One of my favorite erotic filmakers is Radley Metzger, who created The Opening of Misty Beethoven, and Therese and Isabelle, the1967 feature that took Violet LeDuc’s novel and brought lesbian sexuality to the big screen for the first time. Radley made several classic erotic films released before X-rated cinema became the cookie-cutter scene we know today.
Metzger is a beautiful cinematographer; that’s one of the things that keep you riveted to his pictures. To my delight, it seems a contemporary porn artist, Clayton Cubutt, has taken some stills from one of Radley’s old movies, “Barbara Broadcast,” and turned them into web-based art installation. They're mesmerizing, and I’m very grateful to Jonno at Fleshbot for turning me onto the site. Here’s what Jonno wrote:
If you've never seen "Barbara Broadcast," the delightfully surreal 1977 classic directed by Radley Metzger, we're not sure photographer Clayton Cubitt's visual synopsis of the film would be the best introduction; after all, he compresses the action into a mere 31 vidcaps, concentrating more on the formal aspects of the cinematography than on the film's narrative or cast, which includes legends Annette Haven and Constance Money. However, as the latest artsy example of his "visual research in porn aesthetic", we think the project is pretty darn brilliant. And even those 31 caps look a hell of a lot more interesting than most of the hardcore stuff being shot today."
To read the rest of Susie's history in erotic cinema and porn, check out:
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