Directors' Journal

THURSDAY AUGUST 26, 2003

LONDON. We interview Xaviera Hollander, author of The Happy Hooker, now living in exile in Amsterdam. She remembers the time she met Linda Lovelace

She came to apply for a job as a prostitute in my establishment as The Happy Hooker. And Iurned her down for reasons that I found her too wholesome, too submissive, not really intelligent enough for the job. Because I was looking for more sophisticated girls. When she came to my house, she was just a very homely young, very naive girl, actually.

SEPTEMBER, 2003

We begin post production and hope to have a rough cut by Thanksgiving. Optimism itself!

Danny Bramson is to be the music tsar. He's a legend - although everyone in Hollywood's a legend. But in the flesh Danny supersizes that concept. It's not just that he is physically imposing, his aura is a supernovalike. He pounds the table, bangs his fist on the wall, and at one point actually gets down on the floor on his hands and knees, racking his brain for bitchin' tracks, dude, for a totally rocking monster soundtrack!!! Nervous glances fly around the room. This level of demonstrativeness is totally alien to the good people of Hollywood. Especially on a first meeting!

Will Grayburn is editing, having done the same for 101 Rent Boys, Juror #5, our HBO film about the O J Simpson trial, and the episode all about video in Pornography: The Secret History of Civilization.

But just because we've started editing, doesn't mean we have a script. It takes a better part of a week just to read the transcripts. Paring them down for selects reults in five hundred pages of must-use material. We're drowning in it!

And just because we've started editing, doesn't mean we have stopped shooting, either.

FRIDAY OCTOBER 18th, 2003

LONDON: Party Monster opens in the UK. The reviews are in and they are universally negative. But when Boy George weighed in with a negative review in the Sunday Express, I finally some confidence in the film. I once predicted that Madonna would turn all holy with child, and I reckon Boy George will turn into an arch conservative. In the same way so many of the 60's liberal and sexual revolutionaries sold out there own ideology for the cash that came with the economic boom of the 80's and 90's. They - the wild things, the free love hippies - are the reason we live in such conservative times today. Its not so much a backlash as it is their own betrayal of themselves and their so-called ideology, much of which was simply self-indulgence posing as philosophy.

TUESDAY OCTOBER 21, 2003

LOS ANGELES: Peter Fonda gives us a very gnomic interview in the grounds of the Chateau Marmont

WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 22, 2003

Interview Gore Vidal who mainly wants to talk about the boys in the war; its all completely fascinating.

I think Kinsey triggered it all by denying that there was anything except sexual degenerates, except among the occasional, uh, demented hair dresser, who would, you know, end up murdered somewhere. Uh, they idea that, uh, all American boys who had just won the Second World War were involved in this sort of activity, sometimes to the point of obsession, sometimes to the point of falling in love. Uh, the, this traumatized the whole country. Well, our boys were very busy winning the Second World War and also with one another. That was a fact. So now you have all of these people trying to erase Kinsey. They've tried to erase me for 55 years, since The City And The Pillar.

So, anybody that much younger than I, which practically everybody is, doesn't know what it's like to have had a free sex life.

Elliott Gould is rather wary of us when we interviewed him by the side of his pool.

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 5, 2003

Interview with Hugh Hefner. It's hard not to become slightly excited at going to the fabled Playboy mansion. However, in the cold light of day few nightclubs look as magical as they should - there's always an unsettling aroma of congealment. On the other hand there was also something changeless about it, and the lack of renovated perfection that carpets all of Bel Air made the place feel almost homey. In time this place will be preserved as a National monument.

Reading back his transcript he was perhaps the only person we interviewed to speak in prefect sentences and complete paragraphs with no ums and ahs. Like this final thought, for example...

When the subject is sex, don't expect a lot of reason. It isn't rational. Most of our views, views and values in terms of sex are based on religious views. And those have to do with superstition. They're not rational. Sex is a good thing, not a bad thing. This would be a very poor world without it. If we reproduced in some other way, it would be a colder, less worthwhile world. And the reality is that you know it, it is sex more than religion that is the major civilizing force on this planet. It's the beginning of family and tribe and civilization itself. And it is the major motivating factor on this planet. I think on that note, I'm out of time

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 6, 2003

Have our photographs taken for an early article in the LA Times. Brian is insistent they feature all three of us together. At one point the photographer gets me and randy behind the couch, Brian in front. Quick as a flash Brian says 'wait; won't that mean I'll be in focus and they'll be blurry? I don't want that'. The photographer fires off a shot and sure enough that's the one that's used.

THURSDAY NOVEMBER 13, 2003

Interview with Charles Keating and Dolores Wells

Mona and ashley have tracked down Linda Lovelace's former secretary on the outskirts of Phoenix. A former playboy bunny, Hugh Hefner recommended her to Linda when she moved out to make it in Hollywood. Today she lives extremely modestly in what is almost a road side shack. But she's laid on an amazing spread. and the first thing she does after pouring us all champagne is show us her spread from Payboy. Miss June 1960. As she herself says "You don't even see a nipple or a pubic hair. Today it's sit down, spread those legs and pinch those titties"

She tells the infamous story about how Linda Lovelace taught Sammy Davis how to do deep throat because she was there in the room when it happened.

THURSDAY DECEMBER 11, 2003

NEW YORK: Interview Richard Dreyfuss

We talk for an hour and at one point he simply says...

You know, since you're not going to use this footage, could I?

The '60s was all about starting from an innocent point, And we can change the world, we can do the impossible, we can go back to Eden. We can, you know, put the, we can put violets in guns barrels and things. And, and commercialism, of course, I mean, it, it's a capitalist marketplace world, and someone went, well maybe, maybe we can make a pin about the, about the flower in the gun, and then we'll sell it for ten dollars. And, and then we get a T-shirt. And, and it inevitably became commercialized.

That's the responsibility of the worship of the business community. That's the right's culpability. The left's culpability is the celebration of individual rights to the point that it was madness.

We lost, we have lost all the institutions that, that pin us down and give us our moral character. Our Andy Hardy small town stuff, from which we can sin. If the church is gone and the schools are gone and the (STAMMERS) parenting is gone, and blah blah blah, and we're just an amorphous blob of, of being, of, of people who are manipulated by the media advertising, then, then, um, pornography seeps into advertising. And pornography seeps into the culture, in music and in every way. And it changes our atmosphere, and all of a sudden, am I blame, am I saying pornography is the evil? No. But is, are we responsible for the destruction of our institutions so that porn, you cannot defend pornography's affect anymore? Yes. It, it's not just a simple conservative, liberal thing.

So I, who, I will defend pornography's right to exist, and I will defend, you know, our culture's freedom of speech. At the same time, we have to take responsibility for the loss of permanence. The loss of knowing who we are to start off, to start with. And yeah, okay. The sexual revolution was a good thing up to a point, and then it was a bad thing. Like democracy is a good thing, up to a point, and then it's a bad thing.

2004

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 1, 2004

Janet Jackson flashes tit during Super Bowl. Miss this because I'm at Bea Arthurs one-woman show in Torrance.

Funnily enough Deep Throat the original movie was also filmed during Super Bowl weekend in 1972.

Overnight negotiations with a number of different cable outlets for the now-completed series of Porno Valley come to an abrupt end.

FRIDAY FEBRUARY 6, 2004

Speak with Ken Turan, the LA Times film critic. He wrote a book about adult cinema called Sinematic.

He reckons that we are primed for a severe backlash against licentiousness. He thinks that Britney / madonnas kiss and nipplegate are incidents fuelling public anger at the current pornolization of the mainstream, and he thinks that all it needs to light a match to this is a conservative and charismatic politician.

Show Brian the first assembly at his house. At the end his first comment is; wow when a documentary is long, its really long. Coming from anyone else it might have seemed negative, but from him it was just telling it like it is!

SUNDAY FEBRUARY 15, 2004

JAPAN: Heading to Tokyo for the last leg of the party monster express. Everyone has been saying 'Oh, the film will do well in Japan' thinking perhaps that we might not catch the slight insult that comes with that.

So we arrive in Tokyo. And Dai - the rep from the film company - is there to greet us. But it turns out that we must go to another gate to wait for Mac and Seth to arrive. In due course they do, sweeping past. We say a few hellos and follow them,trailed by a camera crew, to a stretch limo that they get into and drive off. It turns out that the rest of us will go with the luggage by van. After some time spent finding the van in the parking structure we then load the bags
"Do we have everything" asks Dai after we've loaded all the bags into the back of the van.
"Everything xxcept our dignity" says Randy
The very good news is that we are staying at the Grand Hyatt - better known as the Lost In Translation hotel. Sadly the ersatz cover band Sausolito are nowhere to be found.

SATURDAY FEBRUARY 21, 2004

BANGKOK: We thought it would be neat on the way back from the premiere of Party Monster in Japan to interview David Winters. He took up with Linda after Chuck Traynor and tried to turn her into a superstar. http://www.davidwinters.net/

We arrive around midnite. The hotel faces onto a street with a rail line built overhead it. Electrical cords hang low in tangled bunches. Shanty stalls line the narrow sidewalk beneath selling bootlegged dvds, pungent foods, faux louis vuitton, and black velvet paintings. It's 2:00am and very crowded, the traffic bumper to bumper (mainly taxis) and the air as thick as a gamey soup.

The next day we interview David Winters. He was an early Malcolm Mcaleren types, roving between hollywood and rock (he directed one of Alice Cooper's concert films) in Sergeant Pepper drag (frock coats and lace sort of thing). This might explain whey he said that he felt he was born 200 years too late. My favorite detail was that the only car he would drive was a Rolls Royce ("cos it's good for my voice"). When in London he hired two; one for her with the numberplate WOMB and one for him with the numberplate PEN15 (er that would be PENIS).

The one film he made with her was Linda Lovelace For President, in which Linda ran for president. But perhaps it's a law of pet rock science that lightning doesn't strike twice. That's not to preclude the power of marketting skills, but, But if something is going to take off with the public, there still needs to be some element of charm, of chance, of innocence. And the public somehow have an intuitive and unfailing feel for this. On paper there was nothing wrong with the idea of Linda Lovelace For President, just as there was nothing wrong either with the idea of William Hung recording an entire album. But...

Bangkok is amazing. Seems that in the Far East entire cities have themes; in China there is Sock city and Underwear city. Bangkok, tho', would have to be Sex-for-sale city. But i limit my purchases to a bootlegged copy of Party Monster for $1.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 25, 2004

Bizarro day shooting first Larry Flynt and then Jack Valenti. Quite the contrast. Larry was completely clear while Jack Valenti danced about with the nimbleness of a politician.

When I invented the ratings system, I did not trademark the X. It's a letter, I didn't know how you'd trademark a letter. I guess we could have had a logo or symbol, but we didn't. And as a result, the pornographer came in and said double X, triple X, quadruple X. And they used the X as an enticement to people who wanted to see that kind of movie

Valenti's rating system was a masterstroke of both managing to separate hard core from Hollywood and marginalizing it too. Yet for all his evasiveness, I don't think he intended to be this direct...

Well, I don't think anybody in America's public figure is pro-pornography, or an advocate for it. I don't know of anybody that was. I'm certainly not. And I don't think Mr. Nixon was either. I don't think any president, or any senator, any congressman was going around saying we got to have more pornography.

Pornography maybe an impossible cause. But freedom of speech is vulnerable if it isn't defended.

THURSDAY FEBRUARY 27, 2004

All hope of having the film finished in times for Cannes is slipping away.

The film is entering the difficult teens. There's a feeling that there are too many old people in the film. We are being asked where are the Paris Hiltons and the Jenna Jamesons? It's not that we feel precious that we are making a documentary as opposed to putting on the tits (ok, we do feel a bit precious), but what would they have to say?

We see ourselves as striking a blow for the oldies. The tyranny of the 18-34 demographic is so boring. It's truly amazing to see a 60, 70 or 80 year old talk frankly about sex, and talk about it in a way that the 18-34s are just too freaked out to even touch.

"Yes, well, we understand that, but do they all have to have silver hair?"

"There may be snow on the rooftop, but there's fire in the furnace below".

After that there's no more talk of interviewing Paris Hilton.

FRIDAY MARCH 19 2004

We all have the 'whyisntthisfilmanygoodandwhenwilliteverend' blahs.

Tammy Faye calls us and tells us she has that she has inoperable cancer and wants us to have lunch with her to discuss filming the process. It's great to see her, and she - the one who should be crying - cheers us up. We talk about the film and all fall about laughing deciding that it should be called 'The Demise Of Tammy Faye'.

SATURDAY MARCH 20, 2004

NEW YORK: Take the jet to New York with Brian Grazer to show Sheila Nevins and John Hoffman the cut at HBO...

'Take the jet' - sounds very blase but actually our little hearts were beating pit a patter. Yes, it's the little things.

Now, if you are a jaded jetrosexual you will already know this. But for us this was our first private jet experience, and found the learning curve of Jetiquette as steep as the angle of take off.

The first dilemma is where do you sit. That is connected to the equally important question of when to arrive. Never be late. You don't want to keep a jet packed with tip-top execs waiting on the tarmac. But then you can be too premature. Because once you get on the jet, where do you sit? You can't really settle in and make yourself comfortable until your host arrives and picks their perch. Do not be fooled: all the seats may look the same, but they are not the same! So we arrrive early, plonk ourselves down and wonder why everyone else is standing round? The other thing to remember is that when the lovely food spread is laid out, you should only pick at it nonchalently instead of devouring everything as if you were a starving kitten. It's funny how it's the little things can derail a career (while no one notices the big things).

The screening was ok. Flew home by regular plane, which was like going cold turkey. Jets are the new crack.

FRIDAY MARCH 26, 2004

LOS ANGELES: Interview Lilli Zanuck who says the smartest things. She has a clipping from the New York Post challenging us to tell the difference between porn stars and high society hotties.

so many things that are fashion statements today, fake nails, fake tans, Brazilian wax, fake breasts, a certain kind of hair, artificial big lips, these are all a kind of iconography that comes from pornography . It's everywhere - whether it's a cardio strip club, or pole dancing and belly dancing classes. These are images and fashion statements and trends that come from pornography. Women are working really hard to look like a porn sta

In the next few months the world goes porno... Timothy Greenfield-Sanders publishes a book of portraits of porno stars Thinking XXX, and has an HBO special to go with. Larry Sultan publishes a book of photos taken on porno sets called The Valley. Jenna Jameson releases her autobiography How To Make Love Like A Porn Star, and Vh1 does a Jenna special that rates like christmas. They also follow this with When X Ruled The World, with its usual chef salad approach (cut everything into tiny pieces and toss with graphics). Despite all this still no takers for Porno Valley, however.

MONDAY MARCH 29, 2004

Interview with Peter Bart at Variety. Completely candid and charming and funny.

You say let's go on a date, let's go to dinner, you said let's get high or let's get stoned or let's drop acid or something. So added to this was Deep Throat. You get stoned, you see a porn movie. I mean and then you quote experiment. And it was a shock to those of us who were products of the '50s. You know all of a sudden you're going out with a girl and the girl would say, you know, I'm really into oral sex aren't you? Boy things aren't that colorful today are they?

WEDNESAY MARCH 31, 2004

Interview with Jon Lewis author of fascinating book Hollywood Vs Hard Core, which tells the story of how Hollywood survived the censors by foreswearing sex and thrived instead by embracing a pornography of violence.

When Nixon became president he appreciated his promise to the south, which made him president. And he understood that the south had very socially conservative views, and viewed porn asthe product of a kind of eastern establishment and a west coast silliness. He also was convinced, and he was right about it, that there was a silent majority in America. That, while the press, who was paying so much attention to a sexual revolution, was paying so much attention to Deep Throat, that the majority of Americans were leaning in a very different direction.

TUESDAY APRIL 6, 2004

CAPE COD: Norman Mailer finally said yes to an interview. He said he would give us half an hour of his time. Thirty minutes. Total. Only problem was that we had pretty much finished filming. and we were on the West Coast, he was on the East.

Are we sure we really want to do this? Do we need to do this? It's a long way to go for half an hour.... but then we also figured that if we went all that way, it shouldn't be too hard to keep him talking; he's bound to give us at least an hour, right?

Red eye to boston, four hour drive up to Cape Cod. Practically next door to where we had interviewed John Waters six months earlier. Set up the interview, in he walks and everything out of his mouth is solid gold.

Things are going marvellously, and I'm half way through a question when he says "I said i'd give you half an hour, but i'll let you finish this question since you've flown all this way to see me' I mangled the question but he gave a very generous and gracious reply.

sex is the last of the great mysteries. That and maybe war is another one the mysteries. These elements are not to be abused, ideologically, intellectually, rationally speaking. You don't want them to make you comfortable. When you have every kind of sex there is, what do you do with your soul? And that, for me, is an open question to this day.... I'd say you really enter the mystery at that point.

And then we flew back to LA.

Please no more interviews!!!

MONDAY APRIL 19, 2004

Interview Bill Maher.

In a 150 years when we are getting around by jetpacks and eating tablets. I would hate to think that we are still hung up on that. But. I'm sure Bush's great great great grandson will be trying to make hay on that one, and making sure that people in Utah were not getting porn because it could lead to masturbation and then they wouldn't have the energy to churn butter.

Really, no more interviews!!!!

THURSDAY MAY 27, 2004

Go see Madonna on her Reinvention tour. Madonnas spirituality is obviously something she can afford to indulge in. Though she has renounced her Material Girl ways make no mistake she could not have got where she is today if the road were not paved with skulls. She had to claw her way to the top, or stay perpetually on the bottom. Wonder if this is the same problem for all those sexual revolution liberals who, when they had nothing, preached free love and and down with corporate greed. Now that they have plenty, they have so much more to lose. Morality then becomes a necessary construct to protect what they have. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But we should just recognize it as the institutional hypocrisy that it is. The only constant is selfishness.

SATURDAY JUNE 5, 2004

Ronald Reagan dies.