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In 1895, the Lumière Brothers created the first moving image captured on film and presented it to an audience. It was of a train pulling into a station. The now infamous story goes that the audience screamed, terrified that the train would hit them. This was a natural reaction considering that nothing like this had been seen before. As soon as the artists and the audience alike began to understand this fascinating new medium, filmmakers were born and the subject matter of their films varied from the realistic to the fantastical. And then, of course, they almost immediately started filming people having sex.

What started as a titillating fascination has ballooned into a multi-billion dollar industry the world over. With hundreds of pornos being released every month, not including the shorter and faster produced online video clips, it’s difficult to see the value in pornography. Can pornography be a legitimate art form? And where does a mainstream film end and a promo begin? Is there a line, and if so, how do we know when it has been crossed?

The answer, it seems, is that the line is quite fine. There doesn’t seem to be a strict guideline between the amount of nudity, nor the specific sexual acts onscreen that strictly define a mainstream film as porno, nor a porno as mainstream. There have been many cases of films crossing these barriers from one side to the other and achieving success in the other’s arena.

Hollywood first began to redefine its position on sex during the 1970s. Of note in this change was the appearance of In the Realm of the Senses at festivals in New York and France. Released in 1976, In the Realm of the Senses, a Japanese film in which a man and his servant have an affair in pre-war Japan, was extremely controversial because the sex in the film wasn’t simulated ““ the actors actually performed everything on screen. While this created a considerable stir in the cinematic community, the film used these sex acts to discuss society’s fascination with sex and violence, not to provoke sexual feelings in the viewer. As a result, the film was embraced as art and stands today as one of the great pornography/mainstream film crossovers.

On the other side is Deep Throat, a film originally created by the pornography industry that managed to cross over into mainstream popularity as a film that championed anti-censorship politics. The film was responsible for removing much of the stigma around the viewing of pornography ““ in public, no less! ““ as people from all walks of life made the trip to the theatre to see the film upon its release, which was 40 years ago last week.

After the release of Deep Throat, it seemed for a while as though pornography was being embraced by society at large. For a brief period at the end of the 70s porn was chic, but as the 1980s set in and the home video market began to take off, skin flicks once again became something people regarded as dirty little secrets. Since it was no longer cool to like it, the mainstream world ceased to acknowledge it as a legitimate form of filmmaking.

Unfortunately, the conservative 80s set the frank depictions of the sex act itself, either real or simulated, back significantly. Usually excessive or explicit sex scenes are a death sentence for a film, earning it an NC-17 rating which then limits its release to a handful of theatres willing to screen it. In recent memory, a few directors have challenged this censorship, attempting to push the boundaries of the types of sex acts that can be shown in mainstream cinema. Films like Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus and Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny, have all featured real sex, and as a result have caused considerable controversy, while still being embraced by cinephiles and often receiving critical acclaim. In fact, the Criterion Collection, famed for releasing art house classics, distributes a number of movies that feature unsimulated sex, and these movies frequently screen at small independent theatres all over the world. So why, despite the fact that these films feature real sex, are they not considered a pornographic title?

When looking at cinema as a whole, the distinction between mainstream film and pornography seems to lie in purpose of the sex scenes themselves. In mainstream films, the sex, whether actual or implied, is most often used to further the plot or develop character. In pornography, the plot is most often used to create movement from one sex scene to the other. Critically acclaimed pornography films that have taken their place in cinema history have used their sex acts as a vehicle for pleasure as well as a critique of a societal issue, often regarding attitudes to sex and gender. Sex with a purpose, if you will.

In addition to its use as a plot device, sex can is often used by mainstream films to elicit a non-sexual reaction in the viewer. By showing a sexual act in its rawest form, without any glamorous enhancement, a director can force an audience to re-evaluate how they feel about watching sex in a film, possibly subverting their more traditional views on sexuality. Many directors have spoken about their choice to film these scenes as realistically as possible in order to create an uncomfortable amount of intimacy between the characters, making the viewer feel more like a guilty voyeur than a passive participant. By giving these characters a backstory before a sexual scene, they become more than just a vehicle for the act; we see them as real people.

This is not to say that one type of sex scene is better, nor more worthwhile, than the other. Pornography in all its forms has an important place within film studies and the movie industry.  While the debate between what is pornography and what is mainstream filmmaking is unlikely to be solved any time soon, it is important to understand that one medium cannot exist without the other. All a viewer can do is be mindful of the agendas being put forth by both types of film and determine the value of the complete sex act in each for themselves.

Toronto Film Scene is turning up the heat for the month of July and looking at Pornography as a Legitimate Art Form. Don’t miss our scintillating coverage on everything from soft to hard core films, including a look at the Feminist Porn awards, what makes a truly classic porno, erotica translated from book to screen and the golden age of geek porn.

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Stephanie Hubbard

Latest posts by Stephanie Hubbard (see all)

• From Deep Throat to Antichrist: where porn ends and mainstream begins – July 2, 2012
• Review: Ages and Stages: The Story of the Meligrove Band – NXNE 2012 – June 14, 2012
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