Joe D'Amato Totally Uncut

Joe D'Amato Totally Uncut "a respectable product. Wow, I consider it very interesting from all points of view, very thorough, superbly crafted and well made. I'm not a lover of the "documentary" but this time I wanted to make an exception, primarily because shot by Roger Fratter, an indie filmmaker that I am following with great interest for some time and I am very attracted by his way of making films, and secondly, because it was dedicated to one of my favorite directors, or the legendary and all too famous Joe D'amato aka Aristide Massaccesi, famous not only in Italy but also abroad (especially in the US) who died prematurely in 1999 only sixty-two. I must admit that I have been very difficult to recover these movies, in fact, in the late nineties and early two thousand, I went out in home video as an attachment to the magazine of cinema "Nocturno", specifically in three VHS, the first sixty minutes which analyzed the films of Joe D'Amato, the longest and most detailed generically rather the other two, the first by an hour and fifty minutes dedicated predominantly erotic and the second by an hour and twenty minutes that dealt with analyzing the 'horror and thriller. However, there are around other versions of this audiovisual product, bootleg versions with different images of movies and probably without the prior authorization of the director himself and maybe non-integral. Not finding the DVD version (I think it never left), I had to search for the seas and mountains, and that only thanks to a collector I managed to recover, and I could enjoy as well, about four total hours of interviews with Joe d'Amato, documentary among other things embellished with the participation of actors, producers, writers etc ... who have worked with him and who deliver an even richer tone to this work. The Roman director is considered the king of film genres, backed by about two hundred feature films, experimenting with virtually every imaginable kind, including porn, genre he defined very clearly NOT favorite, and he considered a kind of cinematic universe part, and that there had experimented only was a purely economic issue, and for the simple reason that it was much sought only to direct that particular kind of movie, but the fact remains that the efforts had nevertheless always and unfailing professionalism and competence although with the price of being unjustly defined by many, a red-light movie director, and to make things worse, and that this production took place in the last decade before his death. To report on how the aforementioned director, in his long career, was to be considered "complete" and lavishing in other areas, in fact, well directed, also confronted as an actor, producer, set designer ... and especially in the context of the Director photography, which according to her he felt more marked and more qualified. The interviews are very pleasant and instructive to see, Joe D'amato (perpetually with cigarette in hand) is very friendly, affable shows, and has a certain sympathy and irony, telling interesting and tasty anecdotes, trivia and background information regarding many of his films, the locations and actors, thus having the advantage of enriching (and impress) not just the viewer. Based on what I read around, Joe D'Amato Totally Uncut "is very well known abroad and who has enjoyed a good distribution, arriving to be broadcast in countries like Brazil, Portugal, France. Virtually a must !!! What else to say? Roger Fratter packs a welcome tribute to Joe D'Amato and with this documentary not exaggerating to say that the first has something in common with both the second film layer and both quantity. In the first definition, in Bergamo, this director's films are noted items and features conductive Joe d'Amato, including the use for example scenes of gore, splatter, sex sequences and nudity, but keeping however their personal style while about prolificacy Roger Fratter it is also in its own way, in fact, during his career he has released to date twelve feature films, two documentaries and two hundred and fifty short films. Also on this film there is also a documentary made right on him, by such a title did to Joe D'amato, or "Roger Fratter Totally Uncut" But that's another story ..

This documentary is as unique as it's subject. And while D'Amato's staple was erotica, the film manages to show some decent clips of the films you may remember from old time, late night Cinemax... One problem... Joe did hardcore porno at times mixed with softcore erotica, even mixed in his gore films. The gore films are cult classics, going for like $20 a pop for a dubbed copy on the net (not peanuts for 20 year old films, folks.) I want to see why those are cult classics. Also, as sweet as Joe seems (he did seem more elegant than one might expect,) the dude liked to shock. Both "Caligula: The Untold Story" and "Emanuelle in America" show us hardcore rape, snuff, and beastiality (in both, you'd be suprised how far he goes in "Caligula II" with that one, if you can track down an uncut print.) Although these scenes may be disconforting in a documentary of a persons career, hey, he did it... Also, I would have liked to see more interviews of people Joe worked with... Maybe that's just me wanting to see what Laura Gemser looks like these days... I still think she's a goddess and one of the sexiest women ever to grace the genre.

I suspect there are several cuts of this doco doing the rounds. The copy I saw focused heavily on Joe's erotic films and referred to his horror output in passing. There are numerous X-rated films presented in their X-rated glory and EMMANUELLE IN AMERICA'S legendary "snuff" footage (the breasts being cut off) is given generous screen time.

The interviews with the highly likable Joe are informative and candid. He is an unassuming, articulate gent and discusses his interest in shocking audiences, why he wanted to mix erotica with horror, and how he may have been responsible for one of his performers turning gay.

His friendship and working relationship with Indonesian beauty Laura Gemser is touched on, as is his indifferent attitude to shooting hardcore.

Joe D'Amato personifies an incredible period in Continental cinema that has now passed. It is great to see a documentary dedicated to him and his fine, unique work.

RIP, Joe.

The version I saw of this documentary was definitely NOT cut. In fact, I had quite the opposite problem with it. I thought they spent too much time focusing on D'Amato's hardcore porn career, which even he is dismissive of, and aside from his interestingly misbegotten early 80's attempts to marry hardcore porn and gut-munching zombie horror (i.e. "Porno Holocaust"), is simply not very interesting.

They cover the "Black Emanuelle" films pretty well, and I guess since this was focused primarily on his sex films, it's forgivable they don't go too much into his horror work. But except for one montage, they skipped over the period in the 80's when he was still trying (quite valiantly, given what was happening in the Italian film industry at the time) to make classy, relatively big-budget softcore erotica like "The Alcove" and "11 Days, 11 Nights". And maybe I'm just weird, but perhaps the most interesting films they do cover (that I haven't already seen anyway)are his early 70's "decamerotici" and the goofy sex comedy he did with Renzo Montagnini as a horny gynecologist.

As far as the many beautiful actresses he worked with over the years, they discuss Laura Gemser(of course) and African-American transsexual Ajita Wilson (who's interesting at least). But the only other ones they really mention are Sirpa Lane (ehhh), Marina Hedman (a talentless hardcore porn star without even the good looks of modern-day talentless hardcore porn stars), and Anna Begman (Ingemar Bergman's daughter, who D'Amato did one very bad film with and then tried to sign her name to it as the DIRECTOR). I would have liked to hear what D'Amato had to say about Ely Galeani, Paola Senatore, Lili Carati, Annie Belle, Monica Zanchi, and Nieves Navarro--all of whom D'Amato made several films with.

D'Amato does make for a lively interview subject and it's hard to believe he died only a few years after this.

I was very excited to see a documentary on one of my favorite Italian directors. D'Amato has dabbled in everything from Horror, post-apocalyptic to hardcore Porn. He has touched upon genius a couple of times with films like Buio Omega and Emmanuelle & The Last Cannibals. This documentary is a lenghty and informative guide to the films of D'Amato. He is interviewed throughout with English subtitles rolling across the bottom of the screen. The excerpts from his films are narrated by a narrator (with english subtitles). The documentary proved extra interesting when it analyzed the often censored "Emmanuelle In America". Here D'amato explaines the faked "snuff" scenes in detail and recalls some funny stories. In fact, good ol' Joe is very warm and funny throughout, always wearing a smile and smoking a cigarette. The one disapointing aspect of this documentary is that it spends little time on D'amato's Horror films like Anthropophagus and the brilliant Buio Omega. It spends too much time on the erotic cinema and hardly touches the post-apocaplyptic films. But, I can't complain. It is wonderful to see D'amato get the respect he deserves. Highly recommended for fans of D'amato. May he rest in peace.