Episode 777: The Image (1975)

and the Slave. If that's a hint to what this film is all about, we will be discussing that and spoiling the plot as it were as we go along. So if you don't anything, please turn off the podcast and come back after you've seen the image. We will still be here. So, Heather, when was the first time you saw this film and what did you think.

film is kind of hardcore. It's hardcore ish hardcore esque, but full on hardcore films, Like for a long time you couldn't get on censored versions of Barbara Broadcast, which is one of my favorite Henry Pairis films, which was Radley's nom de porn, probably a half of Anny Sprinkle's catalog.

ever seen. As I mentioned in the previous episode on Story of Oh, I came to Story of Oh first through the book, and then I realized it was a movie of it much later, But in this case, I didn't know about the novel until well after I think I the film and I was like, oh, this is based on a book, Like, I've got to check this out, and then I'm sure we'll get to like a whole world of not just the novel, but the real people surrounding the novel just kind of opened up and the

whole thing is so interesting to me, which is why I wanted to talk about it.

can't see anyplace else. And like you said, Heather, this was tough to find for a while, so I saw it first under this title and I just remember the video quality just being really tough to even make out what was going on. But I was really intrigued by this movie. I thought for the longest time that this

was this is going to sound weird. I thought this was European film, not that it's shot in Paris, I see the Eiffel Tower, but the way that everybody is dubbed all ADR, it just feels very much like these are not American actors that are being dubbed posts later on by somebody else. But no, these are the real deal. So I guess it's just the ADR and probably having to shoot this thing silent and then bring in everybody

later on. Also, the voiceover of our main character adds to that as well, just with his very voice of God that he has. I'm so excited to talk about this in comparison with Story of Oh. We talked last week as far as it being a woman voiceover, and here we have the male voiceover, the male author of the story, even though it's not a man who is the author of the story, but also someone going under a pseudonym. So I love the comparisons of these two

movies and just how different everything is. The lushness of this story, the how beautiful this looks, I mean now seeing this on Blu Ray compared to that shitty VHS that I saw those years ago. It's night and day this doesn't even look like the same movie.

just part of Metzger's style. I just think he I think a lot of people are kind of I mean, yeah, he has an American name, but you know, I think he I think if you're just see his films, I think a lot of like sort of critically, you know, he gets lumped in with you know, a lot of the European exploitation directors, like you know, you know, Jean Rolan, just Franco. You know, he's in this spoken about in the canon that's discussed in the Immoral Tales book that

came out in the nineties. So he's kind of seen as part of that sort of European exploitation canon. And I think he shot a lot in Europe, like, you know, similarly, like Score I shot in Europe and Camille two thousand is shot. And I think I think you play such importance on like incredibly you know, even on a short budget, you know, an incredibly lush visuals, Like I think that was really important to him as like an aesthetic choice when it can.

you really seeing the real person? Are you just seeing the reflection? And I feel like that kind of thing comes up a lot in his films. The way it opens really made me think of the opening of Camille two thousand. It's just got that great, wide European shot. The use of music, it always blows my mind how much like library music Radley used, because he used it so exquisitely. And also at one point the music and this film sound like psych rock. It gets really intense,

which I love. But it's just the way everything's kind of blue and there's almost just sort of this like melancholy to me, almost there's like a beauty tinge with that which he does so well. That's one of my favorite things about Radley. It's not in all of his films like Marbart Broadcast is maybe my second favorite film of all times of his and that film is light as a feather, but that this one, I feel has

a similar open. It's a very different film obviously than Camille, but I love how he always has those connective tissue going on.

the two. It's like his body of work is just so singularly unified despite different approaches that he uses.

coming from. And I love how faithful to so much of the book Metskriz. I mean, it's almost almost treating it like a screenplay. It is so similar in the language, so similar in the scenes, even some of the more cringe lines like is my little girl going to do a ppe? Like those kind of things, but it's right there in the book. I was reading that again last night.

I was like, Okay, yeah, I just want to verify that this one line is here, and sure enough, and there's a little bit of difference at the end, and I'm sure that we'll talk about that, but I was just really impressed by how faithful he was to this story.

sort of small and also very interesting diversions. But yeah, I agree.

but the actress that plays hand. She is great when it comes to letting us know what she's thinking through her expressions, because she doesn't get a whole lot of dialogue in this.

which I love. I don't know if I need to go ahead, I'll save my gen rant maybe for a minute. But she's totally rude to him and rightfullyes though. And but then of course he snitches because you know, if he was in prison, he would get stitches.

very feminine, very little girl. But like in the Buchaneste scene, she's wearing like, you know, very like contemporary in these clothes, and she's she's you know, very like you know, self confident, and you know, she's just you know, John and John just like rocks up to her and she's just.

way through the film. She's not a robot. You know, she very you know, there's scenes where you know, she has this sort of wry smile and I think, you know, there are scenes where she's blank faced, but I think it's it's there are moments where it's very intentional that she's meant to sort of not be reacting. I think she gives a great performance. I think that I think I think both Marilyn Roberts and and Mary Mendeman. We'll you know, save Carl Parker for later. I think the

two women give really incredible and incredibly strong performance. I think Radley was so great casting women. I just think Mary Mendem was his girlfriend at the time, so I mean there's you know, partially like you know, she was his girlfriend, so that's kind of probably why she got the role in some way. But she's she's I think she's very well cast in this.

one person I actually give a shit about. Carl is just like a means to an end. He is not He's not a full person. To her, nor should he be. But I need to write Carl Jean. I'm sure Carl Parker the actor is lovely, sorry, sir. And similarly to those scenes we were talking about, she sees herself and the reflection of the sort of cabinet with the whips and the chains and stuff like that, there's like she

goes back twice. This is the scene in the apartment where like kind of Clara's showing Jean the photographs and stuff, and this is the first semises and you know, punished, and the second time when she goes back to get the chains.

delves into those subjects, or Radley or yeah, Domiano. But she's great, and I just I think this is definitely her in the and Claire factress that plays Claire maryl Robins or is so she's such a strong Marylyn Roberts just has a strong physicality about her and intensity, And yeah, Radley loved women. I actually years ago, I was I was working on a project that never quite came to fruition for other reasons, for assertive reasons. But with Eric Edwards,

and he you know, lovely man. He's a sweetheart. But he of course was in private afternoons of Pamela Man and he had a complaint because of course I was like, oh my god, you got to work with Radley Metzger. I'm fan girling of course, and he liked Raley, but he honestly he felt neglected because he's like Radley wasn't really interested in directing the men. Some of that might be actor ego. Actors are very sensitive people, but as we all are artists. We are sensitive as shit. That's

what we do. There are a few directors I think love women as much as Radley Metzger does in a way that never feels like objectifying, ever feels gross like. It feels very much like an artist. I always admired that about about Radley, and even when he's stilling with kind of tough topics. I mean, this film it is erotica technically. I feel like they are parts of it, especially get to the climax. It's almost like it turns

almost into quite like a horror movie. It seems to be a lot more for me about this is more about an unhealthy dynamic and a healthy relationship. You know, there's like going kind of beyond the borders of just like traditional SNM, which you know BDSM could normally from I understanding, has like set rules, like you follow the rules that keeps everything in line, buttoned up, but it keeps also everybody safe.

that's the horror movie feel of it. And again it's like gothic chamber, which also you see in story of Oh, like you know, it's again returning to this theme of that there is like a sort of horrifying element to it, like a torture chamber element.

of this. I really want to please you. So that's how I was reading all that stuff. When it comes to the movie overall and the story overall, I mean, I'm curious what y'all think as far as the title of the image and where that comes into things.

little bit back to the sort of the motif of photography, because you know, she invites Jean over to show him these photographs that she's taken of of Anne, and you know, then of course there's that one last photo that's sort of clearly not Anne, and you know, he kind of knows, and she kind of knows he knows, and she seems uncomfortable for the first time because she has this like

very like sort of perfect facade. And then Jean talks about the fact that like part of the reason why like he finds her beautiful, but part of the reason why he feels like he can never initially he's not attracted to her, or he can't initiate any kind of romantic relationship with her, is because she has no she

doesn't have that vulnerability that he desires. Again, so we go to we get the image, we get again emp photography also story of Oh, like this is a kind of an interesting theme that unites the two because Ah is a photographer, Claire is a photographer, and so like there's this this this literal image of like these photographs

and and how it relates to identity. But I think more metaphorically, Anne is the image of Claire that she uses to sort of trage on to be the kind of man that she wants and to bring him to her. That's That's kind of what I've gotten out of it in terms of like how what the title means before I.

feel like that lends itself well. Whenever he tries to get philosophical or deep in his films, it just doesn't. It doesn't connect with me. It's everything's individual subjective. I don't find these films hot because I feel like it's me. It's almost like clicking Matt Quite, he's better than Playboy, but it's almost like that where it's like, yeah, these are beautiful naked people and I'm not getting any heat. I'm not getting any heat. I'm not getting any depth.

as someone likes just Chokanad. You know, he had like smaller budgets and it's probably smaller crews and work with people that he knew, you know, relatively well for the most part, and you know, it was probably more of a like a tight knit situation. And I just think he personally invested a lot more personally in his films, and that's I think that's visible, but just my opinion.

Oh my god, I'm like, whoa, It's like total vapor inducing and so Mike to your point, I told I do get that, and and that scene in particular, I think the mid scene where she's getting punished by Claire, that one I think is the hottest personally and that film, because I do she seems the most into it, where there are other parts where I'm just like anytime I think when John just gets involved, I'm like, he gets

too involved. I just start getting gross. He's a little too He's forceful in a way that I don't think is appropriate, and especially with food. I'll get into that. I'll say that your question. The d which Clear and Jean are using each other, and they're using Anne in a way that's not really truthful for anybody. Everybody's just a focus on the image of Anne. Anne is an image. She's not a person, and especially to Jean, I think Clear and her there is that there are little we get,

little glimpses of tenderness. One of my few complaints of the film, I kind of hell, I probably would upset the dynamic, but I almost kind of wish we got a little more of her and Claire because the little hints we get, especially when you know the ending happens in Anne leaves, there's set tenderness, and I'm like, I kind of love that because I feel like you see more of that in other sort of SNM films and scenarios and literature where there's that, you know, there's the punishment,

that there's the reward.

to just describe the scene to anyone listening. So basically what happens is Jean gets up and Claire is infuriated and begins to whip him herself and just you know, cursing at him and just you know, just telling him off, presumably because you know, there's like a jealousy aspect there. You know, she's a little bit or it's ambiguous a

little bit. I mean you could you could interpret it at least at that point in the film as being like either she's she's jealous or you know, she feels like he's taken too many liberties with her slave, I guess.

like and I'm leaving, and Claire says, what will I do.

be like, Where's Anne going? Because I have sort of had this like like sort of thought, and especially after talking so much about the story about that, like kind of like was Anne trained at Huasci?

symbols in the surrealist tradition. I thought that was a hilarious line, and it's and then like check back in the book. It's actually like verbatim in the book. So you can think of like almost like I don't know, something like Matisse or God, I mean so many of the Surrealists And yeah, I mean, yeah, you can see that for sure. But I just think the lion itself is absolutely hilarious.

I kept trying to recast Jehan in my head, and like would I would this character hit me better if it was somebody say like John Leslie, something like classic adult guys, somebody who can play a cad, who is you know, who was still culture, who was good looking, who can has a dar has a dark edge to him, but you're still sort of magnetized to him.

first of all, anybody listening, this is your psa. The vagina is not a horne of plenty. The vagina is not a deli tray. Okay, it needs a pH balance. You have to respect the pH balance. Okay, you're gonna upset it by putting fucking caviar. He puts caviar inside her. I'm sorry, Mike, you and I have talked about water power. I was less upset by the enemas than that than I was by him putting olives. It's not a martini, that's a woman's vachina. Respect it. You shouldn't even be

allowed to touch it. You don't deserve it.

I like, it's her and Claire I'm fine with. I'm like, yes, I'm I'm You've got my attention, and it's not one of those things where it's you know, because some people might be listening to be like, oh well, maybe she just has a problem with the SNM or strong males. Listen, you too, know me, I love a lot of films that are that have probably gotten me canceled in some circles. And that's okay. He's really miscast and he I mean,

he looks great. I think the cigarette where the cigarette adds silva cigarettes like s I l V A. I don't why they just came to mind. It's like a brand you don't really see now.

that haunts me about that film. Frank Wolfe's great. All the Henry Paris stuff have really strong male characters. Score you have the great Gerard Grant and Casey Donovan. Both of those guys are total dynamite. Carl Parker for the five minutes is fine. And they give him five minutes and don't give him a lot of dialogue and don't make him put you know, can kannapes, canopies. I'm just canope canapes. Let me just completely down like somebody who

eats easy cheese. I don't, but I promise. But but yeah, then, Harry Perris, you get Jamie Gillis, you get guys like Eric Edwards, you know, Michael de tore or Ak, Michael Gott,

Bobby es Dear, you get all these great actors. I'm amazing never worked with John Leslie at least not not not one of the bigger films to my knowledge, like John Leslie moving poor Car Parker's kind of just like the water bug in the in the punch Bowl, you know, and especially with these two women that are just like you have to really be I keep on your toes because they're great. They're like these two you've got, you know. I hate using the term alphas, but these are two

strong presences. Even though Anna is like the sub her presence, Mary Mendum's presence, and just yeah.

but it's so chock full of information. But I mean, one of the I guess I was gonna what I was gonna say, is you know, uh he talks about the backgrounds of the theater backgrounds of Merry mendem And and Marilyn Roberts for that fact, like they were they were both like, you know, theater actors, like trained actor and Mary Mendum especially like he kind of describes her as like, you know, because he interviews her, and some of the interviews reproduced how much she loved acting, and

it's just like, you know, she she just would take anything, you know, at least when she's first started out, was just taking like, you know, everything she could, and she

just like loved acting. And it just got to a point where she wasn't getting cast in anything that she felt you know, excited about, and then just kind of gave up, which is so sad because like she is so really talented and it's just like, you know, you look at her film filmography and you're like, wow, she could have done so much more if she'd just been

like given the right opportunities. And I wonder if and again this is also the Nualito Report article, is that the story goes that she had a sort of serious falling out with Radley Metzker after or even possibly during the making of this film, and basically like they broke it off because one side of the story is that he had an affair with someone in the production. The other side is, you know, you know, he you know, she didn't like the way she was he treated her

badly or something like that. So there's like a couple of different versions of why they separated, but they, you know, had a very bad breakup after this, And I just wonder if maybe because of that, like you know, they you know, if they hadn't, you know, could they have worked together again? You know, would there have been different opportunities for her? You know, just like did she did she sever some professional ties.

it doesn't. And I know there's a lot of scuttle bud out on like you know, Reddit, where people just love to fight all those kind of things, and I'm just like, listen, it was probably somebody said that they could do it, they ended up not being able to do it, there were technical problems at the end whatever, Like you know, we were all familiar with the audio commentary business, and I'm just like, Okay, it's not a big deal, but I'm always curious about the behind the

scenes stuff. So if anybody knows what the story of the commentary for the images. I'd love to hear it because sometimes those stories are almost as fascinating as the film itself, but I know it's not going to be,

because it's probably just going to be a footnote. But yeah, again, just going back to just how fricking beautiful this transfer is, and like for me having witnessed it in that horrible, horrible way and then to see it this way where it just feels like this came right out of the projector. I mean, it looks amazing. I couldn't see a scratch on this, and I was just so happy with how gorgeous this film looks. Like you're talking about the locations,

I mean, the interiors of this look amazing. The lighting in this is fantastic. Everything about this movie just sings for me, and I'm so glad to be able to revisit it now and see a proper transfer of this.

that's Claire's. That's that is a photo of Claire. And I love that. But even in his other films where there's nothing, there's no commentary made about the dress or the makeup every single person, even if it's like somebody who's on screen for like two minutes. I mean, think about Valerie Moran in this film as the sales girl like that likes her having the like, yeah, it's a

great seed. And that's like the one scene I can kind of deal with Sean because it's like we got like Allerie Varan's she's the oreo filling, so I could tell.

point to take off. When you know she's about to go in there and be a little naughty, why does she not lock the door. I'm like, everybody's an exhibitionist in this very I'd not eve ready getting fired. I'd be like, I've ever go lock the door because my like the boss will come in and be like, what are you doing? But yeah, just a little touches. D Bradley. He his work really merits because there are some films

that it's nice to have restored. But you know, if I don't have like the nice blu ray, I don't sweat it. It's like when Pieces got that beautiful, I was glad to have it. But Pieces are such such a wonderful Bonker's Grotty slasher film that I kind of didn't mind it in potato quality.

a sort of lawless present, but this yes, you know, I just want to say that on the cinematographer on

this movie. So again from Ashley West article. So basically, like Radley worked with like a French crew on like the you know, when he was shooting in Paris, and the cinematographer is actually a really like accomplished cinematographer, worked with like Jacques Becker and Renee Claire and so that's I think that's a lot a lot of the credit is due to the cinematographer on this one as well, just because it's yeah, just beautifully shot.

brief messages. Looking for something superior to streaming, a place with more than five times the selection available on all streaming services combined, check out scarecrowvid is rent by mail service, Select from an unparalleled collection of over one hundred and fifty thousand films and get blu rays, four k's and DVDs delivered directly to your door. Get in on it now at scarecrow dot com and rediscover the wonders of

physical media. Well, first, I want to find out a little bit more about you, Professor King, and can you kind of tell me what your background is and how you got into academia.

the transition from the silence of the sound period. So with the radleygh Metica book, I was really broaching very new terrain for myself at least. Yeah, so that's that's kind of my background. I suppose there's some sense in which I feel like fate brought him circling around me

many many times. When I started my job at the University of Toronto, where I started in two thousand and seven, my office neighbor, Barttester introduced himself to me, and you knew that I was teaching class in cult and Exploitation, and he was like, oh, I wrote this article on Radley Metica, by the way, an amazing article. And so at that point I really didn't I hadn't seen any of Metzke's films, So you know, I read the article,

you know, I looked at some of the films. Then later I got a job at Columbia University and I started here and I was teaching Culton exploitation again, and a colleague, Hillary Brower, said, oh, you know, I know Radley Metzka, like, you know, maybe you should, I should put you in touch with him, and so she did, and so in consequence, he would come to my class and introduce his films. When I had one of his films on the syllables, it was always the Liquors Cottet

Liquors Coutette was always the film that he wanted to screen. Obviously, this was towards the end of his life. I think he showed up maybe in twenty thirteen, and then again

in twenty fifteen, and then in twenty seventeen he passed. Obviously, so that happened, and then after he died, I felt a certain sense of regret of not having I mean a regret obviously of his passing, but regret at not having taken the opportunity that had just landed in my lap, and that I hadn't really done anything about Like I should have interviewed this guy, I should have done oral

history or something. But this then kind of put it in my mind to wonder whether I could write something about him, because I was kind of bored by that point of writing slapstick comedy. I already knew my opinions on the topic, and you know, anything else that I was going to write would be just be stuff that I already had thought, And so I started. I did a conference presentation on METZCA. I was thinking that maybe

I'll write a journal article during the pandemic. However, this was I want to say, late summer of twenty twenty. I was browsing on eBay and I noticed some items of his on eBay, like things that shouldn't have been there, like his birth certificate, for example, Like why would that be there. What clearly happened was that after he died, someone had purchased his storage unit content. You know, there

were kind of reality TV shows about this. I'd love to have seen the one where they uppened, but it's all Bradley Metzka's stuff, and so they bought it and then they were just reselling on eBay. Everything was ten dollars apiece, absolutely everything from stuff that was not worth ten dollars to stuff that would be worth a lot more than ten dollars. So I mean, I didn't get some of the earliest stuff that had already been posted, which was some of the real nice pieces, like the

birth certificate. But I got everything else for relatively a bargain. And so at that point it was like, well, this is clearly a book, you know.

the image. Who knows what's on it? I don't know. I haven't had that digitized yet, but I'm going to work with the library to get it all digitized and hopefully future researchers would be able to look at it as well.

knew how to do from having done earlier histories. So this was a matter of looking at you know, going to new public library, looking at clippings file for the individual films, going through variety, going through box office, independent film journal, things like that. But I think the appeal of doing a project like this is at least for me at that time, was that, as I mentioned, I was kind of sick of doing comedy, and I already know what I'm going to find in Variety from like

nineteen thirty one or something like that. So the advantage was that it opened up an entire new spectrum of source material that I would not have considered before.

to the research that I'd done previously. It was just that it was very different sources, and that was exciting. It allowed me to kind of rip out the canvas of who I thought I was as a film historian and to try on new hats as a historian. One thing that I always try to do is to use the biographies of individuals as the frame that kind of links the various pieces together. That's always been very important

to me. But in the previous studies that I'd wrote on Keystone, on early Sam Slapstick, there's a constellation of many different individuals. With Radley Metica, there was one Radley Mettica, or two if you include Henry Parris. And so this was really a pleasure to be able to write around a single life in that sense, as opposed to braiding together a network of individuals.

Those were mainly the audobon and soft core stuff. Then you know, there had been special Blu ray releases by one of the distribute distributors, like cult epics and things like that, and they were all excellent, you know you and many of them had directorial commentaries as well, so

it really was an embarrassment of riches. But those commentaries were enormously helpful, especially in terms of centering Metzka and Metzger's voice, like the ability to actually to always have him on the page in his voice, like the things that he said about X, Y and Z previously I might have poo pooed. The directorial commentary is like, that's yeah, that's too easy as a historical resource that you know,

I you know, I change my mind. These are enormously valuable, and it was enormously valuable to kind of to get Metzger's voice into the book.

up the floodgates in a meaningful way. Metzger realized that, I suppose that the jig was up in terms of softcore in the you know, no one's going to be interested in, you know, in watching a little bit of something where he can have the where you could see everything now, so he, you know, he took a gamble and you know, took up a pseudonym, Henry Paris, and began making a series of hardcore films beginning in nineteen

seventy four. But you know, the Image was a film that he had actually shot before he took up the Henry Paris mantle, but he hadn't released it because of the Supreme Court Miller decision in nineteen seventy three, which was in part an attempt to tamp down on the growing spread of pornography during this period, but it gave him enough reason to kind of hold off on the Image.

In the interim, however, he decided not to hold off in other respects, and decided to see if he could play in the kind of gray area of making pseudonymous hardcore films under the Henry Paris name. The films are very different Henry Paris versus the Radley Metzga films, and I think the key difference is comedy actually, which brings things back into my old wheelhouse. All of his hardcore films are comedies. They're very, very funny, and in fact,

to watch them with an audience. I screened mister Bedoven Light Industry back in March, I think of this year. To watch it with an audience and to get that communal line after, it's really a different experience. Whereas when you look at his softcore films, there's only one that's comedy and that score, and that's already very late in his softcore trajectory. The previous films that he'd made, I mean, they're distinguished by many things, but one of the things

is that they're not funny. You know, they're not trying to be funny either. You know, something like Licorice cortet Is, if anything, one could say that it's a little bit too self serious, you know, saying with Little Mother and you know, some of the other films from that period. So that's the key difference that you know that he that he's making these films as the hardcore films as comedies, which is not something that he really experimented with his in the films that he gave his own name to.

He's on record, I think it might have been one of the Blu Ray commentaries where he says that he wanted in his hardcore work to bring you know, something of a kind of bush Belt tradition of humor to his work in hardcore. You know, he's letting the Jewish aspect of his identity kind of fly a little bit more proudly, I think in those hardcore films than in his more somewhat more gentrified and gentrifying softcore works.

very visceral film. Really. I mean, my sense is of Metzka that the last of the sex films that he gave his own name to, leaving aside The Princess and the and the and the play Princess, and by the end of his work in softcore and I'm talking here about the film's score and the image, he hit on a form for dramatizing sex effectively that is very visceral, very absorbing. If you look at his earlier films, what you typically have is, you know, there's some plot, then

there's sexy. There's a plot, there's sexy plot and sexy right, and so on and so forth. And you know, obviously that's true of you know, of Score and the image as well. You have your moments of your or sex

scenes kind of interspersed among the plot action. But I think that what you see in Score and the image is the degree to which the sex is integrated full into the plot, right, because Score is basically about this couple that is trying to persuade another innocent couple to swing both ways basically, and you know, the image is

about a man being initiated into sadomasochism. In each case, you have these characters who are being asked to confront taboos really and to cross over into that taboo territory. And in both instances, the image and score we end with very long, very kind of compose driving music driven sequences of sex that are enormously involving because they combine

the sex with the logic of the plot. You're kind of experiencing these characters and you're empathizing with these characters as they breach these taboos, and that's a kind of interesting place for you to be as a spectator.

would be what you have with Carmen Baby. It's what you have with Camille two thousands as well, and it's what you have with the opening of this debate open where you're taking the basic plot of Pygmalion or Carmen or Ladamo Camelia and you're basically translating it into a modern day setting with sexual action with touris and Isabelle and the image. By contrast, these are not loose adaptations.

They stay very very close to the literary source. A lot of the script of Thesan Isabelle and the image is directly taken from from the literary translations of these books. Right, That's like he's effectively turning that into dialogue. The image

takes this even further. I mean the image is structured around a number of chapters, and the film is equal structured around chapter the same chapters with the same chapter headaches, right, So though the image and the Reason Isabella are more of his kind of his two most literal literary adaptations.

that they did, the collected speeches of Spiru Agnu. I don't know what the thought was there, but anyway, so Audubon books were distributed by Ace in many respects. To return to the image in many respects, I think that

Radley Metzker was tracking Grove Press during this period. Grove Press was a book publisher that published kind of outre modernist literature with a high quotient of sexual content as well, and by the end of the nineteen sixties, Grove was also starting to get its feet wet in film distribution. Grove distributed I Am Curious Yellow, for example, which was like one of the kind of landmark films in terms

of explicit section being depicted on film. He starts as a distributor of film, but I think he's interested in making Auderbon a kind of Grove like brand, and so starts to branch out into publication. Also releases the soundtracks to many of his films. Also. Now, the image this book is interesting because this is where the circle between Metzga and Grove Press closes. The republication of the image

of jonder Berg's the image was by Grove Press. This is a Grove Press publication and it came out before the image that Metsga's the image hit movie screens. What's interesting about this book though, is if you look at the title on the cover page, it says the image by jonder Berg with over sixty photographs by Radley Metzker. It doesn't give any indication the mets that those photographs

are stills from a film that he had made. Right as you can see as I kind of flick through here, there are lots and lots and lots of images here. So that's it's almost as though this is being presented as like the photo Roman or the Fumetti version of like the image where Grove press asked Bradley Metzka to make, you know, to go and take some photos of people

doing S and M style things. So you know, it's somewhat misleading in terms of what you think you're getting here because it gives no indication that these are photos from a film that is about to be released. It's an odd ball publication, but it's it's at least the publication where the trajectory of Metzka and the trajectory of Grove, like there they finally intersected around the image.

Where are you going to get like script materials, Where are you going to get business records and so on and so forth, because obviously, you know, in many of these cases, you know, some of these companies that made these films were more or less fly by night operations looking for a quick buck here and there, and they didn't have extensive company records. And even for those companies that were in the game for much longer, like, it's

difficult to find where they where they are. That was a challenge in my previous work on let's say the Keystone Film Company. Keystone was founded by Maxenid and the Academy Film Archive in LA has the Max Senet collection, So you just walk to the Academy Library and you look at all the files and you know there it is, but you know, they don't Pornography doesn't fall under that same duty of archival care unfortunately, which means that it's it's harder to find this kind of material.

your focus elsewhere. You know, acknowledge that the gaps are there, you know when you encounter them, but try to, you know, to navigate your narrative in a way that doesn't make those gaps quite as visible as they ordinarily would be. And you know, again, I would say that this was where those DVD and Blu Ray commentaries were really a lifesaver, because they allowed me to incorporate Metzka's own memories and reflections on the work that he did.

his films in person. There were still at that point a few films of his that I had not seen, including Score and the Image, and the experience of watching those films was really a very striking experience because of the ways in which the sex scenes are dramatized in terms of this idea of confronting taboos, the way in which the spectator gets implicated into all of this, and these very sustained sex scenes that end Score and the Image.

It was really a kind of bewildering moviegoing experience like nothing I'd had before.

engaging in you know, sadomascis successual practice. The moment at which he does this is also the moment where Anne confronts her own taboo in terms of her decision to choose the implement of her own torture, the whip that she will be whipped with. But then that ultimately unlocks the dominatrix character's taboo, which is her desire to put herself in Anne's place, to use Anne as a kind of avatar for what Jeen will then do for her.

So like, once that threshold is crossed, like it initiates this chain reaction that unlocks or that makes all of the other characters like now able to confront their you know, and pass over those thresholds as well. And that kind of Russian Dolls style structure whereby one taboo opens up another. I don't want to say that this is what the film is about or this is the great message of the film, but I think it's what gives the film

its power. Right as you see these characters engaged in there, where.

in the book. I'd like to play around with it for a bit more and see what your what further articles or papers, presentations I can generate from this and maybe where you let's see where this leads me, you know, in terms of you know, you get requests for podcasts like this, you get requests for other things like maybe you want to be on this panel, maybe you want to you know, just you blow with the wind a

little bit. Yeah, So that would be one thing that I'm that I'd be interested in pursuing, because certainly I would like to do all that I can and help get these films out to a broader public, not just in terms of the book, but in terms of assisting with whatever special features on Blu rays or things like that. But I mean, I've also been doing research on a field that has nothing to do with film at all that has exercised a lot of my attention over the last year or so, which is I do work in

new media. I teach new media here at Columbia, among other things, and I've been interested in exploring the history of computational humor, which is the history of attempts by people to get computers to tell jokes. And it's actually it's a pretty interesting history that I'm excited to write. I've been researching it for about a year and a

half at this point. If Man of Taste is about as far as you can go from Keystone as possible, then this is like I seem to be jumping around, maybe a little bit too much, but that's you know, that's the material that I'm doing active research in at the moment. But you know, I'm hoping to continue doing stuff on Metsca as well. I mean, you know what, I do hope that his final film Sins of Ilsa or Love Standing Up, both titles you know, have been used.

I do hope that that eventually sees the light of day in some shape or other, And you know, I be delighted. You know, I'm in communication with Joe Rubin and Vinegar Syndrome and anything that we can do to get that film out. You know, whether as your release in its own right, or as you know, a kind of extra feature on Henry Parris DVD I think would be enormously valuable.

I wanted to do production. And then I was doing this internship for a long time in New York, and I also worked for a French director doing that, I think the first seed, even though I didn't understand it, but I think it was a very important thing for me to be working very close to someone who wastively in charge of the project, where I identified very much with him, and I didn't I had no idea that I wanted to work with something creative and I was in business school because I had no idea what I

wanted to do, and I could get in because I had good grades. Basically, I saw Katherine on television and I didn't know and this actually has to do not really why I got into filmmaking, but she was really the starting point why I wanted to direct. So I was in Paris and I was watching this very typically French program, three hours discussion about this one topic, no

commercial breaks and with different intellectual disciplines discussing this. And the night theme was taboos around female pleasure, I believe, and people were coming and going, and you know, there were very very widespread scenes. So and then after a woman had talked about how she was abused as a child and many very difficult consequences that that got for her, this older woman comes in, very elegant and in a suit, and I for some reason thought that she was a

representative for the Catholic Church. So when this little lady starts talking about this scene where a half naked black man is chained by the river Senn and how the scene is lit up by the river roads that go by, I was like, what, whoa wha, what is she talking about? And my friend, she's quite good. But I was like, did I actually get this right? And then you know, I recognize her name, but I had no idea who

she was, and it was because of her husband. And then she started talking about this contract that she had with a younger woman who had given her the her liberty and for her to decide everything in her life. And I was so intrigued, and I was like, why would anyone do that, and why would anyone accept that, you.

I met someone who knew so one. I had a cousin that worked in that editor that you know published her books. It is from the Bignui, I think, and I'm like, I'm going to go home soon. And she hasn't answered me yet, and I think it was just like I had been there for a week or something. I mean, it's all very it's quite quite crazy. She said, Elsie, what I can do? And then suddenly I in my email, and the way I remember it is that I just

got a landline phone number. It had no address. I mean I must have had an address, but it was probably a very cryptical one, you know, like I couldn't understand what it was from. There was no what do you call when you have like the heading.

and I don't know how to make films. And also she is thirty years my senior, having read books for thirty years, having met people for thirty years, and et cetera, et cetera, and et cetera. I was very nervous, not really having a plan, and then we met, and I think she was just a little curious about, you know, this Swedish person, and I think none of us really had knew that, you know, this meeting would end up me spending lots of time with her and her closest

ones for five years after. I mean, I had no clue, nor did she. And also I understood something very important later when I thought about it, is that you don't get like a yes. You know, obviously making a documentary film about someone, you can have an agreement, but then you know it's something that is you're negotiating that trust like in any other relationship all the time. So I mean what she said yes to was that she said, I'm having dinner with a few friends tomorrow, would you

like to come? And I was like, oh, maybe that's at the slaves house and it was. But the person who opened the door was a seventeen year old girl in a dress and I was like, this must be her daughter, and yeah, so that was the how what sparked this thing, and then I went to a third thing before going back to Sweden, and then I just started spending lots of time with them, just being trying to figure out what was I mean, there were just so many things. You know, I'm I'm Swedish, it was

not my language, is not my you know. It was like navigating and immigrating in so many different layers of culture.

I knew nothing about saya masochism also, and I've never been really interested in sata masochism, and I wasn't really but I did quite rapidly understand that this is you know, the most incredible magnifying glass on basic human needs and behaviors, her ceremonies, and that was you know, I was never interested in the exoticism of it or you know, but you know, I did rapidly understand that this is incredible with all the codes and you know, yeah, sorry, you

should ask your questions. I'm just talking. But it is actually how I got into filmmaking. I you know, I have this urge of doing this film myself, and that's how I understood that that's what I wanted to do, and that's how I started.

of different roles that she plays. I remember understanding that this is a person who has yeah, who is incredibly gifted in playing with these different masks. And I thought very naively that if I could just peel off the layers, I will come into something that is the get into the center. And I understood that, of course we are you know, we are. We are onions, We're not there is no such thing.

she's another person. She's just very yeah, she just you know, she is she is many things, and she is you know, a very uh, she's just an whole cute, considerate bourgeois lady. And she is this mistress of super elaborate ceremonies and she can say things, you know, she can talk about, you know, having tea or a handshake where the sun doesn't shine with the same face basically, and she does that and she knows how to trigger people that way.

And it's funny because I'm now editing another thing with the photographer that I was working with doing the contract which became the first short film, and he said that that he thought he doesn't speak French, and he thought that he would understand when they what happened, and he realized quite quickly that I don't because you know, I can't put whatever is going on with her face and her interactions what is actually being said. I can't the

body language. So a very rich personality, playful, with lots of integrity, and I think that's so important because I say this with the masks. And also I would really like to put forward how I see how that she never creates chaos around her. So she plays with masks, but in her intimate relationships, she's also very clear, firm, you know, she's very intact. There's always calm around her, which I really appreciate.

I have the most incredible story. So I kind of chopped a part of and I was like, maybe it's smart to do a film from H to Z, you know, and learning I applied to this and where I wanted to tell the story from Beverly's point of view, which I did, which became the contract and then La sentence the five census was more that we did that for the contract, so that became, you know, another short film that we wanted to just just to to have it,

and then I continue to do the ceremony. But it was I mean, for me, it's really part of the same. It's all the same. It's the same adventure, you know. I And also I mean, apart from the contract, I spent lots of time with not filming at all, because since I wasn't at all used to film, or I wasn't comfortable with you know, approaching the world via a lens. I was much more like socially comfortable spending time and feeling like I didn't intrude with anything. So I just

spent time to be able to understand basically. And also they hated being filmed, that's another thing, and I didn't. I had nothing to compare with, so now I have and it was really difficult actually, but so they appreciated me, but it was not very easy to.

so much time with them everywhere. So and the girl that opened that door the second day I met them, that was Beverly's daughter, and she asked me to be her witness at her wedding. So it's like, I've spent so much time with them everywhere, and I've met, you know, all the closest friends and rock relationships, and so I would say most of the places that they went, I would spend time with them.

I mean he has had an incredible career afterwards. But he was, you know, he was amazing and I saw a film that he made and I was just like this, and I asked him if he would come on board and do this with me, and you know, our first encounter, we spoke for six hours, so it was really like just being with Kathleen and Beverly and really not you know, for the longer I was. I was by myself for and then everything that has to do with the ceremonies

that we filmed. Eventually we did that in Sweden and then I had to crew with thirty people around me. But that was very much in the end and the whole relationship and the filming. I was in Paris a year filming, and I spent like two years at least just hanging out and being with them and.

and I also didn't know that they knew. It was quite recently when Claire said to me something where I understood that they definitely knew that they were making my life very hard as a filmmaker, but we never talked about it actually, so it would be more. Also, you can say that, but you can also change. Another point of view is that Katherine asked me to sign a

contract where she would have a last look. And when she said that I have no poker face whatsoever, and when she said that, how much I did understand and that that would be you know. Of course, Catherine is someone who is in control of most things that she does in her life, so that would be yeah, very something to to to expect. But when she has said that to me, I realized that that was no way that I could give that to her, No way that I can spend five years and being having to in

the editing room basically negotiating. And it just came from my gut that I and she looked at me and she's like, oh, I really see that. This is not something that you you know, I think it's pretty normal. And I said, yes, I agree, and then she refrained from that and she said, Okay, we're not going to do that, but I'm not going to I'm not going

to sign any contract with you. I'm not going to sign either, you know, like a participate agreement, and I will watch what I say and we will have no contract. And that's how we worked. That's also incredible. And I know that her friends told me when they saw the film. They were like, I do not understand how you can have her say things like this in front of camera and the way that she is this is something that

we don't even see without cameras. And Catherine said when we premiered the film in front of six hundred people in Copenhagen. It was quite nervous for all of us. And she said that she thought that she could control everything, but of course, year after year after year, that she couldn't, and that it was quite you know that she was quite taken when she saw the film the first time because she realized that, you know, not even her.

And I had like a stomach ache every time I should I was gonna pay my phone bills or And then I had a friend that just a childhood friend that became this manager at a hotel, and I called her and I was quite desperate, and I was like, do you have any job openings? And I have worked as a waitress all over the world and you know so, and she said yeah, sure, and I started working and I was so grateful to get a job where I actually earned money. So, yeah, that's what I was doing.

Eles her name is. She did the production design and we worked with real things that we gathered together from Beverly and Catherine, and then we cast people dancers and one active BDSM person from the community, but mostly dancers, and then we basically created this world in this house together for three days. It was amazing. It was incredible.

was just doing what I was telling him. I just created this and I couldn't stop laughing, and wonderfully because he was so good, you know, he got the part so which you know obviously, and of course I excused myself and I'm like, I'm so sorry, this is unforgivable and I'm so so so good and I'm so embarrassed.

Why And then you know, when we were gonna when we I was just like, but this this could be if I don't if I don't get this right, this is going to be so ridiculous and that could hurt many people, and you know, I will feel ashamed for them if I don't get I need you know, people cannot laugh at this.

I was very nervous. Also, those scenes cost a lot of money, and you know it was you know, thirty people and everyone was watching me and you know it was my but and Katrine was going to come and I was also directing Katherine doing things. You know that was also insane. But it went really well, and you know, I'm I'm it went well, but I was but I wouldn't say that that was the hardest because that was actually quite fluid for me. Weirdly enough, I was very alone.

That was the hardest. I was very new dealing with all these relationships, you know, handling things, and there was just so much that I didn't know, and I really didn't have people to call. You know, there are still many things that I don't know, but I have more people that I can ask. I just had to kind of navigate. I mean, there were times where I thought that maybe it's dumb that I don't show them more in their everyday lives, and then I was like, but

it's not interesting. And now I know, I really feel that I made the right decision. But you know, people were questioning why, you know, we really want to see her, and I was like, but she's not very interesting having tea and eating cookies. She's interesting here and this is also where I would get access to her. She's intellectually very free, and she's incredible the way that she looks

at things. And you know, in our interviews and as you know, in documentary filmmaking, it has like talking heads that's kind of a low status, and I love that. I love hearing people reflect and talk of their point of views and their lives, and you know, I still do. So the ceremonies are really at the center. That is what is incredible. And to approach that. I also need to do that in fiction because I can never do them justice, you know, walking it even though she would

never have let me. Also, but having you know this, you know, to to understand the soul of what she does, it needed to be. I think what we did was the most truthful that we could ever do. And also Christian said that it's weird. I mean, I've been to some of this. I mean I put it together from books and you know, as this thing that would go through the but you know, obviously it's not based on my fantasies and my and he said that even though I know it's fiction, I can't see it, which is

quite incredible. But I do think that creating that bridge for the audience to walk into something as the raw as the most truthful we had to fictionalize it.

our self. Our identity is that hierarchy between people. I mean they exist kind of in a class system, but we don't really talk about them if it's not like in a you know, in a social democratic class system kind of way, or between men and women. So that was sometimes a little hard, you know, to have like this asymmetric relationship that is voluntary I could, you know, but I feel that we managed to approach that with many interesting people in different forums, so that we could.

You know, in France, there is no intellectual worth or name that haven't written, you know, on philosophy, on economy and eroticism. You know, in Sweden it becomes very quickly something that is more in the pants, you know, not up here. So but I think we managed to kind of you know, do that in a good way. And then something that was really surprising to me is that so many people identify with the characters way beyond the BDSM.

It was more like people that felt that I could hear that they reacted that the people that feel felt odd in their lives felt very much uplifted by the characters in the film, which was really beautiful. People had made, you know, feel Yeah, I don't know what I mean. I don't remember that specifically, but I remember people coming up to me and expressing that I have felt weird and you know, like an outsiders from many different kind of you know, felt very touched I think by the

characters around Kathleen and the film. But that was in Sweden, and then it traveled a lot in different in different

countries and in many festivals. And I heard some one who was working at a cinema that I met years after when it came out, who said that people usually had a way of talking about things when they had seen a film, and he was a machine machine operator in the cinema, and that he said that when people had seen this film, it was quite often they were silent, or it was quite awkward, or they would talk about like something completely different. That he saw reactions in people

that he didn't usually see that. People were a little yeah, but yeah, No, the film generally got Yeah. I think it was received quite well, not hated, which you could.

I did a pre I did. I worked for several months interviewing like forty digital natives to It was like I did this research and then I really try to film like normal people and not you know, not spectacular at all. And I was looking for them to be different from each other in terms of where in the country were filmed, and you know, different social economic whatever and education. But I really try to approach them as

normal Swedes as possible or living in Sweden. And what I learned is that everyone because I was starting out also to do something like a fictional series. That was the idea from the beginning, and they used this material to write and then I had all these interviews. I walked into people's houses where I'd never been before, I put up a camera, I filmed them for between one to two hours, and they were amazing and so touching, and there was not one single interview that was not good.

It was incredible. So that taught me that when it comes to casting and when it comes to people, that when you talk to them about things that matter to them, everyone is interesting. That was the my and I still that for true because now I'm doing a very different film, but it's true.

last few years. I interview them and then I ask them if I can come to their homes and I make like a family portrait of them, and then I'm working on something Restorative Justice project. It's a program given in So African prisons that targets people who have been committed for very serious crimes and they go through this program with the aim for them to take responsibility for

their crimes. And in order to take the responsibility for their crimes, they need to not only admit to their crimes, but they need to be able to understand the consequences of their crimes in the victims' lives. And then in the case that the victims want to they're supposed to meet. So they're preparing both victims and perpetrators in this very intense process. Yeah, and I'm trying to get a permit to film that in a South African prison, and I've

been there. I've been to five different facilities, and I've been working for this organization and I've been prepping and now I'm trying for almost four years to get a permit to film. So I really hope that that would go through, But you know, it's a marathon and then I'm filming Couple Married where Mattilasa and Carloloff and Mattilas got a stroke at forty two that he incredibly it was a miracle that he survived, but he's been very affected.

And it's about, you know, a marriage for better and for worse, you could say, And very few marriages survive stroke. And they're incredible together and I'm filming them and I'm in my fifth year.

And I went back to and I watched a film called Erotica Journey into Female sexuality from ninety seven and that had a interviews with both Catherine Robe Goolay and Dominic Arie, and I think Ari was just I think she passed away pretty soon thereafter, and Catherine Robert Goolay just I'd love that she's wearing the outfit that we see in some of the scenes inside of the ceremony where it's like it's almost like she's mourning. It's like a.

even though they came out a few years apart. So, yeah, so when when the image came out, obviously it's under a masculine pseudonym berg and there was a similar debate about authorship and you know kind of you know, there were some hints like and again we're sort of I talked a little bit in the last episode about sort of the French publishing world at this time and the intelligency and all these people knew each other, so like, you know, it was kind of like they were, and

they were like the sort of intellectual, you know, the cultural intellectual like stars of that time, and and so like you know, people knew obviously everyone who was because he was like, you know, the darling of the you know, new French new novel. You know, I don't think anyone necessarily thought like his wife actually it wasn't his wife at the time. They married like the year after this was written, but you know, his his partner had written

this book. I mean there was kind of a and and there's also some like sort of interesting I think debate around the introduction to this book, because the introduction is supposedly written by Pauline Rayage.

You would think Pauline Rayage, right, but I think it was I can't remember whose book I read this in, but some some author positive that it pr because ellenro Gria's middle name is Paul, so it'd be Paul Robe Grier pr someone theory interesting but yeah, so again, so lots of questions about authorship, and you know, I don't know at what point. I mean, we know a lot about the genesis of the story of Always a Novel.

We don't know as much, or at least not as much as published about how the image was written, like how it came into creation. I mean, you know, obviously Rob Gray was a writer, and you know, he probably encouraged Katrine to write, and they had a very unique and strange relationship, much different from Dominique Guri and Jean Paulin. I think they met in Turkey, uh while he was I don't know, I don't know if he was working on a film or something like that, but they met.

She was, you know, younger than him, I think a bit, and she's she's a very if you ever, I don't know if you really get the sense of this movie, but she is like a tiny, tiny woman. She's in some of Roub Grey's films actually, as she's in Le Mortel, Uh, she's in Trans Europe Express. Like she's this like super tiny petite woman. So yeah, and you see her in some of the home video shots as a younger woman

in in the ceremony. But they met and I guess, uh Rob gria Arorie is basically said to her, you know I that you know, he said he loved her, but he said, you know, I have very certain desires. You know, I need a woman who you know, He's like, I I he's I hate, I hate this quote, but it is a quote. It is something like I I think it's from that the Erotica movie that you were just talking about.

And so their relationship, you know, he he was the dominant, she was the submissive and they actually had a contract,

like a written contract. And if you there's a Vanity Fair article that reproduces the contract, so you can go if you I don't, uh, you can you can google it actually like contract Rubri and see, like she never signed it, but she sort of willingly submitted to it, and as she says in the ceremony, she did this with the purpose that like it kind of granted her ironically, it granted her the freedom to do other things in

life that she wanted to do. You know, like she said, I submitted, you know, I submitted to this this type of relationship, you know, and you know sort of in exchange, you know, he took care of me. I had the freedom to you know, go anywhere and do what I wanted to. And you know she actually you know, had affairs with other people and you know traveled and just did you know, just had it. Basically she just does that submitting to that type of relationship gave her the

independence that she so desired. So they had like this and they were married for she They were married until his death and like I think two thousand and eight, so they were probably married like fifty plus years, and you know, had this relationship at some point, and I'm actually not sure what she She's written another book called The Rights of Women, where she kind of talks a little bit about her, you know, her philosophies and ideas

and experiences in sm M and John de Burgh. Yeah, exactly, and which is how she's now also now known professionally as a dominatrix. You see her referred to in the film as Jean de Berg.

exactly as a scandal. I don't remember exactly how that kind of transferred over, but I think at some point, like she realized, you know, she wanted to you know, be a dominant rather than submissive or maybe and maybe she still was a missive in a relationship with Rogrier, but Yeah, it's it's so interesting to see kind of like her, this trajectory of hers and you know, now she's like the sort of Grand Dome dominatrix, you know, and coordinating all these ceremonies as the title refers to.

before she met Rob Grier. And so I think and I think a few people in the documentary allude to this that you know, part of it's this theatricality, uh that she you know, in her it's part of her interest in being a dominators is not necessarily like sexual, but it's like wanting to wanting to coordinate a scene, like wanting to you know, pick out the way everything looks and like you know, sort of coordinate everything and

you know, you know, direct it. Even so, I think that kind of relates to this sort of interest she had when she was younger in the theater and performance, because so they're all kind of a performance.

sacred with the you know, the profane. She doesn't say profane, but basically mixing that something, you know, a sense of the sacred with something that people on the outside view is very profane, is very sort of dirty, And I really love that. I thought that was such a such a great way to hear it phrased, and what we get to see, which I love, how beautifully shot. All of the the ceremony scenes are gorgeous, and what a

space to have, such a what a wonderful building. I kept thinking, like somebody needs to do something for those on a budget, Like what do you do if you live in a tidy part and you're trying to make a living. One thing that I really thought was fascinating, especially comparing it to watching the image, is the tenderness and the sense of real trust and respect that all of the mistresses have with their I don't like using

the term slaves, but you know, with their slaves. I just thought that was something that was actually very sweet and something I kind of again where I wish it maybe kind of wish we had more of that with Claire and and but I also kind of like, well, that's a different story though, And I think Claire and

Ann's dynamic is a little more murky. But that's kind of the beauty of writing erotica, making erotic films is I think a lot of people on that side just views as like anything sexual is just strictly for prurient purposes. But it's like, well, no, you're an artist, you can

explore it to explore themes of humanity. Humans were messy, we were one of the We were absolutely the messiest primates on this planet, and why not use art to be like, Yeah, sex gets messy, love gets messy, power gets messy, and when you're mixing all of those ingredients together with some people that may or may not be

quite damaged, it's going to get very interesting. And that's why I think it makes like for such a I love that we're writing to discuss this film and the and as these artists, I can't believe you guys are almost making me want to watch the Story of Oh again. I've read the book. I was so disappointed with it. Yeah, I'll just yeah, I'll read I have I have the book, I have not I've not revisited it in a long time.

I think I'll do that instead, and then I'll just watch Terryama anyway, which I would do anyways.

especially for the women characters. And I think both Oh and Claire, I think what both of them are are clearly like on a journey, and we see them in the Story of All we kind of see everything through Oh's point of view and and and even though in the image we don't really see Claire's point of view and she's kind of opaque to us in a way, we still through through Jean's perception. I think we kind

of feel her emotion. We we we get the sense of, like, you know, how she she changes as she progresses towards the end of the novel. And I just think that's I mean, that's just proof that these are just literary classics.

Like like, no, you can't really question that, you know, I just think they're they're just beautiful stories about human beings and all their faults and all their you know, their their messiness, as you were saying, like, you know, and I think it's it's so important to remember that that these are important works of literature that we should still read and think about and we shouldn't dismiss them as you know, kind of oh, well this is you know, I don't you know, like X, Y and Z that

happens in this and like but yeah, but there's still so many things you can talk about that you don't even have anything to do with that, just you know, character development, just you know, sort of the way they move through the text is just so interesting to me.

feels like it is a screenplay. I think I would read about two hours to get.

And it's not like you go through you know, your dirty bookstores and you see the image usually see a story of Oh. It just feels like it's not nearly as well known as what I'm trying to say. And then when it comes to the image movie and the story of Oh, again, it feels like the image is just not nearly as known, and for me, for both of those, it's like, Wow, this one really hits home

for me, not the earlier one. Not trying to like set up a fight between Story of O and the image, it just feels like I wish that this had made more of a splash, because again, I guess that's some p humor there, the whole idea of this being so hard to find for so many years. It wasn't like Story of Oh, where it was so much easier to find. And then of course there's no sequels. You know, we

talked about the whole Oh a verse last time. Man, you got Oh being a secret agent going over to you know, Hong Kong or Japan, and you know, being part of a revolutionary Chinese war and all these things. You don't have that. I mean, I guess that's kind of like why we still talk about Emmanuel is that there's like just countless of Manuel things as opposed to And I'm sorry I didn't know that it actually was books, and now I feel like I am obligated to read

the Book of Emmanuel. I just thought it was a movie series.

it in terms of the film. You know, yes, it's as you point out, like it's you know, Mesker did this before there was going to be a Story of Old movie and then it got delayed because of legal issues that were happening in the US and his fear of being incriminated for because this is when the cool conversation about like, you know, is portion pornography, you know, hardcore pornography be illegal And for a while it was like there was such uncertainty that he was like and

and again this is part of what caused him to take his name, you know, to adopt the name Henry Paris is because he was afraid of you know, making but he doesn't know Henry Paris for the image. But you know, he presumably because it became before.

door's box. You can't you can't really go back to just like you know, even though softcore still, I mean, especially once Cable hit. Yeah, as any of us children of the eighties that were sneaking to watch set of Acts.

game hit. I remember it being kind of like a small little dude, I'm.

cirt because it's consenting. It's consenting adults. I don't care if it's like if it's fisting, if it's water sports whatever. If you don't like it, you don't have to watch it. But I mean, but it's like anything with the government, right, It's like they were doing shit that was way worse, and it's like, oh, look at these pornographers. Don't look

at what we're doing. It's a smoke screen. Censorship is always a smoke screen for something that's actually really insidious going on that has nothing to do with art.

and there was no enemas. It was like PG thirty Bradnicallyay, it was like an R. It was not even like a soft ar baby it was because that was like how I feel poor Anima people back then, Like you know, like I mean, it's not my thing as much as I joke about it because I think it's funny and I'm basically beavis, but but like you imagine these poor people being like, how what do you do with that?

What do you even do with that? And also I mean it's literally it's so silly, like who's I'm off I'm offended by h you know, by horrible Hollywood movies that cost enough money to feed a third world nation when it's the blandest movie y'all ever see, and you'll forget about it the minute you walk out of the theater. That is to me offensive. Am I going to try and ban it? Oh? Of course not. I will make fun of it.

And I love that Mannheimer kind of has this relationship with them. So I'd be curious to see more of her stuff too, because some of those.

careers through this Vanity Fair article that appeared. I can't remember the I think it's twenty fourteen, maybe maybe around the same time as this film that was about, you know, kind of her relationship with you know, our history of relatable Beverly was like I said, it was written by Tony Bentley and there's a great video on YouTube that uh and he don't know what years from me because there was a there was all the astrant says in New York brought Kating, Robb Grier and Beverly Charpentier over

to talk about her life as a dominatrix and possibly the film, and there's a there's a long interview with Tony Bentley, Beverly and catching on on YouTube that you can watch and it's it's it's from that her her visit to New York. I wish I could have been there. Uh, And it just sounds really great. And I think Radley Mesker actually went to that talk and it is as Ashley relates in the articles that like they they finally met. That was the first time they met because he had

never met her. H when he acquired the rights for the book.

money off of that. And apparently the contract that Radley Nesker had was like water tights and like it wasn't you know, there was absolutely no way. But Rob Grier said like, I you know, I want more money or I'll pull this up from being released in France. And I can't remember if that's actually what happened or but but yeah, he was kind of a dick, as Rob Grier often was. I digress. He did get to meet catching and they met together at this at this event in New York.

I'm really glad I watched this eremony. I was. I'm glad this came up in discussion. I thought that was such a getting to see the different personalities of the other doms too. I thought was like, not just Beverly, but some of the and and certainly Beverly's journey from going from like being a dom and her talking about her experience with men and her loveries. Even before she went to that I thought was so fascinating and such a such a cool I mean for being such a

kind of a fairly short, feature length documentary. What we do get to see you know, of each person? It doesn't feel like enough, but it's just enough to where you're you're really grateful to get it.

write about this film. And and yes, so it's available preorder. It's a beautiful set. And also via Umbrella entertainment. I have a video essay on the release of ABC's of Death where I do I talk about Noboro Uguchi's ethas for fart I do. I love it. I had such a great time with that. Uguchi is an absolute trip of director, a great Japanese surrealist filmmaker. And yeah, talk

about Story of the Eye. I feel like Batilla would appreciate a lease a little bit of that, and yeah, and it's a it's a beautiful set and so it's an honor to get me doing that for other Sundrys, I'm always working on stuff I can't talk about. But you can go to my link train leaktrain dot com, forward slash, Mondo Heather. You'll find my social media, my Patreon, my website, other podcasts, articles, can goods and baked goods, all the fun essentials.

have the image available. If you want to hear more of me shooting off my mouth, check out some of the other shows that I work on. They're all available at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world.