Inside Deep Throat Movie Review:


This is not a film about Watergate. It's about the notorious 1972 porn film that gave the Watergate insider his nickname. Bailey and Barbato (Party Monster) expertly analyse this particularly gonzo period in U.S. history, gently underscoring the obvious parallels with today.

In 1972, while porn filmmakers were moving into the mainstream. With delusions of respectability, Damiano wrote a comedic porn script based on the specific--ahem--talent of actress Linda Lovelace. The filming in Miami was tricky, the male star was replaced at the last minute by production assistant Reems, and the mobster producers were just hoping to recoup their $25,000 investment. But the film became a cultural event (earning $600 million). And the religious right, empowered by Nixon's election to a second term, challenged obscenity laws to ban this "dangerous, immoral smut".

Bailey and Barbato assemble their material with a sharp eye for detail and bracingly hilarious wit. The range of interviewees is breathtaking, and where someone has died, the filmmakers find archive footage to let them speak as well. The film is packed with insightful background about the central figures, including the conflicting accounts by Lovelace herself, which may never be adequately settled. And Deep Throat's detractors are given the chance to have their say without too much fun-poking, while clips from the film itself add meaning (and earned this doc an NC-17 in America). Bailey and Barbato also highlight the fact that what Damiano admits is "not a good movie" had a revolutionary effect in America, bringing sex and gender issues into the public forum.

But this film becomes important as it begins to examine issues of free speech, feminism and religious fanaticism. Together those topics lead to a revelatory history of American porn--from underground to mainstream to money-spinning, by way of two ignored/falsified presidential commissions on pornography (Nixon's and Reagan's). In the end, there's a chilling statement that the same vague, pliable obscenity laws are still on the books,while today's political climate is even more zealously rabid. Maybe it's a film about Watergate after all.



Rich Cline

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