I don't have a problem with these acts, if it was just a small fantasy for man and woman in a sea of other fantasies.
I know an actress that wanted to do a 2 men gang bang thing, I we have a story where she exhausts them, secretly locks the door, traps them, and fucks them to death. A long day's shoot.
We would have no problem in filming that. But there are problems in filming degrading scenes of woman when there is so much violence against woman. That said Hollywood has a lot more to answer for in its promotion of violence, death, and torture.
AR: Directorial vision is porn is nothing if you don't have a cast that understands what you're trying to do. How do you cast your performers? What are some of the challenges you've faced in doing casting?
CC: Directorial vision sounds so grand, the reality is more like fire fighting, one model doesn't turn up, the other will do anal but doesn't kiss...It is very much cinema of the possible! For one shoot I had only one person turn up out of the 4 original artists. I cast the performers that I find attractive and them talk through what they are comfortable doing, what they enjoy doing (much better). The main challenges are practical ones...the people turn up ...and then to get them to work in a new way for us. To see their whole personalities and bodies as sexual and not just their breasts and bums. And this is what I must learn too, is to get the most out of the tension in situations and small things like to flash of the eyes, touch of the hand....And to stop the normal porn performance....To start to capture the new ways of seeing the erotic.
