film – The History of BDSM

Sanctuary (2022): The Celluloid Dungeon

Nov 142024

Margaret Qualley as Rebecca and Christopher Abbott as Hal.

Sanctuary is a 2022 drama film directed by Zachary Wigon and written by Micah Bloomberg. IMDB Amazon

This essay contains spoilers.

Sanctuary resembles David Ives’ stage play Venus in Fur (film adaptation by Roman Polanski): it focuses on two people in a single location, and deals with the constantly shifting power relations between a man and a woman.

Hal (Christopher Abbot) is the heir of a hotel empire. He’s about to be appointed the CEO after the death of his father. In the luxury suite of one of the hotels, he meets with Rebecca, who at first appears to be a lawyer who will interview him for the position. This escalates into a humiliation scene of Rebecca watching while Hal cleans the toilet in his underwear.

Choke (2008): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Oct 012024

Choke is a 2008 dark comedy based on a novel by Chuck Palahniuk, written and directed by Clark Gregg. Amazon

When I’ve asked leather guys whether they’d rather make it with a real Con Ed [repair] man or a lawyer who looks like one, the question baffles them. It lies outside the system of their fantasies. In their hearts they may know that the lawyer would be more adventurous and uninhibited lover, but their passion demands he at least appear to be a worker.
White, Edmund. 1979 “Sado Machismo”, from The Burning Library: Essays , Knopf, New York, 1994

Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell) is a recovering, self-described “sex addict”, who fakes choking in restaurants so that he can emotionally manipulate his rescuers, which is to pay for supporting his Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother Ida (Anjelica Huston). He also works as a Colonial American historical re-enactor, performing a sanitized version of historical times.

(Spoilers ahead)

The Libertine (1968): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Sep 142024

The Libertine, also know as La Matriarca, is a 1968 film directed by Pasquale Festa Campanile and starring Catherine Spaak. IMDB

A wealthy man, Franco, suddenly dies and leaves everything to his young, beautiful wife, Margherita (aka Mimi). She finds that he had been seeing a string of mistresses, and sets out on a journey of sexual exploration.

Femina Ridens (The Laughing Woman), 1969: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jul 152024

Femina Ridens (aka The Laughing Woman, The Frightened Woman) is a 1969 Italian psychological drama, starring Philippe Leroy and Dagmar Lassander, and directed by Piero Schivazappa. IMDB

Dr. Sayer kidnaps Maria, a young woman, and locks her in his prison-like apartment, saying he will psychologically torture her into loving him, then kill her. Maria, however, is much more than she appears.

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed (2023): The Celluloid Dungeon

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Jun 292024

The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed is a 2023 comedy-drama, directed and written by Joanna Arnow and starring Arnow, Scott Cohen and Babak Tafti. IMDB

Ann, a thirty-something woman in New York City, seeks relief from the difficulties with her job and family through submission to various men.

Remedy (2013): The Celluloid Dungeon

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May 182024

Remedy is a 2013 drama directed by Cheyenne Picardo and written by Picardo et al.

A young woman known only by her nomme de domme, Remedy (Kira Davies), explores the world of professional domination and submission. She has some experience with BDSM at a night club, where she met a woman named Astrid, who hooked her up with a dungeon in NYC. Her motivation isn’t clear, whether it’s money or something else. (She has an unseen boyfriend and works as a children’s tutor.)

My Normal (2009): The Celluloid Dungeon

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May 132024

*Natalie (Nicole LaLiberte) speaks with her fellow pro dommes*

My Normal is a 2009 comedy-drama about a professional dominatrix living in NYC, directed by Irving Schwartz, written by Abdul Malik Abbott, Renee Garzon, Keith Planit, and Adam Sales, and starring Nicole LaLiberte. Amazon

Natalie (aka “Ashley”) juggles her work as a pro domme with pressures from her family to get married and have kids, and looking for love as a lesbian. She gets her break to work in the film industry but encounters a new set of problems.

Mary Gaitskill’s “Minority Report”, 30 years after “Secretary”

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Apr 112024

Mary Gaitskill’s short story “Secretary” (previously discussed) was first published in 1988, then was eventually adapted into the 2002 film Secretary. I’ve already discussed the differences between the script by Erin Cressida Wilson and the film directed by Steven Shainberg, so there’s a kind of family tree connecting the story and the movie.

Gaitskill herself has described the film as “the Pretty Woman version of my story.” (Gaitskill, Mary. “Victims and Losers: A Love Story; Thoughts on the Movie Secretary” Somebody With a Little Hammer: Essays, Pantheon Books: New York, 2017) Last year, the New Yorker magazine published (March 27, 2023) Gaitskill’s follow-up story “Minority Report”. It tells the story of Debby and her life after her encounter with “the lawyer,” now given the name of Ned Johnson.

“Minority Report” is less a sequel than a retelling of the same event from Debby’s changed perspective as a woman in her 50s, and her difficulty in understanding and expressing her experience. The title explicitly comes from the Steven Spielberg film of the same name, in which precognitive people experience flashes of future events while kept in a sedated state, and a team of detectives have to interpret these scattered, impressionistic glimpses of possible crimes and decide what to do.

Secretary: the script, by Erin Cressida Wilson: The Celluloid Dungeon

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Apr 092024

Secretary (2002) has taken up a disproportionate amount of time in researching and writing The Celluloid Dungeon. I already knew there were a lot of differences between Mary Gaitskill’s original short story and the finished film directed by Steven Shainberg, but I’ve since learned there were significant differences between Erin Cressida Wilson’s script and the finished product. (See Ariel Schudson’s “Secretary and Adaptation: the Telephone theory”) Thanks to inter-library loan, I’ve borrowed a copy of the script book, which also includes essays by Wilson and others.