There
are few things in life more tiresome than those awful jokes people like to make
about the acting in pornographic movies. Well, perhaps the similar complaints
about their lack of 'great stories', but let's leave that alone for the moment
and concentrate on the so-called problematic acting in those pictures. The
thing is, most people seem to have a rather narrow-minded idea of what 'good
acting' is, so from that it automatically follows they will accept very little
in the way of difference. You've got good acting and you've got bad acting with
apparently nothing in between. While I'm not disputing the fact that good
acting does exist, seeing everything so black and white ignores so much in that
huge gray area between good and bad. And it seems to me it's really that gray
area that's often so damned interesting. I once went to a theatrical screening
of Fassbinder's 'Querelle' which was introduced by some guy whose enthusiasm
unfortunately wasn't quite matched by his actual knowledge. Before the film started
he warned us about the supposedly awful acting of Jeanne Moreau, which came as
quite a surprise to me as I hadn't noticed that before. Now, the acting in this
particular movie isn't exactly something you see every day, but that doesn't
make it bad either – far from it. I see the film as a rather deliberate homage
to Josef von Sternberg's 'Morocco', so it seems quite logical to me Fassbinder
would also employ highly stylized acting instead of the more accepted
naturalistic kind. It could very well be that the guy who introduced 'Querelle'
never even saw 'Morocco' or never made the connection between the two (or it
could all just be my imagination), but that's not really relevant. Because my
point here is that people automatically qualify something as bad when it
doesn't conform to their idea of good, when it is arguably not the acting
that's the real culprit, but their narrow-minded clinging to commonly accepted
notions and blanket condemnation of everything that's different from the norm. To
illustrate my point, let’s look at this horrid review of Neil
Young’s ‘Americana’. The reviewer writes:
“Here,
once again graced by the presence of guitarist Frank Sampedro, who sat out 2003's rock opera ‘Greendale’, Crazy Horse stumble and lurch as they pound the same three
chords they've been bashing out for 40 years, time not adding acumen but rather
eroding whatever finesse they ever possessed. Always garage rock primitives, Crazy Horse sounds downright amateurish on Americana, as if they woke up one morning and couldn't remember how to play their
instruments. Each cut plays like a first take, none worse than "Get a
Job," where the band struggles mightily to achieve some semblance of swing
and misses”
It may
be just me, but I have a hard time imagining how a band that’s been playing
together for 40 years suddenly might lose even the most basic feeling for their
instruments. But unfortunately, people clinging to the norm as the only
accepted way of expression (whether consciously or not), do find such an
explanation much easier to believe than the alternative, which would be to
consider that the apparent amateurishness might in fact be intended. Probably the
most frightening thing is that the alternative already lies within the review
itself and the only thing that’s necessary is to see clearly. Because this
reviewer does state the following: ‘Americana’ is an album filled with songs
that always have been overplayed AND Crazy Horse never was famous for their
subtlety. Is it really such a stretch of the imagination then, to combine these
two and consider the possibility that Young’s reasoning was to emphasize this
approach precisely because they were songs that suffer from overexposure,
because such an off-hand way of playing was the only way to make these old
songs seem fresh and new again? That by attacking them with an apparent
amateurishness and general feeling of disinterest, he would manage to bring out
the indestructible nature of these songs? Of course, this doesn’t mean that
such an approach guarantees good results, as everyone would be entirely free to
like or dislike it any way they please. Yet at the same time, someone can only
really judge something like this if he has entertained such a notion in the
first place and nothing in the review points to this. And it’s not like the
first time Neil Young has taken such an idiosyncratic route, as he build his
entire career on such defiance and restless experimenting – so when seen in
this context, the reviewer’s failure to even consider such a possibility
becomes even more incomprehensible. So what we have here then, as with the ‘Querelle’
example, is a reviewer who castigates a work of art entirely because of his own
shortcomings. If these people hadn’t been so smugly content with themselves and
invested even a fraction of the energy they can muster to criticize so harshly
to look deep and hard into themselves, they could at least have become aware that
the problem lies with them. If I come across as a total asshole for stating this
so bluntly, it’s only because I want to shock people into awareness as most
seem genuinely blind to these problems. A person on the street can be forgiven
for not being aware of their own shortcomings in this respect, but for someone
who claims to be a critic it’s quite simply unacceptable as in the end such
narrow criticism can only lead to narrow art as only the bravest of artists
dare to think outside the box. Destroy the box and you encourage true and open
art by creating a truly stimulating atmosphere where people dare to try
different things instead of merely catering to the mainstream norm.
Which
brings us to the acting in porn movies. What people are complaining about is
really not the acting itself, but really just the fact it's different from most
dramatic acting found in the majority of mainstream films. But why must
everything be measured by the same yardstick? Take Jack Wrangler for instance,
in the first scene from 'Jack n' Jill' (1979). At first we see Wrangler looking for
his wife. He has bought avocados and remarks he will make the dip if she will
make the martinis. “I have the feeling I’m talking to myself here”, he mumbles
to himself. The first couple of minutes he is all alone in the scene, yet
always commands attention – in itself not a small feat. Then some trashy
looking woman barges in and starts loud-mouthing him; she pushes him around
verbally with Wrangler every bit the sensitive sap who can’t stand up to her.
There’s some talk about money and sex until eventually Wrangler angrily gives
her some money. She wants to leave, but suddenly there’s a transformation
within Wrangler as he effortlessly goes from being dominated to being dominant;
“I know what you want, you want my hot cock down your throat.” He starts giving
orders with that beautiful low guttural voice, something like a combination of
an overdone radio voice and an animal growl: “I want you to give me a show.”
His eyes too, as always, suddenly burn with passion and desire. “I’ll bet
you’re dying to get my cock in your mouth, pumping away with my balls flopping
against your chin.” Then things start to get serious, as Wrangler begins to
behave even more commanding, almost like an army officer. But then suddenly he
becomes playful again, egging her on like a dog until both start shouting to
each other, louder and louder. “I want your cock”! “You want my cock”?! “I want
your cock”! “You want my cock”?! “I want your cock”! It gets even better: “Tell
me how much you want my cock”. “I want it more than anything, I want it more
than your shoes, goddamnit”! After some impressive sex scenes, he has an
orgasm, at which point the woman (who is every bit as impressive as Wrangler
throughout all this and makes for a perfect sparring partner) becomes abusive
again, forcing him to “lick it better than you can use your cock,
motherfucker”. All of a sudden the phone rings, and both immediately fall out
of their roles because as it turns out the whole scene was role playing between
husband and wife. None of the acting displayed here has much to do with
dramatic acting in the narrow sense: it’s always signaled there is acting going
on, which of course here has justification as the characters are also playing a
role. But the idea of ‘visible acting’ could very well serve as a general
description of most porn acting.
The
opening of 'Jack n' Jill' is a truly amazing scene, with so many changes in
tone and direction it can only be pulled off, if not by conventional acting
chops, then at least by people who have enough personality. One could say
Wrangler is merely an exception and one of those gifted people who are able to
slide through life on charm alone. But while he was undeniably at the very top
of what he did, it's merely a difference in degree, as it is astonishing to see
how many of these seventies/early eighties porn actors are able to bring so
much personality to the screen to warrant your attention. 'Oui, Girls' is as
good an example as any other: Joey Silvera playing a pervert at the very
beginning already exemplifies my point: he doesn't have any lines and just
jerks off, but still he manages to hold your attention, just by his presence
alone. This in itself is not only a gift, but also almost the very essence of
porn acting: brevity and magnetism. As most porn movies are constructed as
little more than loosely connected individual scenes, most actors have precious
little time to make their mark, especially when compared to conventional
dramatic pictures. Porn actors don't have to carry their role over an entire
picture, but have to be memorable in a flash. It's like the difference between
marathon or long distance runners: the former has to have endurance, stamina,
timing and a steady rhythm, while the latter is all about a sudden burst of
explosion. Of course, one could have a certain preference for watching one or
the other, but it would be rather foolish to say one of them is better. They're
just two different types of the same sport, each with their own style and
character.
Silvera
not having any lines brings him really close to the concept of silent film
acting which is kind of appropriate here, because silent film acting has fallen
to the wayside, much like porn acting. Not that they are the same, mind you,
but they have this in common: both threaten the widely accepted notion of what
good acting constitutes and make clear there are many different kinds of
acting. It is something that's illustrated nicely in 'Singin' in the Rain', in
which Kathy Selden calls silent film acting 'just a lot of dumb show'. Of
course with this film situated in the transition between silent and talkies,
already the kind of acting that's common to silent pictures was falling out of
style and began to be considered embarrassing or awkward. But the thing is,
people from the fifties, when 'Singin' in the Rain' was made, could consider
the acting of former times silly or old-fashioned, just as most people nowadays
watching 'Singin' in the Rain' will see both silent film acting AND fifties
acting in the same light. In the end, acting is just like any other trend or
fad, it can go in and out of style. It's something that everybody understands,
yet still precious few people are able to see the absolute necessity this
creates to extract themselves from their own culture in order see the world
around them clearly and without prejudice. Because only if you free yourself
from the prisons of cultural conditioning can you truly see what's in front of
you instead of just seeing something that's “not-contemporary”. You can go from
the idea of the object to the object itself.
When you
have liberated yourself from the restrictions of cultural and aesthetic
conditioning, it naturally follows that the dramatic way of acting so common to
most theater and film is not better from silent of porn acting but just
different. In fact, the kind of dramatic acting would mostly be highly
inappropriate for porn just like wearing tennis shoes to a gala dinner wouldn't
be suitable. One of the most fascinating notions about porn is really the
flimsiness of the characterization, as if the line separating actor and role is
often so thin as to almost evaporate. With dramatic movies, the actor is often
praised for burying themselves in their role, of which someone like Robert
DeNiro is just one of the most famous examples. As good an actor as he is, his
own personal self is so deeply buried not only under his actual make-up but
also under his, let's call it, dramatic make-up, that it obscures the private
person DeNiro completely. With porn, these separations between actor and role
are quite different: mostly they do play roles, but in a completely different
manner. Because when acting a hardcore sex scene, it's quite impossible to be
only playing a role. By its very nature, porn demands actors give way more of
themselves than is usually asked of regular dramatic acting where actors can
hide behind their roles. This comfortable distance is denied the porn actor,
who quite literally goes naked, both physically as dramatically. Not that I'm
under the naive impression that the actors are exactly the same as they behave
on screen, but while moans and facial expressions can be faked, an erection cannot.
And so, as porn actors have to slide in and out of character so often, it's
really just logical for them to accentuate the constructed nature of their
roles. Porn actors don't give dramatically believable performances nor are they
supposed to. As the line between their roles and themselves is so thin, they
have to rely on their charm and personality and their performances should be
judged accordingly. So, for instance, quite early in 'Oui, Girls' a woman walks
into a home to invite the residents to a swinger party and her entire
performance is incredibly delicious: the way she bats her eyes, how she moves
her mouth while phrasing her words, the timbre of her voice – all of it is
highly memorable. None of it is believable in any dramatic way, but that's beside
the point as it is almost impossible to take your eyes off her. It is her very idiosyncrasy that is almost
literally the point of the scene, almost like performance art.
Although
most acting in porn may come across as effortless to the point of inability,
even a cursory glance at contemporary porn would illustrate how good most of
these ‘porno chic’ actors really were. While the majority of the contemporary
porn ‘stars’ (porn performer ‘Go Go’ Harder ironically notes that porn is “the
one performance form where star status is immediately granted, even after just
one scene”) are undeniably beautiful, cute or just downright hot (at least in
gay porn, which I'm best acquainted with), what most of them invariably lack is
precisely the charm and presence that just about everybody seemed to have been
blessed with back in the seventies. Which is to say that beyond their good
looks and bodies, there's little to nothing in the way of personality and thus
substance. This general lack of convincing presence may help to account for the
fact so many of these old actors, like Silvera, Jamie Gillis, Eric Edwards are
still at it or were still acting when they died, despite their ripe old age. It
is also quite fitting in a way to see these dinosaurs still lasting in our
disposable world, as if to prove the point that 'they don't make 'em like that
anymore'.
The sad
thing is of course, so many of these porn actors and actresses were struggling
to transcend the genre in order to become more legitimate, like dramatic acting
is inherently better than porn acting. But then again quite a lot of movie
actors try to become recognized on the stage, so there's always some kind of
hierarchy I suppose. But isn't this the real problem, though? Isn't all this
inventing of hierarchies and categories not the crux of the matter? People
should be celebrating the differences and pluralities this universe abounds in,
not trying to deny them. Why is it so difficult to really see everything for
what it is and to Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive
– to quote the Johnny Mercer song – instead of trying to turn it all in some
competition? Good dramatic acting isn't inherently better than good porn acting
or vice versa and the beauty of it, is that there's absolutely no need to chose
between them. For not only can they co-exist, as they evidently do, it is
exactly their co-existence that makes this world with all its myriad
expressions so beautiful. In fact, one of the most intriguing aspects of porn
acting is that all these many different personalities can lead to so many
different ways of acting all in one film. This is true of virtually every film
(besides those of Robert Bresson perhaps), but because the personalities are so
close to the surface in porn, the differences are more readily visible. So in
the end, a porn movie shouldn't be judged by its dramatic or thematic
coherence, like most movies, but can more profitably be seen as very much like
a Persian quilt, with so many colors, textures and shapes making up a dazzling
whole. I realize this flies in the face of most thought about porn, which often
maintains it's so highly standardized and without any variation. That may be
what most contemporary porn has descended to, but certainly isn't what I come
away with when watching a film like 'Oui, Girls', which I mostly see as a
beautiful reminder of the multifaceted brilliance of our universe.
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