Exhibition 79

No sex in this movie ; this is a documentary focusing on the personality of Claudine Beccarie,one of the leading figures of mid-70s French porn production. By that time she had decided to stop performing in front of the cameras. Davy tries to draw a statement of how it was then to work in the pornographic business. He possibly was aware that something was changing, and that production means & ways of living and thinking would change the viewers' minds and the work in itself. In fact, the film, through the analysis of Beccarie's lives (sex life, family life, child life, life at the farm, and so on) draws the portrait of the era, with its clichés (intentionally maintained ?) and its good stuff -- which lies in fact in Claudine's charisma, since the girl's simplicity and honesty are just moving. By the way, she has such a nice voice ! ... Anyway, this film deserves a viewing in spite of its many weaknesses (the scenes with the young actors dealing with the so-much-talked-about "Is pornography a form of prostitution ?" and all that kind of stuff) because of the funny music and the spread-throughout smell of that so nice era -- the seventies. Just one example : Claudine speaking about Love and romantic life for a woman -- just essential matters -- holding closely a sweet rabbit in her arms. This may be the worst form of our French humor, in its own peculiar way.

Four years after his groundbreaking – not to mention phenomenally successful at the box office – porn documentary EXHIBITION, filmmaker Jean-François Davy chose to revisit the subject with the same actress who had impressed him so much the first time around, the extraordinary Claudine Beccarie, who had revealed herself in ways probably even she had not foreseen back in 1975. One of the very first major French porno stars (only Sylvia Bourdon and – perhaps – Ellen Earl could claim the same magnitude at the time), Beccarie had proved herself a compelling conduit for a more focused study of the burgeoning sex industry than Davy's previous attempt, the lightweight LES PORNOCRATES which had merely scratched the surface by casting its net too wide. Fascinated by her (in a candid interview, included on the French DVD, he confesses he had a brief post-shooting affair with the actress), Davy had planned to go back to Beccarie and see what she was doing every four years, ably assisted by cinematographer Roger Fellous, eventually crafting another feature out of these snapshots. She disappeared from view after 1983 however, so the director added the segment he had shot that year (when she was running a duck farm) along with a bowdlerized version of EXHIBITION 79 to the original when released on tape through his flourishing video company Fil à Film.

Post-career and following a second divorce from fellow performer Didier Faya as well as an abortion of the child she had expressed such longing for in the original, Claudine has retreated to a quiet little country village to raise rabbits and chickens with the help of live-in girlfriend Nova. Occasionally reluctant to relate the documented events seen by thousands, interjected as hazy flashbacks, she has left the adult industry behind her with the exception of doing the occasional strip show (behind glass !) at the town fair. Already eschewing explicit content in light of France's stringent porn laws, forcing the genre from the bustling boulevards to a side streets ghetto of "specialized" theaters, Davy repeatedly tries to talk his leading lady into showing some skin, realizing he still has to deliver a commercially viable product. Suggesting he knows her body all too well, she's having none of that. He gets his revenge of sorts when she strips at film's end, wildly zooming in on her breasts and buttocks. Perhaps in order to beef up the exploitable content or as an honest attempt to analyze the state of the adult industry near the end of the '70s, Davy shifts focus to include a number of other performers such as Richard Lemieuvre (a/k/a "Richard Allan"), who recounts his disintegrating marriage to Liliane as a direct result of their working together, and a very youthful Marilyn Jess (still using her real name : Dominique Troyes), very much in love with and hoping to marry fellow performer Didier Humbert. This never happened, so I will leave you to draw your own conclusion. Most heartbreaking to me, Davy interviews lovely Cathy Greiner (a/k/a "Cathy Stewart") and boyfriend Dominique Hérissou (sometimes "Irissou") in segments brimming with the intimacy and casual carnality only a real life couple can generate. After just a year and a half in this business, Cathy already displays a somewhat disheartening though realistic lack of illusion towards it. This exquisite creature, whose only mainstream (well, sort of) credit was a shattering turn in Jean Rollin's mesmerizing LA NUIT DES TRAQUEES, passed away in 1994 after a lifetime of rampant substance abuse had left her but a hollow shell. One can but hope that Claudine did not befall the same fate. Rumor has it that she withdrew into anonymity as a shop keeper to an even smaller community than the one displayed here. I hope that's true…

Reading the previous paragraph, one might get the impression that I have become a turncoat on the adult industry and that EXHIBITION 79 and its maker have an anti-porn agenda to work out as well. Neither of these assumptions would be correct, but one has to concede that it takes courage, strength, perseverance as well as a good head on one's shoulders to weather the abuse – the strain on one's body and psyche from physical exploitation vs. the public scorn, albeit hypocritical, as a result – that comes with regular employment as an erotic performer. This holds true in the more relaxed situation today and it certainly did back in 1979. Allow me to close with the wistful lyrics to the end credits song composed by Daniel Longuein, perfectly echoing this viewer's sentiment as to Claudine's whereabouts : "Send us a postcard, let us know everything's alright…"