Peep shows: cult film and the cine-erotic

This edited collection brings together international experts in film and cultural studies and professional directors and performers to 1) situate pornography in the broader context of the cine-erotic; 2) consider the role the erotic has played within the wider history of cinema; and 3) explain how the cine-erotic has been used to both bolster and challenge social structures and cultural hierarchies. By opening up scholarly dialogue of pornography to include the cine-erotic, Mendik’s edited collection shows the extent to which taboo sexual imagery is often rearticulated by a wide range of cult cycles that transcend soft and hard-core pornographic divisions. As well as editing the collection, Mendik contributes an 8,000-word introduction and case-study style chapter that both develop his previous explorations of controversial cinema practices and cinema genres that lie at the margins of academic study (Alternative Europe: Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945, 2004; and Shocking Cinema of the Seventies, 2002). The introduction provides a critical review of existing feminist and cultural studies approaches to the erotic image before going on to map out new territories for investigation that explore the theoretical understandings of both national, sub-cultural and reception approaches to the erotic image. Exploring this territory in his chapter, Mendik examines whether the writings of the Marquis de Sade and more recent re-readings of Sade (such as those by Maurice Charney and John Phillips) can help in understanding the relationship between D’Amato’s controversial films of the 1970s and 1980s and his erotic titles of the 1990s. Expanding on the methodological approach tested out in [1], Mendik shows how D’Amato did not merely release a range of Sadean adaptations in his final wave of productions, but rather films that demonstrate a style and repetitive structure akin to Sade’s philosophies of disrupting both self and narrative structures.