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Pornoland
"Whatever porno is, whatever porno does, you may regret it, but you cannot reject it. To paraphrase banish porno, and you banish all of the world." Martin Amis A land where sex is simulated, evoked, glorified, supercharged in the extreme, a land where everything is about the body, in its possible and perverse sexual combinations....This is Pornoland, a strange, parallel universe where pornographic films are churned out on a daily basis. Photographs by Stefano de Luigi and a text by Martin Amis are the guides through this world, filled with actors capable of extraordinary performances (although not the kind that would ever win Oscars), directors who can make an entire film in just one day, improvised sets, almost nonexistent plots, and locations that stay exactly the same from one day to the next. The journey encompasses Milan, Berlin, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo, Dortmund, and Los Angeles. It includes no trite moralizing, hasty judgments, or yearnings for redemption. Stefano de Luigi's images and Martin Amis's words use respect, humor, and irony to tell the story of a rarely glimpsed world full of crude colors and harsh brutality, bodily contortions and bursts of laughter, unexpected tenderness and situations on the very edge of the absurd. 54 color illustrations.
112 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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About the author
Martin Amis
114 books3,040 followersMartin Amis was an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His works included the novels Money, London Fields and The Information.
The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."
Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness."
The Guardian writes that "all his critics have noted what Kingsley Amis [his father] complained of as a 'terrible compulsive vividness in his style... that constant demonstrating of his command of English'; and it's true that the Amis-ness of Amis will be recognisable in any piece before he reaches his first full stop."
Amis's raw material is what he sees as the absurdity of the postmodern condition with its grotesque caricatures. He has thus sometimes been portrayed as the undisputed master of what the New York Times has called "the new unpleasantness."
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 12, 2014
What every household needs - a tabletop book of porn shoot photos.
A slightly altered and different-titled version of the article which is double-teamed from either side by pictures of naked people banging can be found in Vintage Amis, an unnecessary and misassembled potpourri of Amis' writings. My thoughts about the article in question are the same on this read through as they were here.
So what that leaves for me to mention are the pictures themselves. Stefano de Luigi presents his subject matter - the strange hyperreality of contextless sexual excess - with a respectful distancing from the material. He often goes for the artistic shot of a surreal shadow play being acted out on the wall, or of a flailing limb that has managed to peek its way into what would otherwise appear to be a still-life photograph of some other object or action incongruous to the mental visualization of a porn set. De Luigi rarely centers his lens on the full-nude human form but when he does the result can be captivating, such as the ineffable batter of emotions I felt when looking at a picture of a lithe but exhausted Japanese woman standing alone on a plastic tarp, her body entirely drenched in oil, an indecipherable and introspective expression painted on her face.
It would have been nice for a more in-depth probing into adult entertainment, an industry that is a zeitgeist in and of itself, one that defies conventional opinions and challenges any absolute ethical or moral stance; but I'm not sure Amis had the heart to do that. I don't know if I would have the heart to read it either.
A slightly altered and different-titled version of the article which is double-teamed from either side by pictures of naked people banging can be found in Vintage Amis, an unnecessary and misassembled potpourri of Amis' writings. My thoughts about the article in question are the same on this read through as they were here.
So what that leaves for me to mention are the pictures themselves. Stefano de Luigi presents his subject matter - the strange hyperreality of contextless sexual excess - with a respectful distancing from the material. He often goes for the artistic shot of a surreal shadow play being acted out on the wall, or of a flailing limb that has managed to peek its way into what would otherwise appear to be a still-life photograph of some other object or action incongruous to the mental visualization of a porn set. De Luigi rarely centers his lens on the full-nude human form but when he does the result can be captivating, such as the ineffable batter of emotions I felt when looking at a picture of a lithe but exhausted Japanese woman standing alone on a plastic tarp, her body entirely drenched in oil, an indecipherable and introspective expression painted on her face.
It would have been nice for a more in-depth probing into adult entertainment, an industry that is a zeitgeist in and of itself, one that defies conventional opinions and challenges any absolute ethical or moral stance; but I'm not sure Amis had the heart to do that. I don't know if I would have the heart to read it either.
January 7, 2011
Short read. Overall, didn't really like it. Neither the text nor the photography really captured me, and the entire thing left me with a metaphorical bad taste in my mouth.
December 10, 2020
Le fotografie sono del tutto insignificanti. Il testo di Martin Amis è a modo suo brillante, ma piuttosto moralistico e pieno di luoghi comuni. L'impostazione grafica e la qualità di stampa del volume sono pessime. Il mondo è già del suo pieno di gente che dice che il porno è una cosa brutta, sporca e cattiva. C'era bisogno anche di questo volume, oltre tutto pure con l'alibi dell'interpretazione artistica?
November 21, 2021
Features behind the scenes images of the business, with some interviews in the middle, not an easy life. Insightful.
June 8, 2024
Hard to tell at what point Amis's essay was attached to this art house coffee table book. It is mid-career funny, while still referencing John Updike, Phillip Larkin, et al. Despite, "the porno house, the porno deck, the porno pool... the porno fish in the porno tank," both the photographs and Amis's 16-page piece feel almost anti-porn.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews