I was worried about my first post being about a doc, but I am admittedly in my docking era. Maybe it’s more fair to say that Kamikaze Hearts is in documentary-style, sometimes feeling more like an episode of Documentary Now! in its hyper-stylization than anything too arty. Directed by Juliet Bashore, the 1986 film follows two women, both porn actresses and addicts, as they attempt to navigate a sticky romance set during the Golden Age of Porn in San Francisco.
The primary subject of fascination for Bashore, who had experience working on a porn set prior to shooting this, is Sharon Mitchell, a porn actress who moves through the world in a Fleabag-like manner— quirkily, avoidant of any sort of label, identity, or vulnerability. She also has dark, curly hair and a piercing gaze that could easily shatter a fourth wall. One of her biggest charms, at least according to the people around her, is being from New York City. Outside of porn, Mitchell also had bit parts in Tootsie and The Deer Hunter. Bashore thinks she’s pretty cool, and I get why too.
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I’ve always been very serious about adult film stars, and have found over time that it’s easier to jerk off to someone when you know their name (stage name counts) and a little bit about their personality. I guess this makes me an empath, but I also feel like it’s pretty elementary. We all want to know someone seemingly unknowable, etc. It’s why gays project specific personalities and virtues onto A-list actresses. Watching porn, if you’re good at it, is like trying to understand why Naomi Watts, one of the greatest mainstream film actresses of our time, has such a meh career. When Watts was Nicole Kidman’s (alleged) nanny, did she leave pee all over the toilet seat? Let’s say she did. We must assume she’s unkind, radical, and in flop purgatory because of some sort of character flaw that only people of a certain access know. The interminable Don’t Worry Darlings press cycle continues to exist because we like to guess who these people are behind the scenes.
I wonder if that is why, with Twitter, I see so many of my pals follow pornstars. You’re already stealing their work, so it’s more than getting off. There’s room for engagement and insight into the life of a performer. I can know how big someone’s dick is, but I also could know if they go to Westville for lunch. There’s the drama of it too. The petty feuds, the mundane replies, how someone punctuates or doesn’t, and your own projections.
Maybe that’s a bit of a tangent, but it feels like what Bashore stumbles upon with Mitchell, someone alluring, inscrutable, AN ACTRESS. If Meisner was horny, she’d have been trained by him. We are given access, or at least that what it feels like, to this person who is out of our league. The film is more than “a sex workers are people too” in that way. It shows us that they have skills beyond sucking and fucking that make them ultra-talented. Mitchell’s girlfriend, Tigr (slay!) states this sort of bluntly. She tells us, with a cross between admiration and frustration, that Mitchell fucks onscreen the way she does offscreen. And even Mitchell herself swears that she’d be unable to do porn if she had to be Sharon Mitchell. It’s like any other role, you need to lose yourself and find the character. That’s a real fucking skill and it sounds hard, especially if you’re riding a dick or, like, waiting to be cued to cum. A cum cue. What makes Mitchell a great subject, is that she never drops the act.
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I’m trying not to interrogate my relationship to porn too deeply, because I feel like that’s in right now (while interrogating things as a whole is out). I do know that, like any good gay stereotype, I do enjoy artifice, something put on, something someone much smarter and dumber than me would call campy. In an unexpected and unintentional way, Bashore’s film outlines a process and methodology. By giving us a taste of her life, both the intimate one and the stage one, Bashore has us understand Mitchell’s genius.
There’s s some envy in all of this too. Kamikaze Hearts reminded me that every so often I’ll watch porn and wish I could do it. But it always feels so far away. Not because of fear and insecurity (those are always a given), but just because of all that goes into creating a persona that essentially would be a version of Eric Who Fucks. Mitchell’s full of amazing one-liners and film references and can turn herself on and off at her will. I think a favorite moment in the film is when she stops a shoot, midway, and plainly says she has to pee. Tigr is annoyed by it, of course, but at this moment we are getting Mitchell the Diva, a persona that is undoubtedly part of her Actress Toolkit. It just seemed incredible, in that moment, to like, not only be someone who has sex, but someone who has it onscreen. And then, to have it onscreen where you’re also playing a version of yourself that you have to tap into. For most of us, it’s hard to be anything at all when we are intimate. Anyway, that’s my cum cue. Time to go.
Kamikaze Hearts is available to rent on Prime, YouTube, Vudu, Google Play, and Apple.