It’s a good thing that the No Film School podcast has a parental advisory, because this week, we’re going straight into NC-17 territory to discuss a film that opens with close-up shots of a reverse piledriver. (Google it—when you’re not at work.)
The film in question isn’t a porn…or is it? We get into that debate with the film’s co-directors, Josephine Decker and Zefrey Throwell, along with Ashley Connor, the DP who filmed them having real-life sex, among many other intimate circumstances.
“Our DP journeyed with us into the most intimate possible waters that you can journey with other people.” —Zefrey Throwell
Their collaboration is Flames, which premiered as the opening documentary at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. But whether or not the film might constitute a porn is not the only question at hand. Flames is also part of the ever-growing canon of artfully created doc-fiction hybrids that leave audiences unsure about what’s real and what’s not. In this case, even the co-directors disagree about whether the film is fictional or not in its portrayal of the real-life relationship and breakup between Decker and Throwell. In Decker’s words, it asks: How do you recover when someone breaks your heart?
No Film School's Liz Nord spoke with Decker and Ashley Connor— who also shot Decker’s previous feature films Thou Wast Mild and Lovely and Butter on the Latch—and Throwell, for whom Flames is a feature debut, the day after their Tribeca premiere. We discussed the fine line between porn and art, what happens when you add a third person and a camera to your relationship, how they managed to make a cinematic-looking film on the 5D, and so much more.
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This episode was produced and edited by Jon Fusco.
