Emanuelle in America (1976)
Blue Underground DVD (region 1)

d. Joe D'Amato; scr. Maria Pia Fusco; ph. Aristide Massacessi; m. Nico Fidenco; ed. Vincenzo Tomassi; cast. Laura Gemser, Garbiele Tinti, Roger Brown, Riccardo Salvino, Lars Bloch, Paola Senatore, Maria Piera Regoli (100 mins)

The mid to late 1970s saw a roar in Italian exploitation cinema. 

These films collectively reached new levels of moral provocation in their graphic and frequently pornographic approach to gore, sex and violence.  One of the more under-rated directors in this dubious boom period was former cinematographer Joe D’Amato, who found much popularity with a series of erotic films based on the hit Emmanuelle.  This soft-core movie about a woman’s erotic journey would be vastly imitated officially and unofficially in numerous sequels (with subtle variations in the spelling of the character’s name to avoid copyright laws).  D’Amato came onto one such series of spin-offs and with star Laura Gemser created some of the most disturbing films in the already disreputable vogue.  What was disturbing about these was the way in which D’Amato took the conventions of the soft-core erotic odyssey and combined it with other bleaker genres, particularly the graphic horror film.  The movie of Emanuelle in America was thus considered something of a dispiriting nadir in exploitation film, an explicitly pornographic movie that most worrisomely sought to explore the erotic potential of what had recently been termed the “snuff” film following the release of a horror movie, Snuff, the marketing and contents of which had outraged feminists.  In the process, D’Amato created a film that is virtually indefensible on moral grounds.

In this rather troublesome film, Eurasian actress (and former nude model) Laura Gemser stars as a photo-journalist specializing in matters of sexual mores. 

A professional career woman, she is also sexually liberated and promiscuous (a modern feminist in the film’s terms) and is drawn to seek out and report on those aspects of society which advocate a “libertine” approach to sexuality.  Her investigations take her through a series of encounters in various places around the world – from a farm where a proud and egotistical man keeps a private harem of willing women (one for each star sign) to a special club providing male sex slaves to needy women.  All of these function as an excuse for much nudity and an almost playful eroticism (although a graphic scene involving a woman and a horse really is demeaning, even within exploitation cinema).  However, on one such undercover mission she sees a couple making out as they watch a movie showing the explicit torture and rape of a woman.  Gemser becomes fascinated by this piece of disturbing actuality footage and starts to investigate its source.  The trail leads to Washington where she meets a senator who shows her a film, feeds her LSD and takes her to South America to watch the real torture and murder of women as an intended erotic stimulant.  On her return she seeks to publish her encounter but there are forces which would suppress it.

Emanuelle in America starts off as just another piece of harmless soft-core erotica but gradually turns into something far more distressing and even Sadean. 

At first it is playful in its amorality but then ventures into more dangerous terrain.  Indeed, the film seems intended as a moral affront, a kind of perilous shock erotica.  Were it not so laughably silly for much of its length it would be truly, subversively, provocative in the manner of such controversial and much-banned films as Salo and Caligula (both of which emerged around the same time in this period of controversial Italian cinema).  As it is, it takes the 1970s credo of sexual freedom, the challenging nature of feminist liberation and the libertine desire to experience all forms of erotica to its most abhorrent levels.  Rather than being an erotic journey thus, it becomes a descent into a kind of pornographic inferno, a truly Sadean realm where not only is sadistic torture validly erotic but the act of watching it (and hence watching it on film or as simulated film) is sexually arousing.  Sadistic torture and murder are presented as erotic spectacles for the characters in the film, and arguably for the viewer watching Emanuelle in America itself.  There are films within films and representations within representations to obfuscate this theme but nevertheless the direction is clear – sexual liberation and the pursuit of greater thrills leads to the validation of Sadean erotica. 

At one point Emanuelle says that sex is loving, not dirty – the film seeks to prove her wrong and, despite a shallow happy ending which switches too abruptly from hell on Earth to paradise on Earth, succeeds as a bleak view of human sexual aberration. 

The film is wholly reluctant to endorse any moral perspective or criticism as if it has reached a point of total amorality / immorality.  Viewing “snuff” is presented as almost transcendentally erotic.  This possibility clearly fascinates D’Amato but he seems uncertain how to react to it and the result is a kind of moral indifference – is this the future of American morality in an era where the legitimization of hardcore pornography is merely a gateway?  The film contains enough hints of self-awareness to be objectively distant, but it is arguable to what extent this makes the film a responsible thematic assessment of disturbing social trends.  It is something of a test case in the history of exploitation cinema, both shocking and numbing in intention, leaving the viewer morally exhausted.  Faced with erotic freedom and abandon, the male libertine will seek to destroy and deface “liberated”, independent women through humiliation by violent sexual torture and will in turn eroticize this process – DeSade was only the beginning of a descent into a sexual abyss that cinema has rarely explored.  This film is indeed one of those explorations, well made enough for some truly unsettling reactions.

DVD DETAILS:

Vision
The anamorphic widescreen transfer is somewhat grainy at times but is evidence of a superior treatment, especially for such exploitation fare.  It is presented in uncut format (and is thus released unrated) – the hardcore moments, disgusting horse scene and rape / snuff footage sequences are intact: for better or worse.  Although mostly clean, sometimes it looks a little murky and there are minor frame edge problems despite its fine sense of natural daylight.  There is much nudity and copulation (both softcore and hardcore) but what is most engrossing is the way the film progresses from the playfully perverse to the sadistically pornographic: this descent is the film’s most complex achievement and makes for its disturbing assessment of both sexual mores and the representation of such.  In that, its fusion of genres is intelligent and deliberate, though perhaps all the more upsetting for it – it does propose a cinema in which snuff is an ideal.  The necessary contrast of Western and Third World locations and related socio-economic factors works well in this context.  Artworks and films-in-films recur frequently as there is a sense of self-consciousness about the movie – it is also one of the first films to visualize what a snuff movie would look like (one location, grainy film stock, handheld camera, fragmentary editing) although is rather teasing about this.  The film has superior production values and is alarmingly explicit.

Sound
The sound transfer is presented in Dolby Digital mono only and has at times a centered, hollow sound.  The 1970s Euro-rock score is somewhat effective and surprisingly elaborate (the CD soundtracks of Italian exploitation are often as collectible as the movies themselves).  The sounds of pleasure, and later pain, have an almost hallucinatory quality, adding to the fragmentary approach during the LSD sequence.  What is most intriguing about the aural design is the use of music during the “erotic” scenes.  Said music is played over all the sex scenes until the first snuff film sequence, where there is just the sound of the projector – this stark moment signifies that this is a turning point in the movie – it is no longer playful or erotic but something far more sinister and even more “real”.  Here is the evidence of D’Amato’s awareness of the implications of where he will take this film.  The re-entry of music thus signals the character’s own ambiguity concerning snuff as possibly just a heightened form of erotic experience (although the film fails to really delve into the Gemser’s oddly ambiguous reactions to such sexist atrocity).  One sex scene unfolds during a classical music recital, perhaps a comment about high and low culture, another motif in the movie.  The LSD scenes have an otherworldly sense of sound distortion, which further the sense that “snuff” is an infernal but transcendental viewing experience.

Special Features

There are several special features, including lengthy talent biographies of director D’Amato and star Gemser.  There is a text section by David Flint, titled “Joe D’Amato and the Black Emanuelles” which outlines the history of this segment of exploitation erotica.  Of additional interest is an interview (apparently taken from a lengthier documentary) with D’Amato in which he tellingly says that “hardcore is the complete destruction of eroticism”, talks of his mix of genres, of the demand by distributors to add hardcore footage and of the snuff controversy surrounding the movie.  He concludes that the only way to involve the viewer is to shock the viewer – indeed his filmography contains many such extreme moments of provocation.  Also featured is an audio interview with Gemser, recorded in 1996 and set to an extensive photo gallery of stills, posters and photographs in which she talks of her career, her relationship to D’Amato and her refusal to appear in any hardcore footage.  Sadly perhaps, the more one thinks about Emanuelle in America, the more there is to it.  Like the most disconcerting of “exploitation” cinema, it exists in a world beyond conventional morality and uses this removal as a confrontational shock tactic.  That does not make it a good movie, just a provocative one and that in itself is maybe something of a valid achievement when judged alongside most debasing exploitation and pornography.