LUST IN TRANSLATION
In the late sixties and seventies, foreign films and foreign-film distributors found themselves sharing theaters with a burgeoning porn industry. In fact many serious European art films were promoted by enterprising theater owners in lurid and lascivious ways, suggesting some heady cinematic brew was actually a steamy orgy.
Of course, art theaters — and porno — have gone the way of DVD. But China has now revived this cinematic bait-and-switch.
Reuters recently chronicled the history of one small film, Maiden Work, which was pushed it into the realm of pornography by the Chinese company that purchased it for distribution.
