Men in Black director Barry Sonnenfeld got his start as DP (here standing for “director of photography,” thank you very much) for a handful of adult flicks. Actors like Jackie Chan and Sylvester Stallone had early appearances in softcore, Skinemax-like movies. Some of the most recognizable and familiar names in movies got their start-or at least dabbled-in pure adult films, even if they’re not the true-blue hardcore stuff the urban legends make them out to be. And let’s not even get into the playful nudies, where everyone from Francis Ford Coppola to Roger Ebert got in on the action. Titillation is the whole battle in the grindhouse horror, and unsimulated sex acts bring realism to films by Michael Winterbottom, Lars von Trier, Andy Warhol, Jean-Luc Godard, Paul Verhoeven, Bertrand Bonello, Wayne Wang, Vincent Gallo, Joe Swanberg, Tsai Ming-liang, John Cameron Mitchell, Gaspar Noé, Yorgos Lanthimos and Catherine Breillat. For some in the indie world (and those that came from the world of exploitation cinema), the distinction drawn along that path has always been a blurry one. The porn-to-mainstream trajectory isn’t an uncommon one for filmmaking professionals.
