How much of what we "know" about porn is based on evidence, and how much is based on assumptions?
Next week, performers & advocates @KingNoire and @itsLotusLain join scholar Dr. Zahra Stardust to examine what the research actually tells us. https://t.co/s37FDNzPzt
Stanley Kubrick‘s daughter Vivian is addressing a long-circulating rumor regarding the master filmmaker’s final movie, 1999’s Eyes Wide Shut. https://t.co/FcIK5pdhGW
EYES WIDE SHUT: THE MISSING 20 MINUTES
You know, this is as good a time as any to finally address the missing 20 minutes from Eyes Wide Shut. It’s a story that has been circulating for many years, so let me tell you what I actually know and don’t know.
For context, my father always had his outtakes incinerated once a film was finished, specifically to prevent the studio from later re-editing his work or creating alternative versions.
There has been a lot of speculation that some 20 minutes were removed from Eyes Wide Shut after he died. This will be very disappointing to many people, but I certainly did not hear anything about a missing 20 minutes at the time, nor have I heard anything since that would confirm such a section ever existed. I guess you could stop reading right here. But if you’re interested in the details, please read on.
Of course, I was not in a position to know everything that may have happened before or immediately after my father’s death. At the time, I was living in Los Angeles, writing the score for a different movie. I flew to England, utterly traumatized, to be there for the preparations for my father’s funeral and burial. But I had to return to LA the day after his burial—stricken with grief and exhaustion—to complete the score I was contractually obligated to finish, which I barely managed. So I wasn’t there, in more ways than one, for whatever discussions may have followed.
The only alteration I heard about at the time was the use of CGI—computer-generated figures—to obscure some of the nudity in the orgy scene, which Warner Brothers wanted in order to secure an R rating for the film. But I did not hear that any shots or scenes were removed.
When my father died, Eyes Wide Shut had reached picture lock and was moving through the final stages of post-production. It had just been shown to the studio heads, I assume with a temporary music track, while the final sound mix and some of the music work were still to be completed.
This was 1999, in the era of physical film distribution. The film was edited on Avid, but that should not be confused with the kind of permanent digital archive people imagine today. The Avid material consisted of standard-definition video transfers made from the rushes—720 × 576 pixels—and used for editing. They were working copies, not a high-resolution digital preservation of the original negative. There wasn’t a high-resolution digital version of every take sitting on a server somewhere, as people might reasonably imagine today.
There were, of course, all the 35mm rush prints, as well as the original camera negative containing the outtakes. Eventually, long after the film was finished and released, the 35mm rush prints and the original negative of outtakes were incinerated. The original master negative of the finished film and the intermediate film elements made from it were, of course, kept in storage.
Once the picture was locked, the original camera negative would have been physically cut to match the final Avid edit. Once the negative itself had been cut, you couldn’t simply undo those cuts and rearrange the film: each cut destroyed a frame at both the head and tail of the shot. The master negative of the finished film was then used to make interpositives, from which internegatives were made, and those internegatives would have been used to make the 35mm theatrical release prints. The original negative of the outtakes never went through that process because, of course, those shots were not part of the finished film.
Someone might say, “But then, if the missing 20-minute edit exists, it would be preserved on the Avid!” But editing the film on Avid does not mean all of that material was preserved indefinitely. This was not an era in which every piece of editorial media was automatically retained on servers for decades, and I have no knowledge of whether any of the Avid editorial material from the production still exists. That’s a question for the …
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Open question: would you contribute to a Kickstarter or GoFundMe for the publication of The Celluloid Dungeon, my book on BDSM in mainstream films, television and video games?
I updated our database to include all screenings I have tracked since Feb 2011. I thought people might be interested in seeing the 100 most-screened films in NYC over the last 15 years, sorted by # of individual screenings plus a column for showtimes.
wrote about jane schoenbrun’s ‘teenage sex and death at camp miasma,’ a film so preoccupied with its smug, didactic metaphors about sex, media, kink, identity, and horror that it forgets how to be a movie at all. one of the year’s biggest disappointments. https://t.co/AeyaBSF4qH
“I Want Your Sex” director Gregg Araki says he’s seen the reports of Gen Z having less sex -- and he thinks younger people will “regret” not taking chances and “risking getting hurt”:
“I’m in my 60s now. You’re gonna turn around and you’re going to be 40, 50 like that. Will you regret not taking a chance, venturing out of your house, risking getting hurt, getting confused, getting your heart broken? Go out on a bad date, have that bad relationship, have that bad girlfriend. Be in love with the wrong person. That’s fucking life! That’s growing up! That’s how you learn about yourself.”
https://t.co/77oTXThH7c
btw i think the idea of seeing a film like this and being like “ugh straight monogamous problems” is soooo lame it’s not simply about the structures that bind and confine but how the film propulsively peels them apart to create a picture of romantic neuroses anyone can relate to
NYC friends in NY10, please consider giving your vote to re-elect @danielsgoldman. This is his eloquent defense of his Chief of Staff, when slurs and "incriminating" photos of him in leather gear began hitting x/witter yesterday.
1000%. @JBlascoNYC is a dedicated and smart public servant who carries himself with class, pride, and integrity. Nothing but tremendous respect for him.
This hit on him is 🗑️.
"The queer adult filmmaker behind the groundbreaking Boys in the Sand and Bijou gets the auteur treatment via this collection of his late works from the fine folks at Mélusine and @muscledistro."
@CrookedMarquee reviews THERE ARE NO MORE CLOSETS: THE FILMS AND VIDEOS OF WAKEFIELD POOLE, VOLUME 1
She’s so right (and was about most things) all great art springs from the erotic and the fact that we live in such a mechanised, unerotic time that fears the body - while being fixated on the pornographic - is likely responsible for our very uninspiring cultural landscape
I really liked Apple TV's Margo's Got Money Troubles, starring Elle Fanning as a single mom who tries to make a living on OnlyFans, with terrific performances from her, Nick Offerman, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Nicole Kidman. My review: https://t.co/CFzlorxxgC
On the “you’ve been a bad dog” scene from new Euphoria: a gentrification of BDSM imagery without the dramatic audaciousness to actually take it somewhere. Chains and whips, but no depravity. In other words, an extension of Jacob’s performance in Fennell’s Wuthering Heights