(July 17, 2012 on FERAL HOUSE)
"PURE FILTH" by Peter Sotos, introduction by Jamie Gillis.
Product Description
Jamie Gillis appeared in over one hundred films, and as such was a primary performer in pornography's "Golden Age." Gillis is also known for inventing the "Gonzo" genre of pornography, played out in the film Boogie Nights by Burt Reynolds' character.
Pure Filth appears as transcripts from the films Jamie produced during these early years of radical and highly personal pornography. Completed just before his death in February 2010, Gillis contributed an introduction to each transcript to shed light on his ideas and plans, as well as anecdotal details and personal commentary. The book has more to do with an artist's understanding of sex than the mere views of a flesh peddler. The careful language and brutal intelligence that Jamie brought to interviews are what separates the conversations from any other work that might have more academic or prurient pretensions.
Extreme novelist Peter Sotos, perhaps better known and appreciated in France and the United Kingdom than his home country, was a good friend of Jamie Gillis, and Sotos' unusual perspective makes this volume possible.
About the Author
Peter Sotos became interested in Jamie Gillis' "private tapes" after being told of their limited existence by an old troll in a porn shop that specialized in under-the-counter sales. Thinking that the films Jamie was releasing were far more intriguing than sex acts performed by low level prostitutes, Sotos started transcribing the conversations that took place between filmmaker and performer. It is his contention that the work is more about the insulting elasticity of respect than it is an obscene record of hookers pushed to their mental, rather than purely physical, limits.
Jamie Gillis is known as one of the first male "superstars" of pornography. He started his career in NY during the early basement years and lasted through the Times Square and LA glitz booms, eventually creating the gonzo ("reality porn") genre. He was one of the very few actors capable of introspectively writing about his career, tastes and experiences during his lifetime, and most of it pre-internet. In Pure Filth, Jamie explains that his interest in what sex really is came from his greater desire for "exploration and exposure of the sexual imagination in all its variety". PURE FILTH- by Peter Sotos, introduction by Jamie Gillis.
