1 00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Downloaded from YTS.MX 2 00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000 Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX 3 00:00:22,105 --> 00:00:26,777 I really envy Massaccesi, aka Joe D'Amato. 4 00:00:28,529 --> 00:00:30,906 Drum-roll. 5 00:00:34,326 --> 00:00:36,495 - Hey! - You gotta let go of it. 6 00:00:39,581 --> 00:00:41,333 Grab it! Grab it! 7 00:00:43,544 --> 00:00:46,421 It's possible to do a cent? 8 00:00:54,763 --> 00:00:57,432 Hi. I am Joe D'Amato. 9 00:01:51,194 --> 00:01:57,409 RED INFERNO JOE D'AMATO ON THE ROAD OF EXCESS 10 00:02:37,574 --> 00:02:42,204 At the Cinémathéque Francaise, we showed Joe D'Amato's films 11 00:02:42,371 --> 00:02:47,125 during a special event dedicated to him 12 00:02:47,709 --> 00:02:49,795 in 2006, I think. 13 00:02:51,046 --> 00:02:56,593 We ran restored copies of BLACK SEX and ANTHROPOPHAGUS. 14 00:02:56,760 --> 00:03:01,306 Joe D'Amato's films are the product of an era 15 00:03:01,473 --> 00:03:05,310 when viewers wanted to see on screen 16 00:03:05,477 --> 00:03:07,938 what had been forbidden for years. 17 00:03:08,105 --> 00:03:11,483 It's sort of a project, 18 00:03:11,650 --> 00:03:17,489 presented to an audience, an overall picture of things. 19 00:03:17,656 --> 00:03:22,744 That's what eroticism is: seeing things that were hidden for years. 20 00:03:22,911 --> 00:03:26,665 You see naked bodies, and skin, which is very important 21 00:03:26,832 --> 00:03:30,585 and essential in Joe D'Amato's films. 22 00:03:30,752 --> 00:03:34,548 The skin of Laura Gemser, we almost have the desire to touch it, 23 00:03:34,715 --> 00:03:38,427 and she is often naked for most of the film. 24 00:03:38,593 --> 00:03:42,514 Basically, the element of skin, the epidermis, is essential. 25 00:03:42,681 --> 00:03:45,976 But what is under the skin, is equally important, 26 00:03:46,143 --> 00:03:47,686 and this is gore. 27 00:03:47,853 --> 00:03:53,608 It captures our gaze and takes it beyond the skin. 28 00:03:53,775 --> 00:03:57,696 Taking it beneath the skin, so to speak. 29 00:03:57,863 --> 00:04:01,032 In essence, under the surface. 30 00:04:01,908 --> 00:04:05,537 In my opinion, this is what defines D'Amato's films: 31 00:04:05,704 --> 00:04:09,374 his capacity to create a link, in a rather logical way, 32 00:04:09,541 --> 00:04:12,586 between the erotic and horror. 33 00:04:30,645 --> 00:04:33,690 - Can I smoke? - Sure. 34 00:04:37,944 --> 00:04:42,991 I come from a family that lived and breathed cinema. 35 00:04:43,158 --> 00:04:46,244 Even nowadays people say, "Wow, you come from a cinematic family!" 36 00:04:47,788 --> 00:04:49,206 But it's normal for me, 37 00:04:49,372 --> 00:04:52,459 because my grandpa had a storehouse 38 00:04:52,626 --> 00:04:55,003 with tons of cinema equipment: 39 00:04:55,170 --> 00:04:59,633 cameras, those huge old spotlights, 40 00:04:59,800 --> 00:05:02,803 film reels, and film cans. 41 00:05:02,969 --> 00:05:07,057 My father obviously worked in the biz and so did his brothers. 42 00:05:07,224 --> 00:05:11,394 Uncle Nando and Uncle Mario, also worked in cinema. 43 00:05:11,561 --> 00:05:17,359 For me, ever since I was a child, the world of cinema was a given. 44 00:05:22,531 --> 00:05:28,745 In this photo, my dad was really young and worked with De Sica. 45 00:05:29,454 --> 00:05:33,917 I got involved in the biz when I was very young 46 00:05:34,084 --> 00:05:38,296 because my father worked in cinema as a technical director. 47 00:05:38,463 --> 00:05:43,635 After school in the afternoons, I did some odd jobs, 48 00:05:43,802 --> 00:05:46,596 just to learn, more than anything. 49 00:05:46,763 --> 00:05:52,853 Then one day, they asked me to assist the cameraman, 50 00:05:53,019 --> 00:05:57,148 to be the camera assistant for Mole Richardson. 51 00:05:57,315 --> 00:06:00,193 After that, I worked as cameraman, camera assistant, 52 00:06:00,318 --> 00:06:03,321 camera operator, cinematographer, director, 53 00:06:03,530 --> 00:06:06,992 distributor, and producer, right up to today. 54 00:06:07,158 --> 00:06:13,081 Our mother was 100% present, because our father was never around. 55 00:06:13,248 --> 00:06:16,960 Except for holidays like Christmas 56 00:06:17,127 --> 00:06:20,505 and August 15th, he was never home. 57 00:06:20,672 --> 00:06:25,135 For him, cinema was... 58 00:06:25,343 --> 00:06:28,263 I won't say it was more important, 59 00:06:28,430 --> 00:06:32,601 but it was very important. That's why he was rarely home. 60 00:06:32,767 --> 00:06:37,564 The first thing that strikes you about Joe D'Amato's career 61 00:06:37,731 --> 00:06:43,820 is the sheer number of films he made, almost 200 total. 62 00:06:43,987 --> 00:06:47,073 This in itself is an interesting fact. 63 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:53,371 A director who makes that many films must be interesting. 64 00:06:53,580 --> 00:06:59,002 Consider Jess Franco, or even Woody Allen, 65 00:06:59,169 --> 00:07:03,548 who made a film a year, if not more. 66 00:07:03,715 --> 00:07:10,055 It takes interesting people to make more than one film a year, 67 00:07:10,221 --> 00:07:14,351 and Joe D'Amato at times made 5 or 6 a year. 68 00:07:14,517 --> 00:07:19,272 Cinema becomes your life. For you, filming is like breathing. 69 00:07:45,548 --> 00:07:50,345 Aristide Massaccesi was a sought-out cinematographer in those days 70 00:07:50,512 --> 00:07:56,601 because not only was he skilled, he was fast, too. 71 00:07:56,768 --> 00:08:01,398 Aristide was brilliant, but he got less than he deserved. 72 00:08:02,315 --> 00:08:03,942 He did it all, 73 00:08:04,109 --> 00:08:08,613 even hand-held camera operator. We did lots of crazy things. 74 00:08:08,780 --> 00:08:12,450 Skilled, quick, much like Tonino Delli Colli. 75 00:08:12,659 --> 00:08:17,205 He was superior. 76 00:08:17,372 --> 00:08:20,291 Once he had himself tied 77 00:08:20,458 --> 00:08:23,586 to a speeding stagecoach 78 00:08:23,753 --> 00:08:29,050 so that he could film the wheels and horse hooves. 79 00:08:29,217 --> 00:08:32,929 I said, "You're nuts. If anything happens, you're dead!" 80 00:08:33,096 --> 00:08:37,892 My father was a very good cinematographer, 81 00:08:38,059 --> 00:08:44,107 and my mom always scolded him for not sticking to it. 82 00:08:44,315 --> 00:08:47,193 She said that if he'd continued, 83 00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:52,782 he would have become much more famous. 84 00:08:54,325 --> 00:08:56,953 But sticking with one thing is boring. 85 00:08:57,120 --> 00:09:01,750 It wasn't his nature; he needed to keep changing. 86 00:09:01,916 --> 00:09:04,836 And so becoming a director, 87 00:09:05,003 --> 00:09:11,134 I think, was part of his constant search 88 00:09:11,301 --> 00:09:13,470 for something new. 89 00:09:13,636 --> 00:09:18,391 I made my first movie just for fun. 90 00:09:18,516 --> 00:09:21,227 It was TRINITY IN EL DORADO. 91 00:09:21,728 --> 00:09:27,525 I used stock footage for that movie, but in Italy 92 00:09:27,734 --> 00:09:33,531 it wasn't held in high regard, to be honest. 93 00:09:33,740 --> 00:09:38,161 But I think it was rather avant-garde. 94 00:09:38,328 --> 00:09:42,832 We created a horse that looked like a motorcycle with headlights 95 00:09:42,999 --> 00:09:48,546 and handlebars as reins, but the movie was a flop in Italy. 96 00:09:48,755 --> 00:09:53,259 During the Western era, 400 movies a year were made in Italy. 97 00:09:53,426 --> 00:09:59,432 Aristide was very sought-after, so in order to please everyone, 98 00:09:59,557 --> 00:10:02,560 we made one film by day, one by night. 99 00:10:02,769 --> 00:10:05,230 Different actors, same settings, 100 00:10:05,396 --> 00:10:07,649 and different stories. 101 00:10:07,816 --> 00:10:12,904 We only slept 4 hours and worked 20 hours a day! 102 00:10:13,071 --> 00:10:14,864 We earned a lot. 103 00:10:15,031 --> 00:10:20,578 Back then, Boccaccio-esque movies were big, 104 00:10:20,787 --> 00:10:23,289 like THE DECAMERON, 105 00:10:27,836 --> 00:10:31,339 and so we jumped on that bandwagon, too. 106 00:10:31,506 --> 00:10:36,678 Aristide came to me with an idea for a movie of that genre 107 00:10:36,845 --> 00:10:42,183 and asked me to work with him. I wasn't sure if it would work, 108 00:10:42,350 --> 00:10:44,853 but he said it would be a blockbuster. 109 00:10:47,188 --> 00:10:49,983 AN EROTICALLY AMUSING MOVIE 110 00:10:53,111 --> 00:10:55,196 AMUSING, ENTERTAINING 111 00:10:55,363 --> 00:10:56,489 BOCCACCIO-ESQUE 112 00:10:56,614 --> 00:10:59,284 IT WILL MAKE YOU LAUGH, LAUGH, LAUGH 113 00:11:09,085 --> 00:11:13,298 The movie was MORE SEXY CANTERBURY TALES. 114 00:11:13,464 --> 00:11:17,010 Pasolini had made his trilogy: 115 00:11:17,177 --> 00:11:21,723 THE CANTERBURY TALES, THE DECAMERON, and 116 00:11:21,890 --> 00:11:27,187 ARABIAN NIGHTS. We lumped them all together 117 00:11:27,353 --> 00:11:31,274 with MORE SEXY CANTERBURY TALES. 118 00:11:31,441 --> 00:11:37,614 Like many prolific and active directors in circles 119 00:11:37,780 --> 00:11:42,577 where the screenwriter and artistic derivation 120 00:11:42,744 --> 00:11:47,290 were not important, he used many pseudonyms. 121 00:11:47,457 --> 00:11:53,796 Some of his aliases were David Hills, Kevin Mancuso, and others. 122 00:11:53,963 --> 00:11:58,092 But it's worth asking ourselves why 123 00:11:58,259 --> 00:12:00,887 he felt the need to have SO many pseudonyms. 124 00:12:01,054 --> 00:12:03,681 I think there are two reasons. 125 00:12:03,848 --> 00:12:09,312 First, he made so many films it would've seemed scarcely believable. 126 00:12:09,479 --> 00:12:14,275 Also because clearly, he wanted to trick the audience 127 00:12:14,442 --> 00:12:20,615 into thinking they were seeing a film by an American or Anglo-Saxon. 128 00:12:20,782 --> 00:12:25,536 That's why he used so many Anglo-Saxon pseudonyms 129 00:12:25,703 --> 00:12:30,708 like David Hills, or Steven Benson, the alias he used 130 00:12:30,875 --> 00:12:33,920 for some of his early '80s films. 131 00:12:34,087 --> 00:12:38,967 The use of pseudonyms is very typical of Joe D'Amato. 132 00:12:51,646 --> 00:12:55,441 It was the era of Brian De Palma, 133 00:12:55,608 --> 00:13:01,739 and directors like Scorsese, all Italian-Americans. 134 00:13:02,615 --> 00:13:07,078 Back then, Donatella Donati's father, 135 00:13:07,245 --> 00:13:10,540 who was the head of Coralta Film, 136 00:13:10,707 --> 00:13:16,921 was looking for a name that sounded 137 00:13:17,839 --> 00:13:19,924 Italian-American. 138 00:13:20,216 --> 00:13:25,305 One day, he saw a calendar that said "D'Amato Press" 139 00:13:25,471 --> 00:13:30,476 and he decided Joe D'Amato would be an intriguing name. 140 00:13:30,643 --> 00:13:33,313 That's where Joe D'Amato came from. 141 00:13:33,479 --> 00:13:38,109 When my father talked about himself, 142 00:13:38,276 --> 00:13:41,029 he called himself a "craftsman," 143 00:13:41,195 --> 00:13:44,490 but he knew he was talented. 144 00:13:44,782 --> 00:13:50,038 He was a great craftsman in the best sense of the word. 145 00:13:50,204 --> 00:13:54,500 If someone can make me a beautifully-made chair, 146 00:13:54,667 --> 00:13:56,878 I bow down to him. 147 00:13:57,045 --> 00:14:00,465 That's what Massaccesi was like: he could do everything. 148 00:14:00,631 --> 00:14:05,178 I recall when my dad was interviewed on TV with Tinto Brass. 149 00:14:05,345 --> 00:14:11,559 Tinto Brass was wearing a suit, and Dad was wearing a black turtleneck. 150 00:14:12,560 --> 00:14:17,273 Labels didn't exist. He didn't feel he had to prove himself. 151 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:20,777 "This is me, I know what I'm worth." 152 00:14:20,943 --> 00:14:27,116 He was very friendly, smart, and bright. 153 00:14:27,283 --> 00:14:30,119 His problem, and mine, 154 00:14:30,286 --> 00:14:34,415 was we didn't always have the equipment, 155 00:14:34,582 --> 00:14:37,543 the crew, or the actors we wanted 156 00:14:37,710 --> 00:14:39,587 because they cost too much. 157 00:14:39,754 --> 00:14:44,467 He realized that to make a high-grossing, decent movie, 158 00:14:44,634 --> 00:14:50,598 all it took was a skeleton crew and a decent story 159 00:14:50,765 --> 00:14:55,395 that didn't call for too many scenes. 160 00:14:55,561 --> 00:14:59,440 That's how he could make a movie that could be sold. 161 00:14:59,607 --> 00:15:05,738 So he started to collaborate with producers 162 00:15:05,863 --> 00:15:12,078 who made these types of movies, but then at a certain point 163 00:15:12,245 --> 00:15:15,957 he veered toward erotic movies. 164 00:15:17,542 --> 00:15:23,339 Here with editor Vincenzo Tomasi, we have Joe D'Amato, the director. 165 00:15:23,506 --> 00:15:26,968 Let's ask Joe: What is this movie made of? 166 00:15:27,135 --> 00:15:32,306 Many things, including a swarm of gorgeous girls. 167 00:15:32,473 --> 00:15:35,560 They can explain better than me. 168 00:15:38,479 --> 00:15:42,108 Hello, I'm Laura Gemser, your Black Emanuelle. 169 00:15:42,275 --> 00:15:46,654 I'm here again to show you a shocking movie. 170 00:15:46,821 --> 00:15:49,157 BLACK EMANUELLE came out 171 00:15:49,323 --> 00:15:53,411 and I went to see it with Aristide. 172 00:15:53,578 --> 00:15:57,874 It was well-made, and there was this girl 173 00:15:58,082 --> 00:16:01,502 who was incredibly beautiful, full of charm, 174 00:16:01,794 --> 00:16:04,922 with an intense sensual energy. 175 00:16:06,591 --> 00:16:11,471 We quickly got on a flight from Rome to Bruges 176 00:16:11,637 --> 00:16:18,060 and searched the whole hotel until we found her. 177 00:16:18,227 --> 00:16:22,023 - I was expecting a man. - I'm a woman. Disappointed? 178 00:16:22,190 --> 00:16:24,484 No, not at all. 179 00:16:25,234 --> 00:16:28,613 We told her we wanted to make a movie with her. 180 00:16:29,572 --> 00:16:32,742 She told us she had made that movie 181 00:16:32,909 --> 00:16:38,915 but had no intention of making any other sexy movies. 182 00:16:39,081 --> 00:16:41,501 No problem. 183 00:16:43,544 --> 00:16:45,755 No problem. 184 00:16:45,922 --> 00:16:50,676 Right then and there, before leaving, we drew up a contract 185 00:16:50,843 --> 00:16:55,431 for three movies with her. 186 00:16:55,598 --> 00:17:01,479 About a week later we got a call from Amati, 187 00:17:01,646 --> 00:17:04,273 who distributed BLACK EMANUELLE. 188 00:17:04,440 --> 00:17:07,068 He'd spoken to Laura Gemser 189 00:17:07,235 --> 00:17:13,407 and wanted to use her again, but heard she was under contract with us. 190 00:17:13,574 --> 00:17:18,412 We confirmed this and asked what the movie in question was. 191 00:17:18,579 --> 00:17:22,458 He said, "Another Emanuelle movie." 192 00:17:22,625 --> 00:17:28,256 Folks, your dear Laura will always be an incurable optimist. 193 00:17:29,215 --> 00:17:33,135 Raise your glasses and shout out... 194 00:17:34,512 --> 00:17:37,181 "Hooray for life!” 195 00:17:38,891 --> 00:17:42,019 And that's how the Black Emanuelle series began. 196 00:18:16,345 --> 00:18:18,889 So, uh, my bedroom. 197 00:18:19,098 --> 00:18:22,643 My prized possession, my EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS poster. 198 00:18:22,643 --> 00:18:25,104 I love this. She's so beautiful. 199 00:18:26,272 --> 00:18:27,565 She's about to get it. 200 00:18:27,565 --> 00:18:30,067 She's done for. The cannibals are going to eat her. 201 00:18:30,526 --> 00:18:32,653 They're very hungry for beautiful blond girl. 202 00:18:32,653 --> 00:18:34,905 But Emanuelle, she's going to get out of it. 203 00:18:34,905 --> 00:18:37,533 But I love that it has the New York City 204 00:18:37,533 --> 00:18:40,703 skyscraper, you know, just seeing the backdrop of New York City. 205 00:18:41,245 --> 00:18:44,206 Starts in New York, goes to the jungle, ends in New York. 206 00:18:44,665 --> 00:18:46,959 I love EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS. 207 00:18:48,544 --> 00:18:51,172 It's interesting because I'd heard of the movie 208 00:18:51,172 --> 00:18:52,131 and I'd seen it as a Kid, 209 00:18:52,131 --> 00:18:55,468 but I hadn't re-watched it until after I made GREEN INFERNO. 210 00:18:56,135 --> 00:18:59,221 And what really impressed me about EMANUELLE 211 00:18:59,221 --> 00:19:02,516 AND THE LAST CANNIBALS is the sequence of the arrival at the village. 212 00:19:02,516 --> 00:19:05,770 And it was actually Quentin, when he saw GREEN INFERNO, 213 00:19:05,811 --> 00:19:09,732 said the only other movie that did the "arriving at the village" sequence 214 00:19:10,066 --> 00:19:13,277 as well as you did it was EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS. 215 00:19:14,153 --> 00:19:16,489 Now, Emanuelle, 216 00:19:16,489 --> 00:19:18,699 we didn't know as kids that there was 217 00:19:18,699 --> 00:19:22,453 a Sylvia Kristel Emmanuelle with two M's, 218 00:19:22,453 --> 00:19:25,539 and then he did the Emanuelle with one M 219 00:19:26,082 --> 00:19:27,166 with Laura Gemser. 220 00:19:27,166 --> 00:19:32,755 We just thought, "Oh, they switched Emanuelles." I had no idea that, again, 221 00:19:32,755 --> 00:19:36,967 Joe D'Amato, they were cashing in on the success of EMMANUELLE. 222 00:19:36,967 --> 00:19:40,513 They just changed the spelling of her name so they didn't get sued. 223 00:19:40,680 --> 00:19:42,682 And cast Laura Gemser. 224 00:19:42,682 --> 00:19:44,225 D'Amato and Laura Gemser 225 00:19:44,225 --> 00:19:49,522 is one of my favorite director- lead actress combos in all of cinema. 226 00:19:49,897 --> 00:19:53,484 I think that he really, really got something incredible from her. 227 00:19:53,693 --> 00:19:55,486 I think that she was a gift to cinema. 228 00:19:55,778 --> 00:19:59,490 So, as a kid, there was the Sylvia Kristel Emmanuelle would come on, and then 229 00:19:59,949 --> 00:20:03,703 EMANUELLE IN BANGKOK would come on and you're like, oh, this is a very, 230 00:20:03,703 --> 00:20:04,954 very different Emanuelle. 231 00:20:05,037 --> 00:20:06,622 We like that Emanuelle. 232 00:20:06,622 --> 00:20:08,332 We like Black Emanuelle. 233 00:20:08,457 --> 00:20:10,960 Confused? Why? 234 00:20:11,919 --> 00:20:14,171 It's no surprise! 235 00:20:14,338 --> 00:20:20,177 The protest has even made its way into nightclubs, so no more fakes. 236 00:20:20,344 --> 00:20:24,932 Truth above all: performances... 237 00:20:25,099 --> 00:20:28,561 Performances need to be alternative and realistic. 238 00:20:28,728 --> 00:20:32,481 Joe D'Amato's eroticism is violent. 239 00:20:32,648 --> 00:20:35,151 If we compare Black Emanuelle 240 00:20:35,317 --> 00:20:39,947 with French Emmanuelle, we can spot the differences. 241 00:20:40,156 --> 00:20:44,285 French Emmanuelle portrays a woman in search of pleasure, 242 00:20:44,452 --> 00:20:46,787 which she finds in Thailand, 243 00:20:46,954 --> 00:20:50,958 but it's rather hedonistic; it sings the praises of hedonism. 244 00:20:51,125 --> 00:20:54,712 In Black Emanuelle, the sex is violent and threatening. 245 00:20:54,879 --> 00:20:58,632 Sexual violence is a motif. There are rape scenes, 246 00:20:58,799 --> 00:21:02,094 as well as white slave trade, prostitution. 247 00:21:02,219 --> 00:21:06,682 D'Amato loves to shock, and his pursuit of shock 248 00:21:06,849 --> 00:21:10,978 is translated into this mixture of sex and violence. 249 00:21:20,905 --> 00:21:25,576 We knew about these snuff movies they made on 8mm 250 00:21:25,743 --> 00:21:30,414 with real torture scenes and even real murders, 251 00:21:30,581 --> 00:21:35,044 and so we wanted to recreate that atmosphere 252 00:21:35,211 --> 00:21:37,880 to shock the audience. 253 00:21:38,923 --> 00:21:43,219 But the whole crew, about 40 people, 254 00:21:43,385 --> 00:21:48,182 were sued by one of the actresses whose breast was cut off. 255 00:21:48,349 --> 00:21:51,268 Not for real, of course. 256 00:21:51,435 --> 00:21:57,608 The make-up artist Giannetto de Rossi made a breast that looked real. 257 00:21:57,775 --> 00:22:03,656 She pressed charges against the whole crew 258 00:22:03,823 --> 00:22:09,995 because the scene was so realistic that it traumatized her. 259 00:22:10,162 --> 00:22:12,873 She wanted to be compensated. 260 00:22:13,499 --> 00:22:17,086 Because of that we all ended up in court. 261 00:22:17,253 --> 00:22:20,756 The charges were 262 00:22:20,923 --> 00:22:25,636 negligence, gross indecency, 263 00:22:25,803 --> 00:22:29,849 and another serious one I can't recall. 264 00:22:30,891 --> 00:22:33,936 They called me to court 265 00:22:35,688 --> 00:22:38,023 for this 266 00:22:38,190 --> 00:22:40,693 and I said, 267 00:22:40,860 --> 00:22:43,988 "Did you check if she still has her breast? 268 00:22:44,947 --> 00:22:48,284 Yes? Then why'd you summon me?" 269 00:22:48,450 --> 00:22:53,205 When Aristide filmed, he had no limits. 270 00:22:53,330 --> 00:22:58,836 He filmed whatever came to mind, the way he wanted, 271 00:22:59,003 --> 00:23:04,341 with rather hard scenes, 272 00:23:04,508 --> 00:23:09,138 because he believed in those kinds of movies. 273 00:23:09,305 --> 00:23:13,142 When I'd look at the dailies, 274 00:23:13,309 --> 00:23:18,856 I'd point out that the movie would never get past censorship. 275 00:23:19,023 --> 00:23:24,278 In the early '70s, the grip of censorship was weakening everywhere. 276 00:23:24,445 --> 00:23:28,866 The success of Bertolucci's LAST TANGO IN PARIS 277 00:23:29,033 --> 00:23:33,871 raised the limits on how eroticism was portrayed on screen, 278 00:23:34,038 --> 00:23:39,877 even though exploitation movies already introduced some erotic nuances. 279 00:23:40,044 --> 00:23:45,591 D'Amato dives into this world and starts making, 280 00:23:45,758 --> 00:23:51,972 one after another, erotic films, which at first were soft core, 281 00:23:52,806 --> 00:23:55,768 then they slowly became more hardcore. 282 00:23:55,935 --> 00:23:59,063 In any case, his main trait became erotic cinema, 283 00:23:59,229 --> 00:24:02,942 as this genre exploded in the '70s. 284 00:24:03,108 --> 00:24:05,819 It was the era of birth control, 285 00:24:05,986 --> 00:24:07,655 sexual freedom, 286 00:24:07,821 --> 00:24:12,660 protests, occupied universities, hippies. 287 00:24:12,826 --> 00:24:18,040 There was a wave of sexual liberation 288 00:24:18,207 --> 00:24:23,712 that penetrated every social sphere. 289 00:24:23,879 --> 00:24:28,300 Actually, it started with a little breeze, to quote Rossini, 290 00:24:28,425 --> 00:24:34,682 even amongst the middle classes, 291 00:24:35,182 --> 00:24:40,521 because they could go see an erotic, titillating movie 292 00:24:40,688 --> 00:24:45,401 and feel liberated and involved 293 00:24:45,567 --> 00:24:51,532 in a global movement that wanted to wipe out taboos. 294 00:24:51,699 --> 00:24:56,578 My father was taken to court many times in the '70s. 295 00:24:56,745 --> 00:25:02,042 They were only erotic movies, but society was still too prudish. 296 00:25:02,209 --> 00:25:05,295 Abortion still wasn't legal. 297 00:25:05,462 --> 00:25:11,468 My father's eroticism was lovely and rather clean. 298 00:25:11,635 --> 00:25:14,763 He managed to accentuate sensuality, 299 00:25:14,930 --> 00:25:17,891 which is important in those kinds of erotic movies, 300 00:25:18,058 --> 00:25:23,063 the sensuality of the actress or of the scene. 301 00:25:23,605 --> 00:25:28,110 These erotic films were marketable in France and other countries. 302 00:25:28,277 --> 00:25:32,614 They wanted more intense scenes 303 00:25:32,781 --> 00:25:37,327 or even hardcore scenes, for their movie theaters. 304 00:25:37,494 --> 00:25:40,914 Back then,, they were only shown in theaters, not on TV. 305 00:25:41,081 --> 00:25:46,462 It was a commercial demand in some countries to better sell the movie, 306 00:25:46,628 --> 00:25:50,841 so we had to add scenes without Laura Gemser. 307 00:25:51,008 --> 00:25:54,219 Like in EMANUELLE IN AMERICA with Marina Frajese, 308 00:25:54,386 --> 00:25:58,140 who was making this kind of movie for the first time. 309 00:25:59,016 --> 00:26:01,685 Nowadays, 310 00:26:01,852 --> 00:26:03,395 striptease isn't enough. 311 00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:07,024 When artists want to fulfill themselves, 312 00:26:07,191 --> 00:26:10,527 meaning exert their violence on an audience, 313 00:26:10,736 --> 00:26:14,656 they need more sophisticated ways to use the oldest lever: 314 00:26:14,823 --> 00:26:16,450 sex. 315 00:26:16,617 --> 00:26:20,204 In Italian cinema of the '70s, 316 00:26:20,370 --> 00:26:22,498 a thriving genre 317 00:26:22,664 --> 00:26:28,003 was the so-called "erotic-comedy." But then slowly, 318 00:26:28,170 --> 00:26:34,093 our local distributors started asking for more, 319 00:26:34,259 --> 00:26:37,137 saying people wanted to see more. 320 00:26:58,033 --> 00:27:02,746 We decided to make four movies in Haiti. 321 00:27:02,913 --> 00:27:09,086 They set off on this adventure and made four movies: 322 00:27:09,253 --> 00:27:14,550 PORNO ESOTIC LOVE, PORNO HOLOCAUST, HARD SENSATION, 323 00:27:14,716 --> 00:27:16,593 and EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD. 324 00:27:16,760 --> 00:27:22,933 These movies were funded by BNL bank. 325 00:27:23,725 --> 00:27:28,397 Those were sexy movies, 326 00:27:28,564 --> 00:27:31,775 but when Aristide came back, he'd filmed some hard scenes. 327 00:27:31,942 --> 00:27:38,115 Getting a bank to fund a sexy film is tricky, forget about a hardcore film. 328 00:27:38,282 --> 00:27:45,080 There was no hope at all, so the idea was to make sexy films. 329 00:27:45,247 --> 00:27:49,126 But when he came back, he said, 330 00:27:49,293 --> 00:27:53,964 "I did some other things, and this is the vision I have." 331 00:27:54,631 --> 00:27:59,094 After the screening, I said, "Okay, that's the vision you have, 332 00:27:59,261 --> 00:28:04,433 but what'll I do with this stuff? What'll I show the bank?" 333 00:28:04,641 --> 00:28:10,230 He had invited me to Santo Domingo to make a series of films. 334 00:28:12,024 --> 00:28:18,030 We shot various films at once. We'd shoot one film's scenes, 335 00:28:18,197 --> 00:28:21,950 get changed, and then I'd go from good guy to bad guy. 336 00:28:22,117 --> 00:28:26,288 We shot different scenes using the same settings, of course. 337 00:28:26,455 --> 00:28:32,628 Back then, I was a casino addict, 338 00:28:32,794 --> 00:28:38,884 and I blew all of my per diem and my entire pay 339 00:28:39,051 --> 00:28:41,929 during the first week. 340 00:28:42,095 --> 00:28:49,269 Since I had no money and Aristide wouldn't give me an advance, 341 00:28:49,436 --> 00:28:55,609 I managed to persuade him to shoot his own film. 342 00:28:55,776 --> 00:28:58,612 He had the actors and location. 343 00:28:58,779 --> 00:29:01,615 If he came up with another story, 344 00:29:01,823 --> 00:29:06,662 he could come away with his own film. 345 00:29:06,828 --> 00:29:09,539 He just needed to provide the film stock. 346 00:29:09,706 --> 00:29:14,711 I told him I would write the story for him. 347 00:29:14,920 --> 00:29:21,093 We agreed on a sum, and in three days, I wrote BLACK SEX, 348 00:29:21,260 --> 00:29:23,804 which made a lot of money. 349 00:29:23,971 --> 00:29:26,890 The first porn movie made 350 00:29:27,724 --> 00:29:31,812 by Italians for the Italian market was BLACK SEX, 351 00:29:31,979 --> 00:29:34,606 featuring Mark Shannon. 352 00:29:34,731 --> 00:29:39,403 I'm Manlio Cersosimo, aka Mark Shannon. We're about to watch BLACK SEX. 353 00:29:49,538 --> 00:29:55,168 The tombeur de femmes was Manlio Cersosimo. 354 00:29:55,335 --> 00:30:01,550 He loved making these films. He put his heart and soul into them. 355 00:30:02,092 --> 00:30:05,262 In those scenes, he gave the best of himself. 356 00:30:23,071 --> 00:30:27,534 People liked this movie, and it's one of my favorites. 357 00:30:28,076 --> 00:30:31,663 It's the one I felt most connected to, 358 00:30:31,788 --> 00:30:35,167 the one in which I expressed myself best. 359 00:30:43,800 --> 00:30:49,681 By chance, it was a hit because it had Italian actors. 360 00:30:49,806 --> 00:30:53,018 After that, Aristide and I started a side business, 361 00:30:54,019 --> 00:30:58,774 and we produced some movies together, inventing 362 00:30:58,940 --> 00:31:01,526 Italian style porn: "spaghetti porn." 363 00:31:26,843 --> 00:31:29,388 I don't recall how I met Joe D'Amato. 364 00:31:30,222 --> 00:31:33,809 In my mind, I have a picture of him in his office: 365 00:31:33,975 --> 00:31:38,438 a smiling, warm person 366 00:31:38,605 --> 00:31:41,858 who was laid-back on set, 367 00:31:42,067 --> 00:31:45,070 making movies in four days, or a week, 368 00:31:45,445 --> 00:31:47,280 one after another. 369 00:31:47,447 --> 00:31:53,620 I asked about the porn movies he made, but he said that wasn't a genre for me. 370 00:31:53,787 --> 00:31:59,960 But I was intrigued by that world and I told him I was interested. 371 00:32:00,127 --> 00:32:02,462 I liked anything new. 372 00:32:02,629 --> 00:32:05,757 Back then, body art was a new trend. 373 00:32:05,882 --> 00:32:11,430 I've always been a fan of contemporary art. 374 00:32:11,596 --> 00:32:17,811 With body art, people got naked and put brains on boobs or dicks 375 00:32:18,186 --> 00:32:21,815 in these super-intellectual art galleries. 376 00:32:21,982 --> 00:32:26,736 So I had associated porn with the world of body art. 377 00:32:26,903 --> 00:32:33,743 He told me it had nothing to do with that and suggested I go see. 378 00:32:33,910 --> 00:32:39,291 So laughing, he took me on set and I saw a couple in bed, 379 00:32:39,458 --> 00:32:44,796 doing what they had to do, and he asked what I thought about it. 380 00:32:44,921 --> 00:32:49,551 When I told him it had no real effect on me, 381 00:32:49,718 --> 00:32:52,220 he suggested I shoot the next movie for him 382 00:32:52,387 --> 00:32:56,433 because he was tired of seeing actresses do those things. 383 00:32:56,600 --> 00:33:00,187 I took his word for it, 384 00:33:00,353 --> 00:33:03,106 and three days later I was shooting his movie. 385 00:33:03,857 --> 00:33:08,945 Here I am, perfectly on time. Were you eagerly awaiting me? 386 00:33:09,112 --> 00:33:13,909 I was eager, too, my loves. Here I am, all yours. 387 00:33:14,075 --> 00:33:19,748 As always. Come closer, don't be shy. 388 00:33:19,915 --> 00:33:22,542 Come with me. It'll be wonderful. 389 00:33:23,251 --> 00:33:28,298 Relax, I'll lead you to the realm of oblivion, 390 00:33:28,465 --> 00:33:31,968 the realm of boundless impulses of pleasure. 391 00:33:32,177 --> 00:33:35,680 The defining feature 392 00:33:36,765 --> 00:33:40,185 of erotic cinema and porn is that it is built around 393 00:33:40,352 --> 00:33:42,354 the frustration of viewers, 394 00:33:42,521 --> 00:33:46,566 sitting alone in the theater, contemplating 395 00:33:46,733 --> 00:33:52,155 actions, things, pleasures, which for the moment are impossible 396 00:33:52,322 --> 00:33:54,241 or very distant. 397 00:33:54,407 --> 00:33:58,745 The best example of this is EMANUELLE AND FRANCOISE, 398 00:33:58,912 --> 00:34:05,001 where one of the male characters is chained up by a woman 399 00:34:05,210 --> 00:34:10,423 and is forced to observe sexual acts 400 00:34:10,590 --> 00:34:15,595 such as lesbian sex, orgies, swingers, until he goes mad. 401 00:34:15,762 --> 00:34:20,350 This portrayal of frustration perfectly sums up 402 00:34:20,517 --> 00:34:23,228 Joe D'Amato's films. 403 00:34:33,738 --> 00:34:39,286 When Italian porn first appeared, 404 00:34:39,452 --> 00:34:45,625 judges were banning all the movies, both foreign and Italian, 405 00:34:45,792 --> 00:34:49,921 and accused us of criminal association 406 00:34:50,046 --> 00:34:53,133 aimed at pornography. 407 00:34:53,300 --> 00:34:58,680 I was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for each movie, 408 00:34:58,847 --> 00:35:04,144 but I always managed to get off thanks to probation. 409 00:35:04,311 --> 00:35:06,271 Probation goes up to 24 months. 410 00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:09,941 You're under arrest. Come with us. 411 00:35:10,066 --> 00:35:14,070 Since I was sentenced for 10 movies, two months per movie, 412 00:35:14,237 --> 00:35:18,325 I'd reached a total of 20 months. 413 00:35:18,491 --> 00:35:24,456 If I had been sentenced for two more movies, 414 00:35:24,623 --> 00:35:28,752 I would've reached 24 months and would've been jailed, 415 00:35:28,918 --> 00:35:31,546 so I stopped making porn. 416 00:35:31,713 --> 00:35:34,549 No! No! 417 00:35:37,594 --> 00:35:43,266 Joe D'Amato decided to try his hand at a late '70s trend 418 00:35:43,433 --> 00:35:49,272 that boomed with the works of Lucio Fulci, Romero, and so on: 419 00:35:49,439 --> 00:35:51,024 gore. 420 00:35:51,191 --> 00:35:55,445 We suddenly witness, so to speak, an explosion of blood. 421 00:35:55,612 --> 00:36:01,576 We see slaughtering, gutting, disemboweling on screen. 422 00:36:01,743 --> 00:36:06,289 Everything is exposed in a rapture of violence. 423 00:36:06,456 --> 00:36:11,961 Once, my father organized a private screening. 424 00:36:12,128 --> 00:36:17,342 It was for ABSURD, and I passed out during the movie 425 00:36:17,884 --> 00:36:22,555 because the scene where he sticks her head in a hot oven 426 00:36:22,722 --> 00:36:27,894 gave me so much anxiety that I fainted. 427 00:36:28,061 --> 00:36:32,899 But he never worried about shocking his kids. 428 00:36:33,066 --> 00:36:37,737 If anything, he was happy about the effect it generated. 429 00:36:55,004 --> 00:36:57,841 BUIO OMEGA, or BEYOND THE DARKNESS, 430 00:36:57,841 --> 00:37:00,218 or EATEN ALIVE, as it's known, 431 00:37:00,343 --> 00:37:02,554 probably as nine other titles... 432 00:37:03,263 --> 00:37:05,890 It's funny because my memory of it, 433 00:37:06,141 --> 00:37:09,310 when Iris is eating, as a kid, I thought it was an old woman, 434 00:37:09,477 --> 00:37:12,480 and now I realize she was probably 33 years old. 435 00:37:14,149 --> 00:37:15,024 That was a shocking-- 436 00:37:15,024 --> 00:37:17,152 I re-watched the movie recently, and I like it. 437 00:37:17,152 --> 00:37:21,114 I think that for me, it's the Goblin score is part of charm. 438 00:37:21,364 --> 00:37:26,077 I love Goblin's music, but you have Cinzia Monreale naked. 439 00:37:26,536 --> 00:37:28,705 You know, you have this corpse, there's 440 00:37:29,456 --> 00:37:32,792 necrophilia, there's eating Chinese food. 441 00:37:33,126 --> 00:37:34,878 It's kind of a weird movie. 442 00:37:34,878 --> 00:37:38,047 It's sort of a slower-paced movie, but for me, 443 00:37:38,506 --> 00:37:41,134 it's like an alternate reality of my childhood. 444 00:37:41,176 --> 00:37:44,304 BEYOND THE DARKNESS was a great film, 445 00:37:44,471 --> 00:37:47,724 a mix of romanticism and gore. 446 00:37:47,891 --> 00:37:52,896 A truly sick film, in perfect D'Amato style. 447 00:37:53,062 --> 00:37:57,358 Everyone thinks I shot real autopsies. 448 00:37:57,984 --> 00:38:03,490 There was no need to, because the film is entirely fake. 449 00:38:03,656 --> 00:38:09,329 We bought a ton of entrails from a local butcher and used them. 450 00:38:09,496 --> 00:38:15,668 For the scenes with skin being cut, we used pigskin. 451 00:38:15,835 --> 00:38:21,883 We placed it on top and then sliced it with a scalpel, 452 00:38:22,050 --> 00:38:28,264 which created a very realistic effect. 453 00:38:28,431 --> 00:38:34,062 Then we filled it with entrails: 454 00:38:34,229 --> 00:38:37,482 livers, hearts, intestines. 455 00:38:37,649 --> 00:38:41,903 And the actor would keep pulling this stuff out. The end. 456 00:38:42,362 --> 00:38:44,989 So, I like the movie, even though I don't think it's great. 457 00:38:44,989 --> 00:38:46,199 I mean, for me, 458 00:38:46,199 --> 00:38:49,536 ANTHROPOPHAGUS sticks out just because the photography is so striking. 459 00:38:49,828 --> 00:38:51,120 The performances are great. 460 00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:53,206 The location is so unique. 461 00:38:53,206 --> 00:38:54,040 I love it. 462 00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,168 It's like when I watch that movie, I escape into another world. 463 00:39:13,309 --> 00:39:18,439 In 1980, my father created Filmirage production company 464 00:39:18,606 --> 00:39:24,028 on Viale delle Milizie in Rome, and began producing films 465 00:39:24,195 --> 00:39:29,284 that were made thanks to pre-sales abroad. 466 00:39:29,450 --> 00:39:31,619 The first was ANTHROPOPHAGUS. 467 00:39:41,337 --> 00:39:45,258 COMING SOON 468 00:39:45,592 --> 00:39:51,598 There's the scene with the fetus, where Montefiori pulls out 469 00:39:51,764 --> 00:39:54,601 this embryo and eats it. 470 00:39:54,767 --> 00:40:00,857 Everyone had crazy ideas about it, but it was just a rabbit 471 00:40:01,024 --> 00:40:06,321 we bought at the local butcher and we made to look like a fetus. 472 00:40:06,487 --> 00:40:10,158 Montefiori was just eating a dead rabbit. 473 00:40:16,331 --> 00:40:19,334 ANTHROPOPHAGUS is one of those movies that was so violent. 474 00:40:19,334 --> 00:40:22,587 I mean, the scene of George Eastman pulling out the fetus, 475 00:40:22,837 --> 00:40:25,840 which, of course, Deodato did in CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. 476 00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:29,469 So you could tell D'Amato was like, “The fetus-pulling in CANNIBAL 477 00:40:29,469 --> 00:40:32,680 HOLOCAUST was really offensive. Tisa Farrow in ZOMBIE. 478 00:40:32,680 --> 00:40:34,557 What if I mix the two?” 479 00:40:34,557 --> 00:40:35,266 But it's still, 480 00:40:35,266 --> 00:40:37,894 it's his own version of it. It's horrible. 481 00:40:37,894 --> 00:40:38,770 I mean, they're doing things-- 482 00:40:38,770 --> 00:40:41,189 You're going, "Who said this was okay?" 483 00:40:49,405 --> 00:40:54,786 At Rome's Metropolitan theater, there were only four people at the first screening. 484 00:40:54,953 --> 00:41:00,625 Two people sat up front quietly, but then they started fidgeting. 485 00:41:00,792 --> 00:41:06,923 They were watching the film, but when they saw the scene 486 00:41:07,090 --> 00:41:11,886 with the rabbit being pulled out of the womb, 487 00:41:12,053 --> 00:41:14,722 they left in disgust. 488 00:41:14,889 --> 00:41:18,685 I can't recall what they said, but they left. 489 00:41:19,310 --> 00:41:21,980 The movie only lasted two days in the theater. 490 00:41:22,146 --> 00:41:25,400 Well, considering what it was... 491 00:41:25,566 --> 00:41:31,030 The film didn't do well in Italy; it was slammed by critics. 492 00:41:31,197 --> 00:41:37,412 Like all my films, actually, not a single one was appreciated. 493 00:41:39,163 --> 00:41:42,834 But it was a hit abroad 494 00:41:43,001 --> 00:41:46,045 and people still talk about it. 495 00:42:02,353 --> 00:42:05,606 Being a clever opportunist, Joe D'Amato followed trends, 496 00:42:05,773 --> 00:42:09,027 especially the trends that came about 497 00:42:09,193 --> 00:42:11,738 with the end of Italian genre films. 498 00:42:11,904 --> 00:42:16,492 So he made films along the lines of MAD MAX 499 00:42:16,701 --> 00:42:21,956 and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, 500 00:42:22,123 --> 00:42:24,625 John Carpenter's American box office hit. 501 00:42:24,792 --> 00:42:28,921 He also made films similar to CONAN THE BARBARIAN, 502 00:42:29,088 --> 00:42:33,926 namely the "Ator" series. They were made for the international market 503 00:42:34,093 --> 00:42:37,680 which greatly appreciated Joe D'Amato's work. 504 00:42:37,847 --> 00:42:39,348 This genre, 505 00:42:39,515 --> 00:42:44,020 because others made these sorts of film, too, 506 00:42:44,187 --> 00:42:48,775 perfectly embodied the downfall 507 00:42:48,941 --> 00:42:51,319 of Italian genre films. 508 00:42:51,486 --> 00:42:54,030 The undoing of a type of cinema 509 00:42:54,197 --> 00:42:59,202 where everything happened, but all that is left is ruins now. 510 00:42:59,368 --> 00:43:05,541 We can say it's ancient cinema, that belongs to a previous era. 511 00:43:05,708 --> 00:43:11,005 And so what is almost moving in these films 512 00:43:11,172 --> 00:43:15,301 is observing that Italian genre cinema 513 00:43:15,468 --> 00:43:19,555 has filmed its own downfall, its own ruin, 514 00:43:19,764 --> 00:43:23,684 by telling stories about post-apocalyptic motorcyclists 515 00:43:23,851 --> 00:43:28,189 in movies like BRONX FINAL BATTLE, 516 00:43:28,356 --> 00:43:32,944 which is better known by the title ENDGAME. 517 00:43:33,111 --> 00:43:36,697 ENDGAME came from INTERCEPTOR aka MAD MAX. 518 00:43:36,864 --> 00:43:40,952 All of the American and Australian box office hits 519 00:43:41,744 --> 00:43:46,457 were adapted by Filmirage. 520 00:43:46,582 --> 00:43:51,254 ENDGAME was a blockbuster shot in three weeks. 521 00:43:51,420 --> 00:43:57,135 An intense production, lots of extras, lots of make-up, 522 00:43:57,301 --> 00:44:03,474 special effects, explosives, MAD MAX-style vehicles. 523 00:44:03,599 --> 00:44:06,978 It wasn't an easy film. 524 00:44:07,353 --> 00:44:12,817 The best part was doing things that people said were impossible. 525 00:44:12,984 --> 00:44:15,361 We'd look at them and say, "It's doable." 526 00:44:20,533 --> 00:44:23,411 I love the factory of, uh... 527 00:44:23,411 --> 00:44:27,373 It's like he, D'Amato, had his own cast of characters. 528 00:44:27,373 --> 00:44:29,917 He had his own, like, Andy Warhol had The Factory, 529 00:44:30,042 --> 00:44:31,460 Joe D'Amato had his own Factory. 530 00:44:31,836 --> 00:44:36,507 Y'know, you had George Eastman (Luigi Montefiori), Al Cliver, 531 00:44:36,966 --> 00:44:40,636 Mark Shannon and Gabriele Tinti 532 00:44:40,845 --> 00:44:44,807 and Laura Gemser. It's fun! You become attached to these people. 533 00:44:45,057 --> 00:44:48,436 He gives Michele Soavi his break, with STAGE FRIGHT. 534 00:44:49,145 --> 00:44:53,733 Then Claudio Fragasso, TROLL 2. I mean, it's interesting, that documentary 535 00:44:53,733 --> 00:44:57,945 BEST WORST MOVIE, never talks about how Joe D'Amato not only produced 536 00:44:57,945 --> 00:45:02,366 TROLL 2, the later films of Umberto Lenzi, GHOST HOUSE, WITCHERY. 537 00:45:03,034 --> 00:45:05,620 These are produced by Joe D'Amato. The last film, DOOR INTO 538 00:45:05,620 --> 00:45:09,040 SILENCE, by Lucio Fulci, D'Amato's producing. 539 00:45:09,498 --> 00:45:12,793 So, it's interesting that a lot of the people that he lost 540 00:45:12,793 --> 00:45:16,297 jobs to, that he was competitive with, he still wound up working with them, 541 00:45:16,631 --> 00:45:18,341 producing their movies. 542 00:45:43,824 --> 00:45:49,997 It was raining, and I'd gone to bed late the night before. 543 00:45:50,164 --> 00:45:55,419 I was still asleep at noon, and the phone in my room rang. 544 00:45:55,586 --> 00:45:59,257 It was an old Bakelite phone. 545 00:45:59,423 --> 00:46:05,221 It was Aristide calling to ask me to direct a movie. 546 00:46:06,722 --> 00:46:12,186 "What?" "Yes, come to my office." 547 00:46:12,353 --> 00:46:18,276 I got up, and like a zombie, I managed to get to his office, 548 00:46:18,442 --> 00:46:23,531 and there he asked me to direct a horror movie, a genre I liked. 549 00:46:23,698 --> 00:46:29,203 That's how STAGE FRIGHT came about. It was just a 35-page treatment, 550 00:46:29,370 --> 00:46:31,247 but I could already picture it. 551 00:46:31,414 --> 00:46:36,711 I liked Michele's film, STAGE FRIGHT, right away. 552 00:46:36,877 --> 00:46:40,423 It was made with a modest, but not too small budget, 553 00:46:40,589 --> 00:46:43,551 because Aristide adored Michele 554 00:46:43,718 --> 00:46:46,762 and gave him more money than he gave himself. 555 00:46:46,929 --> 00:46:52,351 Apart from what people think about B movies 556 00:46:52,518 --> 00:46:57,898 or C, D, Z movies, porn, soft-porn, or whatever, 557 00:46:58,065 --> 00:47:01,652 Aristide appreciated young talents 558 00:47:01,777 --> 00:47:03,779 and loved working with young people. 559 00:47:03,988 --> 00:47:06,782 Partly because he could pay them less, 560 00:47:08,784 --> 00:47:13,414 but he would only work with truly talented people. 561 00:47:13,581 --> 00:47:17,043 He gave young people like me opportunities, 562 00:47:17,209 --> 00:47:19,795 but he was always present. 563 00:47:20,004 --> 00:47:23,799 He watched and knew 564 00:47:24,008 --> 00:47:28,220 right away if you were capable or not. 565 00:47:28,888 --> 00:47:33,392 The organogram of Filmirage was like this: 566 00:47:33,559 --> 00:47:39,106 Aristide was the heart of it all, 567 00:47:39,273 --> 00:47:43,652 the production side was handled by Donatella Donati, 568 00:47:43,819 --> 00:47:49,241 his business partner and associate. 569 00:47:49,408 --> 00:47:54,038 She was a true cinema expert, because her father 570 00:47:54,205 --> 00:47:57,416 was a famous movie producer. 571 00:47:57,583 --> 00:48:03,130 He had his camera operators, a small group of people 572 00:48:03,297 --> 00:48:09,178 that he took around with him. They all had various roles. 573 00:48:11,180 --> 00:48:14,308 He was producer, 574 00:48:14,475 --> 00:48:17,269 director, and cinematographer. 575 00:48:17,436 --> 00:48:19,980 He was a jack-of-all-trades. 576 00:48:20,147 --> 00:48:25,861 I consider him the Italian Roger Corman. 577 00:48:26,028 --> 00:48:31,283 He had created, bit by bit, a sort of factory 578 00:48:32,076 --> 00:48:34,495 for creative minds. 579 00:48:34,703 --> 00:48:38,165 He was commissioned 580 00:48:38,332 --> 00:48:43,504 by American or Italian producers who focused on foreign markets, 581 00:48:43,671 --> 00:48:49,510 and there was a period of time when these films were popular. 582 00:48:51,720 --> 00:48:56,642 They were once a big slice of the American market. 583 00:48:56,809 --> 00:49:00,020 At the American Film Market, films like STRIKE COMMANDO 584 00:49:00,187 --> 00:49:03,607 sold really well. 585 00:49:04,275 --> 00:49:07,611 Guess how he pre-sold movies? With the poster. 586 00:49:07,778 --> 00:49:13,909 If your poster was made by Casaro, who was number one back then, 587 00:49:14,118 --> 00:49:15,661 the film sold. 588 00:49:16,287 --> 00:49:21,125 He said all it took was drawing two bastard American faces. 589 00:49:21,917 --> 00:49:25,087 So all the films started off with the same potential, 590 00:49:25,254 --> 00:49:31,051 but in the end, some came out better than others. 591 00:49:39,935 --> 00:49:44,899 My relationship with Aristide, Donatella, and Filmirage 592 00:49:45,065 --> 00:49:47,860 entailed us giving them a minimum guarantee 593 00:49:48,027 --> 00:49:49,487 for foreign sales, 594 00:49:49,653 --> 00:49:51,822 otherwise we would've become partners. 595 00:49:51,947 --> 00:49:55,659 We made about ten films 596 00:49:55,868 --> 00:49:59,371 in the United States with Aristide and Donatella. 597 00:49:59,538 --> 00:50:05,628 He tried to go to the USA with a truck 598 00:50:05,794 --> 00:50:08,756 containing some wood planks and lights 599 00:50:08,923 --> 00:50:11,675 and had his first experience there. 600 00:50:11,842 --> 00:50:16,889 And so he realized that if he filmed in rural America, 601 00:50:17,056 --> 00:50:21,185 the parts where unions didn't exist, 602 00:50:21,352 --> 00:50:26,398 he could create something like a low budget American film. 603 00:50:27,066 --> 00:50:30,778 So he decided that was the right path 604 00:50:30,945 --> 00:50:34,073 to sell these films on the international market. 605 00:50:42,957 --> 00:50:46,210 The film that rewarded us most, 606 00:50:46,377 --> 00:50:49,338 and which was not bad at all, 607 00:50:49,505 --> 00:50:51,715 was WITCHCRAFT, 608 00:50:52,550 --> 00:50:56,929 made for American home video. 609 00:50:57,096 --> 00:50:59,431 It features Linda Blair, 610 00:50:59,598 --> 00:51:04,186 who, after THE EXORCIST, 611 00:51:04,353 --> 00:51:08,857 made her horror comeback alongside a decent cast. 612 00:51:09,358 --> 00:51:12,027 It was directed by Fabrizio Laurenti, 613 00:51:12,236 --> 00:51:16,991 who was hired at the last minute. It was his first film. 614 00:51:17,157 --> 00:51:23,038 Di Girolamo, our foreign sales agent 615 00:51:23,205 --> 00:51:25,040 who'd already made the deal, 616 00:51:25,207 --> 00:51:29,044 had developed his own method 617 00:51:29,587 --> 00:51:32,131 to gauge if a film would work or not. 618 00:51:32,298 --> 00:51:34,508 He'd thoroughly studied this 619 00:51:34,675 --> 00:51:39,013 and was absolutely convinced and proud of it. 620 00:51:39,805 --> 00:51:45,019 Every script that the two of them worked on together, 621 00:51:45,185 --> 00:51:48,897 with Aristide producing and him distributing and selling, 622 00:51:49,064 --> 00:51:53,068 had to pass the "up and down test," as Aristide called it. 623 00:51:53,277 --> 00:52:00,284 It's not a euphemism for masturbation, even if Aristide said it was. 624 00:52:00,451 --> 00:52:06,540 Essentially, every scene in the script was given a score. 625 00:52:06,707 --> 00:52:08,751 Opening credits, 3 points. 626 00:52:08,917 --> 00:52:15,591 Throat slitting scene, 7 points, because there's blood. 627 00:52:15,758 --> 00:52:20,971 Sentimental dialogue, 3 points. 628 00:52:21,722 --> 00:52:27,227 If you connected all the points, the line went up and down. 629 00:52:27,394 --> 00:52:32,441 The film's quality went up, down, then it stopped. 630 00:52:32,608 --> 00:52:36,070 If it went too far down, that meant there was an issue. 631 00:52:39,365 --> 00:52:43,911 Aristide, who was head of the factory, said, 632 00:52:44,078 --> 00:52:48,540 "Don't worry about that. Just go shoot it. The story is fine." 633 00:52:48,707 --> 00:52:53,837 Our American distributor had asked us 634 00:52:54,004 --> 00:52:58,050 to cast higher-level actors. 635 00:52:58,634 --> 00:53:03,722 It was an impressive cast with David Hasselhoff and Linda Blair, 636 00:53:03,889 --> 00:53:08,435 so the film cost quite a bit more. 637 00:53:08,852 --> 00:53:12,606 The film was rather rewarding 638 00:53:12,773 --> 00:53:16,485 in terms of return and in terms of earnings, 639 00:53:16,652 --> 00:53:18,946 but the difference was substantial. 640 00:53:19,113 --> 00:53:23,450 With lower budget films, 641 00:53:23,617 --> 00:53:25,661 we could earn more, 642 00:53:25,828 --> 00:53:30,833 but with the other films, we broke even and made less. 643 00:53:35,587 --> 00:53:40,175 So Aristide and I decided to take some time off, 644 00:53:40,384 --> 00:53:44,638 and we stopped for a few months. 645 00:53:44,805 --> 00:53:47,391 That had never happened before. 646 00:53:47,558 --> 00:53:52,396 For Aristide, three months of not working was a lifetime. 647 00:53:52,604 --> 00:53:56,316 Then he found another company 648 00:53:56,734 --> 00:54:00,320 that partially funded his films, 649 00:54:00,487 --> 00:54:03,657 while he put in the rest of the money. 650 00:54:03,866 --> 00:54:06,118 Unfortunately, this put him in dire straits. 651 00:54:06,285 --> 00:54:11,623 At this point, they couldn't pre-sell films anymore. 652 00:54:11,790 --> 00:54:15,335 The money came from BNL bank, 653 00:54:15,502 --> 00:54:18,005 which demanded guarantees. 654 00:54:18,756 --> 00:54:24,553 So, bit by bit, due to his passion for cinema, 655 00:54:24,720 --> 00:54:28,849 my father used our homes as collateral. 656 00:54:29,016 --> 00:54:34,313 Instead of thinking about his family and keeping a roof over our heads, 657 00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:37,691 he decided to gamble it all. 658 00:54:37,858 --> 00:54:40,861 Most likely, he wasn't behind this, 659 00:54:41,028 --> 00:54:46,617 because Donatella Donati was in charge of the finances. 660 00:54:47,618 --> 00:54:52,539 He kept making movie after movie. 661 00:54:52,706 --> 00:54:58,879 But it seems he made one too many without the proper backing. 662 00:54:59,046 --> 00:55:04,176 The market had changed. 663 00:55:04,343 --> 00:55:09,932 It was no longer the era of WITCHCRAFT, so to speak. 664 00:55:10,098 --> 00:55:16,271 When Filmirage went belly up and the banks started demanding money, 665 00:55:16,438 --> 00:55:20,275 it was a mortal blow for my father. 666 00:55:20,484 --> 00:55:26,657 We needed cash, a lot of it, because Dad had several employees 667 00:55:26,824 --> 00:55:29,827 and he wanted to pay their wages. 668 00:55:29,993 --> 00:55:33,914 He had editors, secretaries, etc. 669 00:55:34,081 --> 00:55:40,671 So he did what he could to earn while spending as little as possible. 670 00:55:40,838 --> 00:55:45,008 He started doing what he never wanted to do again. 671 00:55:45,175 --> 00:55:49,179 He felt that he'd evolved 672 00:55:49,304 --> 00:55:53,016 and never wanted to do porn again, 673 00:55:53,851 --> 00:55:59,106 but it was the only genre that allowed him to make a profit, 674 00:55:59,273 --> 00:56:03,694 quickly, in cash, while spending very little. 675 00:56:08,866 --> 00:56:12,744 Then they come in here and get naked. 676 00:56:24,590 --> 00:56:28,719 Aristide Massaccesi hated porn. 677 00:56:28,886 --> 00:56:33,348 He only made these movies to make money 678 00:56:33,557 --> 00:56:37,853 which he then spent to produce non-porn movies. 679 00:56:38,020 --> 00:56:44,192 He produced Michele Soavi's first movie, a thriller. 680 00:56:44,359 --> 00:56:50,365 It drained all his money, and when he finished shooting, 681 00:56:50,532 --> 00:56:52,910 he came back to me, saying he was broke. 682 00:56:53,076 --> 00:56:57,956 I said, "You put in your work, film stock, and the cameras, 683 00:56:58,123 --> 00:57:02,002 and we'll do a movie with Rocco Siffredi." 684 00:57:02,169 --> 00:57:08,342 THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF MARCO POLO was the first major porn film 685 00:57:08,508 --> 00:57:12,638 that was a period piece, and we made it together. 686 00:57:12,804 --> 00:57:18,644 That changed everything. We realized it could be a huge business, 687 00:57:18,810 --> 00:57:24,775 and in no time, we became the masters of these productions. 688 00:57:26,693 --> 00:57:29,404 Hi. I am Joe D'Amato. 689 00:57:30,864 --> 00:57:34,868 Maybe you remember me about the MARQUIS DE SADE, 690 00:57:35,285 --> 00:57:39,331 uh, distributed in the United States from, 691 00:57:40,415 --> 00:57:42,834 In Excess, gotten production... 692 00:57:47,255 --> 00:57:48,799 Fuck, I forgot. 693 00:58:20,580 --> 00:58:25,127 All of us who make hardcore porn focus on the asshole. 694 00:58:25,293 --> 00:58:30,674 There's no other way 695 00:58:31,967 --> 00:58:34,636 to define what we do. 696 00:58:34,803 --> 00:58:39,599 We focus on the asshole and whatever goes in it or comes out. 697 00:58:44,730 --> 00:58:48,025 Softcore? That's for churchgoers. We should send it to 698 00:58:49,693 --> 00:58:52,237 the monks, the Benedictines. 699 00:58:52,404 --> 00:58:57,576 When genre films stopped doing well in theaters, 700 00:58:57,743 --> 00:59:03,623 D'Amato continued to indulge 701 00:59:03,790 --> 00:59:08,628 his need to film as if it was as vital as his need to breathe, 702 00:59:08,962 --> 00:59:13,717 making a vast number of porn films for home video. 703 00:59:13,884 --> 00:59:19,389 Porn films were making their way from movie theaters 704 00:59:19,514 --> 00:59:25,395 to video, for home enjoyment, thanks to videotapes. 705 00:59:25,520 --> 00:59:30,067 So Joe D'Amato followed this route. 706 00:59:30,233 --> 00:59:35,238 In this era, the perception of porn 707 00:59:35,405 --> 00:59:38,533 was in between one repressive phase and another. 708 00:59:38,742 --> 00:59:43,997 At first, pornographic cinema was repressed, condemned. 709 00:59:44,164 --> 00:59:48,543 Then it reached a euphoric phase and was seen as an element 710 00:59:48,710 --> 00:59:52,089 that was part of contemporary pop culture. 711 01:00:13,110 --> 01:00:18,323 For me, porn was like a sexual revolution. 712 01:00:18,490 --> 01:00:23,954 I felt the same as Schicchi; we did it with passion. 713 01:00:24,121 --> 01:00:30,168 I wasn't ashamed, but Aristide did it for money and was ashamed. 714 01:00:30,335 --> 01:00:35,757 He always pointed out that he mainly worked on other films. 715 01:00:35,924 --> 01:00:41,138 At first, erotic films had value. They had a storyline, 716 01:00:41,304 --> 01:00:44,850 a script, lighting. 717 01:00:45,016 --> 01:00:49,187 His last porn movies were hell for him, red-light hell. 718 01:01:19,759 --> 01:01:25,932 I think his decision to start doing hardcore porn 719 01:01:26,099 --> 01:01:30,228 was a mistake. In fact, he paid the price, 720 01:01:30,395 --> 01:01:34,441 because then he was pigeonholed for that. 721 01:01:34,608 --> 01:01:39,404 He had some very interesting ideas for TV, 722 01:01:39,571 --> 01:01:44,075 but was turned down instantly because he made porn. 723 01:01:52,834 --> 01:01:54,544 And it is crazy... 724 01:01:54,544 --> 01:01:58,632 You know, a lot of... There are a lot of DP's 725 01:01:59,299 --> 01:02:04,596 and a lot of editors in America that started shooting porn films. 726 01:02:04,596 --> 01:02:07,766 Barry Sonnenfeld was a DP in porn films. 727 01:02:08,183 --> 01:02:11,228 A lot of editors. You know, Bill Lustig, all these directors, 728 01:02:11,686 --> 01:02:12,520 they started in porn. 729 01:02:12,520 --> 01:02:15,065 I mean, that was how you got your hands on a camera. 730 01:02:15,273 --> 01:02:16,149 There was no video. 731 01:02:16,149 --> 01:02:19,778 If you wanted to shoot 16mm, and you wanted to learn how to light, 732 01:02:19,778 --> 01:02:21,154 you shot porn movies. 733 01:02:21,238 --> 01:02:24,783 Now, you could translate that into mainstream cinema, 734 01:02:25,283 --> 01:02:27,202 but it wasn't a mark against you. 735 01:02:27,202 --> 01:02:30,288 It was just sort of what you did to learn the craft. 736 01:02:30,288 --> 01:02:32,832 You either went to film school or you worked on porn. 737 01:02:45,553 --> 01:02:50,517 I make hardcore porn for a practical reason: 738 01:02:50,684 --> 01:02:56,022 for income, to pull myself out of the deep shit I was in. 739 01:02:56,189 --> 01:02:59,609 I only do them for monetary reasons. 740 01:02:59,734 --> 01:03:03,280 I don't like making them. 741 01:03:12,205 --> 01:03:14,958 It's amazing that even at the B-movie retrospective, 742 01:03:16,001 --> 01:03:18,920 they still put him in, like, the Grade Z category. 743 01:03:19,379 --> 01:03:22,215 You know, they wouldn't let D'Amato be shown in Venice 744 01:03:22,632 --> 01:03:25,760 with, you know, Martino, or Cichero, 745 01:03:26,177 --> 01:03:28,179 or any of these other great-- Fernando Di Leo. 746 01:03:28,179 --> 01:03:31,266 Like, any of the other genre directors, the exploitation directors, 747 01:03:31,599 --> 01:03:34,686 somehow D'Amato was still seen as like bottom of the barrel. 748 01:03:35,103 --> 01:03:36,688 And I think it's wrong. 749 01:04:04,341 --> 01:04:08,511 I told him that he should've stuck to producing only. 750 01:04:08,678 --> 01:04:15,226 He had great interpersonal skills. He was likeable and trustworthy. 751 01:04:23,777 --> 01:04:27,447 He didn't want to become influential; he didn't believe in that. 752 01:04:27,614 --> 01:04:31,368 He couldn't stand people who were rich and influential. 753 01:04:31,910 --> 01:04:35,955 I admit I'm a bit pompous. 754 01:04:36,122 --> 01:04:39,084 I realize I can be like that. 755 01:04:39,250 --> 01:04:41,252 I pompously wanted 756 01:04:41,419 --> 01:04:49,010 to make things that don't work out well in the end. 757 01:04:49,177 --> 01:04:53,473 I pompously think I know everything, 758 01:04:53,640 --> 01:04:56,518 even if I don't know shit most of the time. 759 01:04:57,102 --> 01:05:00,438 He gained people's love. Everyone loved him. 760 01:05:01,439 --> 01:05:07,070 I have one regret: I was supposed to go see him, 761 01:05:07,237 --> 01:05:13,535 but as often happens, I put it off and shouldn't have. 762 01:05:13,701 --> 01:05:17,705 I was rather busy working on INCANTESIMO 763 01:05:17,872 --> 01:05:20,125 and barely had time to breathe, 764 01:05:20,291 --> 01:05:24,087 but sometimes, we have to make the time. 765 01:05:24,254 --> 01:05:29,134 Now I regret not having seen him a few more times. 766 01:05:29,300 --> 01:05:32,178 Mainly to delight in his laughter, 767 01:05:32,345 --> 01:05:39,102 because if there's one thing I recall with great emotion. 768 01:05:51,990 --> 01:05:53,199 Sorry. 769 01:05:57,787 --> 01:06:00,081 On the day of my father's funeral, 770 01:06:00,373 --> 01:06:04,627 something disappointed me a bit. 771 01:06:04,794 --> 01:06:09,424 Schicchi was there with his wife, a porn actress, 772 01:06:10,592 --> 01:06:14,679 and people were pointing at her, 773 01:06:14,846 --> 01:06:19,184 as if to accentuate the fact that he made porn movies. 774 01:06:19,350 --> 01:06:25,565 Many of his friends should have come, but they didn't. 775 01:06:27,108 --> 01:06:33,281 Many people turned their backs on him, friends he trusted 776 01:06:33,448 --> 01:06:36,451 turned their backs on him. 777 01:06:40,121 --> 01:06:42,123 HOT D'OR AWARD CEREMONY 778 01:06:48,505 --> 01:06:50,673 Goodbye to one of the last directors 779 01:06:50,840 --> 01:06:53,134 who still shot on 35mm. 780 01:06:53,551 --> 01:06:58,473 He left behind his masterpieces and a void in his field. 781 01:06:58,640 --> 01:07:03,186 A few images to remember Mr. Joe D'Amato. 782 01:07:15,281 --> 01:07:18,117 The headlines were: 783 01:07:18,284 --> 01:07:21,996 "The king of porn has died!" 784 01:07:25,917 --> 01:07:28,002 But that's not what he was. 785 01:07:30,880 --> 01:07:35,760 He would've never accepted or wanted something like that. 786 01:07:36,844 --> 01:07:42,141 Aristide isn't the king of porn, but the king of the masters of cinema. 787 01:07:42,308 --> 01:07:46,396 I've never met anyone with the knowledge he had, 788 01:07:46,563 --> 01:07:50,984 not even those famous directors, who I won't name. 789 01:07:51,150 --> 01:07:56,573 For me, he's the greatest master of life and cinema. 790 01:07:57,323 --> 01:07:58,866 Porn movies don't exist. 791 01:07:59,033 --> 01:08:02,704 If you want to dismiss Joe D'Amato because he made porn films, 792 01:08:02,704 --> 01:08:04,539 you're cheating yourself. 793 01:08:04,539 --> 01:08:06,249 You're cheating yourself on great movies. 794 01:08:06,249 --> 01:08:10,461 And if you want to go, okay, I'm never watching EMANUELLE IN AMERICA 795 01:08:11,129 --> 01:08:12,964 because there's horse sex. 796 01:08:12,964 --> 01:08:14,215 Watch the edited version. 797 01:08:14,215 --> 01:08:17,051 There are versions that are R-rated that cut that stuff out. 798 01:08:17,552 --> 01:08:20,805 But you can appreciate you're missing out on one of the coolest scores, 799 01:08:21,139 --> 01:08:24,934 one of the most incredible performances, some amazing costumes, the production 800 01:08:24,934 --> 01:08:25,935 design ideas. 801 01:08:25,935 --> 01:08:29,397 If I ever want to steal from movies, watch the Joe D'Amato movies. 802 01:08:29,397 --> 01:08:30,857 Watch those Emanuelle films. 803 01:08:30,857 --> 01:08:32,525 Look at the painting. Look at the couch. 804 01:08:32,525 --> 01:08:34,861 Look at that chair. They're just incredible. 805 01:08:35,903 --> 01:08:41,701 After the death of my father, I opened his briefcase 806 01:08:41,868 --> 01:08:48,082 and there was a note he wrote: "In the end, I'll show them who I am." 807 01:08:48,499 --> 01:08:54,714 I think after Filmirage closed down, 808 01:08:55,423 --> 01:09:00,803 going back to hardcore and those characters he no longer liked 809 01:09:00,970 --> 01:09:04,557 somehow killed him inside a bit. 810 01:09:04,724 --> 01:09:09,437 He no longer considered himself an artist, a master, a craftsman, 811 01:09:09,604 --> 01:09:15,860 even if he still had that flame inside that spoke the truth. 812 01:10:48,619 --> 01:10:54,208 Why do you think there are so many Joe D'Amato fans in the world? 813 01:10:55,960 --> 01:11:00,715 I ask myself the same thing. I have no idea! 814 01:11:00,882 --> 01:11:02,675 I have no idea. 815 01:11:03,217 --> 01:11:07,305 Do you consider yourself a better director or cinematographer? 816 01:11:07,472 --> 01:11:09,515 Cinematographer. 817 01:11:09,682 --> 01:11:13,227 As a director, do you feel you're a master of eroticism or horror? 818 01:11:13,394 --> 01:11:18,024 As a director, I consider myself 819 01:11:18,191 --> 01:11:19,817 a professional 820 01:11:20,943 --> 01:11:22,528 craftsman. 821 01:11:24,030 --> 01:11:27,325 Are you cynical about yourself? 822 01:11:27,492 --> 01:11:29,243 No. 823 01:11:29,410 --> 01:11:30,953 I am... 824 01:11:33,498 --> 01:11:35,500 Your greatest asset? 825 01:11:39,128 --> 01:11:40,880 Modesty, maybe. 826 01:11:42,048 --> 01:11:44,175 Your greatest flaw? 827 01:11:44,342 --> 01:11:46,260 Modesty. 828 01:12:30,388 --> 01:12:32,932 Subtitles: Laser S. Film s.r.I. - Rome