The
late Joseph W. Sarno was never accused of being a ruthless businessman. The soft-core sexploitation director is
considered an auteur by many, but he rarely had an ownership stake in the films
he made. As a result, the Sarno family finances
are a bit precarious, making it a challenge to secure financing for a new
film. Wiktor Ericsson follows Sarno and
his wife Peggy Steffans Sarno as they take their bows on the international film
festival circuit and plug away on his comeback attempt in The Sarnos: A Life in Dirty Movies (trailer here), which screens
tomorrow during DOC NYC 2013.
Films
like Inga and Sin in the Suburbs made a ton of money for somebody, playing to
packed old school Times Square grindhouse theaters. Sarno just got to make the next one. At least, he met his future wife when she
accepted a part in one of his films.
Like many of his regulars, she was a legit stage thesp, who brought real
acting chops to his films. Frankly,
opinions vary regarding the acting you will find in Sarno’s cinematic
statements, but let’s just assume the best for now. Likewise, not everyone buys into Sarno’s
press as the “Ingmar Bergman of Sexploitation,” but enough do for us to take it
seriously.
Indeed,
Ericsson records for posterity the Sarnos enjoying their overdue ovations at a
BFI retrospective, which is about as real as it gets. Not surprisingly, John Waters (the Martin
Scorsese of grindhouse docs) is on hand to put Sarno’s career in perspective. A Sarno film definitely explores sexual
subjects, but it is uncharacteristically concerned with female fulfillment. They are also dark, psychologically complex,
and often kind of weird. Waters suggests
they probably were not all that satisfying for 42nd Street patrons
looking to take care of business—and he would know from firsthand experience.
Unfortunately,
time passed by Sarno’s slightly scandalous oeuvre. Reluctantly, he accepted some pseudonymous hardcore
work, but that was not his thing. As the
product of their circumstances, Ericcson’s Life
in Dirty Movies is surprisingly wistful, especially by provocative doc
standards. Ironically, it is a rather
nostalgic, almost conservative film, focusing on the Sarnos’ enduring love.
Frankly,
the film’s niceness to naughtiness ratio might not go over so well with its
target audience. Dirty is real and honest, but the course of human events would deny
it a big finish. Despite the pleasantness of the Sarnos, the doc is rather
small in scope, feeling better suited to television than the big screen. Norwegian jazz musician Bugge Wesseltoft’s
upbeat score helps enhance its cinematic quality, but there is no getting
around Dirty’s talky intimacy.
