Le pornographe

This story, shot and acted in a cool and subdued way, is about what is still a hot potato: pornographic filmmaking. The film is about the former porn filmmaker Jacques Laurent who was, in the Seventies, a celebrated, thinking and artistic porn filmmaker, a kind of auteur in erotic cinema. When his son found out what his father did for living he had always been lied to about it he ran away from home and refused to have any contact with his father. So then Laurent put an end to his career. Many years later, his financial problems meant he had to take up his old profession again. However that profession had changed dramatically. There was no room any more for a legendary and original filmmaker like Laurent.The role of the thinking porn filmmaker is played by JeanPierre Léaud, a mythical figure in French film history who is a model for the movement of film movements, the Nouvelle Vague. Bonello’s film is not just about the change in making porn, but also about the ever fragile position of art cinema. Bonello takes up the debate that arose through the films of, e.g., Catherine Breillat (through whom explicit sex found its way into art film), but is also more general and expresses an opinion about the changes in (film) culture.