Inside Deep Throat Interview

I recently spoke to the directors of the documentary Inside Deep Throat, Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato. Previously the duo had helmed the feature docs The Eyes of Tammy Faye and Party Monster, also making a fictional companion feature film to the latter. Their sensibilities are a perfect match for the social commentary and portrait of a different America brought to life by Inside Deep Throat.
The film examines the release and subsequent cultural impact of the 1972 porno film Deep Throat. Unbelievable as it may seem to those not around in the 70s, Deep Throat popularized the idea of oral sex, then an almost unmentionable act, and created porno chic. Inside Deep Throat skips along with a briskly edited pace, contains excellent songs from the era – Melanie “Brand New Key,” Tommy James “Draggin’ the Line,” Marmalade “Reflections of My Life” – all while showing that censorship can be as damaging to society as the issues it seeks to limit.
You’re likely to be jarred by some factoid you never knew. In my case, I had no idea that the performer of the disco hit “More, More, More,” Andrea True, was also a porn star. Bailey explained that the money that was used to record that hit song was money she had made shooting a film in the Caribbean, only she couldn’t take the cash out of the country. “So she called a producer friend and he flew down, they recorded the song in a studio and took the master tape out of the country,” said Bailey. “Andrea True was also the star of Deep Throat Part II,” added Bailey, a fact not covered in Inside Deep Throat.
Barbato feels the elements of controversy that surrounded the original film, “are relevant today,” and in fact “set the agenda for the film.”
While federal prosecutors had cut a deal of immunity with the director and star Linda Lovelace, the feds tried (unsuccessfully) to jail Deep Throat’s male star, a hapless crew member turned lead actor, Harry Reams. Reams was even cast and then unceremoniously uncast as the coach in the hit movie Grease.

When Cats Act

Did you hear about the cat that shot its owner? (Some guy left a loaded gun on the shelf that the kitty knocked over.) Or maybe the guy in Wisconsin who wants their state Senate to make it legal to gun down stray cats – it must be something in the cheese. The former story sounds like the cat did it on purpose. Quite frankly the cat probably had good reason. Like the owner wanted to make the tabby wear Soft Paws (www.softpaws.com), which are vinyl nail caps invented by a vet so he could have more crap to sell pet owners.
Regardless, cats are news just for being themselves, and when they appear in films they are infectiously cute if not cunningly feline. Anyone who saw the Oscars has to be scratching their heads over the fact that Morgan Freeman won Best Supporting Actor while Puss In Boots from Shrek 2 was not even nominated. The current film Inside Deep Throat includes a shot of Linda Lovelace’s cat, named Adolph Hitler. The filmmakers cut to a shot of her hirsute companion and sure enough the soft white fur of its head is distinguished by a black dash atop its lip.
Three short subjects featuring cats only reinforce the notion that these tiny tigers are capable of the same emotions, perhaps even greater, than expressed by humans. The highest profile would belong to Lorenzo, an animated short from Disney studios that was up for an Academy Award this year. Like the Disney produced effort from a few years ago Destino (a concept originally started by Walt Disney and Salvador Dali and completed many years later by Disney animators), Lorenzo was an idea nearly a generation old that has only now seen the light of day. Made using computer software that imitates the look of tempura paint, Lorenzo spotlights a cat dancing to a tango with its own tail. Lorenzo was also run as the opening short to the Disney feature Raising Helen.
More cutting-edge are two more shorts found while perusing the schedule of the Slamdance Film Festival: Milton is a Shitbag and Ceasar Eats a Mouse. Milton was an entry in 2004 and Ceasar played this year. Both offered lovable yet quick to anger felines.
Milton is a Shitbag, another animated effort, sports a great website (www.miltonisashitbag.com) offering t-shirts, credits and reminders that Milton will be making upcoming appearances at film festivals in Beaumont and Galveston next month. Milton is the brainchild of Austin filmmaker Courtney Davis and chronicles the ins and outs of living with a cat full of attitude. Milton runs about 4 minutes and shows the merciless mouser making its owner’s life complete hell.
Ceasar Eats a Mouse originated as part of the Slamdance $99 Special, wherein filmmakers are given $99 to make a short film. As the title would imply Ceasar, a black cat with an icy hypnotic stare, snacks on an unfortunate rodent and then calmly trots over to its food bowl obviously to complete its a two-course meal. Hardly an animal snuff film, Ceasar represents cinema verité according to New York based filmmaker Joe Maggio. Responding to an email question about his film Maggio replied that nothing about the short was staged. “I was playing around with my new video camera,” Maggio replied. “And suddenly I heard this awful commotion and saw that Caesar was chasing a mouse. I figured, it's the laws of nature at work. I'm not going to stop him because frankly I don't like having mice in my apartment.” Ceasar Eats a Mouse depicts progressive cat and mouse antics as if Ceasar were choreographing his action to the music on the radio, and in the middle of the mayhem the phone rings and a New Year’s message is heard being left on the answering machine in the background. One would think a cat that had just chowed down on a mouse wouldn’t still be hungry for more food. After all, cats are known for their peculiarity not for being overeaters. “When he goes to his food bowl - that I can't explain,” wrote Maggio. “I guess the mouse was a bit of an appetizer, or perhaps it left a bad taste in his mouth. Who knows, right?”
Some things are certain when it comes to cats. If you have one in the house don’t leave loaded weapon lying around. It’s a safe bet that if your viewing habits include media with kitties you won’t be disappointed with their innate ability to entertain.

Imaginary Heroes

Dan Harris, the writer-director of Imaginary Heroes currently has a lot on his plate. Speaking to Free Press Houston by phone from the set of Superman Returns in Australia, Harris recounted some of the ups and downs of filmmaking.
Harris in collaboration with Michael Dougherty has written three films for Bryan Singer [X2, Superman Returns, Logan’s Run]. Harris also wrote versions of the upcoming summer blockbuster Fantastic Four.
“Mike and I wrote three drafts of Fantastic Four. We have to arbitrate for final screen credit. I’ll find that out in a week or two. There were about 13 writers on Fantastic Four. Our drafts were the ones that got the movie green lit,” said Harris.
Regarding Logans’ Run and the new Superman, Harris was guarded. “ Bryan is taking Logan’s Run into a unique direction that combines elements of the book that you never saw in the movie, and parts of the original movie itself. It’s more of a re-imagining than a remake. We retain the iconic properties – but man it’s a whole new adventure.
“As you can understand I have a complete gag order relating to Superman and Logan’s Run. Let’s say that us comic book geeks are ravenous for information.”
Harris sees himself as part of the comic book universe, as a fan, and as a writer now shaping the longings of his youth into the nostalgia of tomorrow. Such a universe does not include, say, a 21st century revisionist take on heroic conventions. What metaphors exist in hidden identity? When I ask Harris if Superman will be gay he laughs.
“Absolutely not. That’s silly. There will be no major surprises about Superman’s character. There are reliable websites on the Internet, Blue Tights and Superman V are very good sites,” commented Harris.

What distinguishes Imaginary Heroes from other dystopic family tragedies is the humor inherent in the script. Like another film, Ordinary People, Imaginary Heroes starts with the death of one of two teen brothers. Unlike the latter Imaginary Heroes is a dark comedy.
“People should go in expecting to laugh,” says, Harris. “Taking a cue from Greek tragedy, there are a lot of parts to a Greek tragedy that I am not using. But there is one important thing, the idea of original sin. Something happened in the past, somebody stepped on the butterfly and it has ricocheted through time through people’s actions and it has changed everything in the present. And that is the greater moral of the story. If you don’t deal with things head on you don’t know where the chaos of your actions will spread. In this case it covers a lot of ground.”
Harris insists the script did not come from events in his own life. In other words, his mom didn’t get busted for pot, like Sigourney Weaver (Sandy Travis) does in Imaginary Heroes. Harris’ brother didn’t commit suicide as does the older champion swimmer brother of Emile Hirsch (Tim Travis). After these events Tim earns the enmity of his father Jeff Daniels (Ben Travis).
“I had grown up in high school surrounded by a series of tragedies in my family,” admits Harris. “But none of them appear in the movie. It was more a sense of what the aftermath of a tragedy is like, what it does to a family.”
Harris directed several short subjects before writing Imaginary Heroes. He attributes those films to teaching him story construction and shot choice. “How to direct from a conceptual level,” maintained Harris. “Getting the maximum benefit out of the scene you’re shooting.” But it was the experience of being a writer on X2 that gave Harris the confidence “To talk to actors, how to deal with people, how to manage a large crew.”
Imaginary Heroes displays some deft directorial touches in addition to its sharp dialogue. During the film’s opening sequence where we see a moment where nothing is moving, as seen from underwater in the moments before a high school swim meet.
“We never have a chance to spend time with this family before the tragedy hits, so it was something I could do to create a sense of stillness. Of everything in order before the disorder,” explained Harris. “For me it matches the shot of him holding onto the starting block, everybody’s at rest, immovable, a snap shot of life before things change.”
As the unspoken hatred escalates between father and son in the Travis clan the camera set-ups become more complex. After a particularly loathsome evening, culminating in an ugly scene at a Christmas Party, Daniels, in the front seat, and Hirsch in the back seat, verbally spar. Harris used a series of difficult rack focus shots to capture their venomous exchange.
“I was really happy with that scene one because it worked really well. You’re dealing with a car rig, then you’re dealing with very critical focus because you’ve got a long lens mounted on the hood. You’re dealing with all these elements. For me thematically, why I wanted it in one shot. I didn’t want that to be a false scene, I didn’t want it to feel like it was constructed by pulling pieces of Emile’s reaction. I wanted to hear those poisonous words coming out of Jeff’s mouth and to see Emile’s reaction instantaneously behind him.”
Harris purposely cast nice guy Daniels against type. “The character’s got this dark side that he just cannot control. The more we see Jeff glare at him and then the second time we see him turn - we don’t know if he’s going to hit his son or what. Then we have the moment at the end where he stands up and turns toward Emile and you think ‘My God, this guy’s going to beat up his son.’ It was important to have those shots early on to establish that this man is very threatening.”