The Pornographer
Jacques Laurent made pornographic films in the 1970s and '80s, but had put that aside for 20 years. His artistic ideas, born of the '60s counter-culture, had elevated the entire genre. Older and paunchier, he is now directing a porno again. Jacques's artistry clashes with his financially-troubled producer's ideas about shooting hard-core sex. Jacques has been estranged from his son Joseph for years, since the son first learned the nature of the family business. They are now speaking again. Joseph and his friends want to recapture the idealism of 1968 with a protest. Separated from his wife, Jacques strives for personal renewal with plans to build a new house by himself...
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- Cast:
- Jean-Pierre Léaud , Jérémie Renier , Dominique Blanc , Alice Houri , Ovidie , Catherine Mouchet , Thibault de Montalembert
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Reviews
Waste of time
Too much of everything
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Ah La France! The only country in the world where nobody respects rules especially those who makes them!Here I saw clearly Ovidie (just dressed with a red top) getting slammed by a man and then giving him a blowjob with his juice all over her face and it's not rated X! In addition, see the title and fact that the story is indeed about making a porn movie! Just because the old senile perverts in the commission found an iconic french actor (JP Leaud, the avatar of an iconic french director Truffaut) and that the movie is dubbed arthouse movie! and it's dubbed like that because it's the kind of movie in which the hypocritical elite tries to be scared: Pornography! usually it's a vice for the poor not for the well educated and born bourgeois!Well, at the end, X or not, it's still a french movie so a boring, useless, awful production... The only good point here is that Ovidie shows her talent but personnally i have never doubted her from what she did in her ... porn movies!
We pray the United States Supreme Court is soon peopled by non-Puritans who will believe the First Amendment guarantees Americans the right to produce and watch what pleases them. The current federal court system is full of Reagan-era morons who do not believe we as a people have enough sense to decide for ourselves what we see on television and at the movies.Having lived through the cultural revolution of the 1960's, I would have hoped to see by now more open minds on the bench and in the federal Executive Branch. Instead, we have had the same draconian moral arbiters we've had since the 1950's. For instance, instead of moving forward toward freedom from censorship, we have to deal with the likes of Bush's Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell (son of "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons" Colin Powell), whose obsession with Janet Jackson's breast drove him to seek higher FCC fines to punish radio and television stations and networks who have the temerity to broadcast words and images which violate his poor Baptist ears.
Le Pornographe can be termed as a decent film directed by Bertrand Bonello as it does not shock any viewer who has self conceived notions about the film's title.It is one of those typical French films in which characters ramble on various life affirming themes.This is the reason why the film's title is an absolutely inappropriate misnomer as the word "Le Pornographe" does not do much justice to this film's central themes.Bertrand Bonello has made effective use of his film's principal character,a famous French director of pornographic films Jacques Laurent to conduct an observational study about various human relationships which include a troubled father son relationship,a pallid husband wife relationship.These relationships are so strongly portrayed that the topic as well as scant depiction of pornography is easily sidelined.Although this film features some famous porn stars like HPG,Ovidie etc,it is through actors like Jean Pierre Léaud, Jérémie Renier,Catherine Mouchet and Dominique Blanc that Bertrand Bonello is able to lead his film to its inscrutable conclusion.
An aging porn flicks director must change the way he does his thing. But Jacques is more of a thinker than a director. He sees his job as a form of art that's being thorn by the new generation of directors.Jean-Pierre Léaud is great in the role of Jacques. Some of the scene you would never see in a Hollywood-made movie.Out of 100, I give it 80. That's good for *** out of ****.Seen in Toronto, at the Carleton Cinemas, on July 4th, 2002.