Artist Oat Montien began his presentation at the Sala Saneha cinema yesterday with a content advisory: anyone offended by images of frontal nudity should retreat to the venue’s bar. But given that his lecture was titled Porn, which was emblazoned like a banner headline on the event poster, everyone knew what to expect.
The trigger warning was tongue-in-cheek — and some of the film clips he played were literally tongue-in-cheek. Oat showed explicit extracts from The Devil (El Sartorio, one of the first hardcore films), Flower (a short film from 2017 by Matt Lambert), and James Bidgood’s underground film Pink Narcissus from 1971.
Oat’s lecture covered the history of porn in film and photography, from the early ‘stag reels’ of the 1900s to the ‘beefcake’ pin-ups of the 1950s and the ‘porno chic’ era of the 1970s. He explained how porn alternates between realism and fantasy, public and private, permissible and forbidden.
Pink Narcissus was the cornerstone of the lecture, and Oat highlighted its long-lasting stylistic influence. The film’s kitsch theatricality and dreamy opulence established a queer aesthetic that still exists today, not least in Oat’s own short films, such as Mochit and his ‘desert trilogy’ of Untie, Oasis (โอเอซิส), and Ravine.
The event was the first in the Sala Lecture series. The Bangkok arthouse cinema opened in March this year, and shows classic films (including Barry Lyndon) alongside selected new releases such as Morte Cucina (ครัวสาว).
Hard Core and Screening Sex, by Linda Williams, are the definitive academic studies of cinematic sex, and Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art is an essential survey of transgressive films. Thai Cinema Uncensored examines the history of sex in Thai film.
The trigger warning was tongue-in-cheek — and some of the film clips he played were literally tongue-in-cheek. Oat showed explicit extracts from The Devil (El Sartorio, one of the first hardcore films), Flower (a short film from 2017 by Matt Lambert), and James Bidgood’s underground film Pink Narcissus from 1971.
Oat’s lecture covered the history of porn in film and photography, from the early ‘stag reels’ of the 1900s to the ‘beefcake’ pin-ups of the 1950s and the ‘porno chic’ era of the 1970s. He explained how porn alternates between realism and fantasy, public and private, permissible and forbidden.
Pink Narcissus was the cornerstone of the lecture, and Oat highlighted its long-lasting stylistic influence. The film’s kitsch theatricality and dreamy opulence established a queer aesthetic that still exists today, not least in Oat’s own short films, such as Mochit and his ‘desert trilogy’ of Untie, Oasis (โอเอซิส), and Ravine.
The event was the first in the Sala Lecture series. The Bangkok arthouse cinema opened in March this year, and shows classic films (including Barry Lyndon) alongside selected new releases such as Morte Cucina (ครัวสาว).
Hard Core and Screening Sex, by Linda Williams, are the definitive academic studies of cinematic sex, and Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art is an essential survey of transgressive films. Thai Cinema Uncensored examines the history of sex in Thai film.