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  • Oh Paris! The Journeys of Lasse Braun’s 8mm Pornography
  • Mariah Larsson (bio)

An easy way to challenge the concept of national cinema is by drawing on examples: if a Danish film director makes a film, set in the United States, funded by various European institutions and production companies, in Trollhättan, Sweden, bringing in an Icelandic singer as the star of the film as well as a French cinematic icon and American actors—how do we describe that film? Film journalists and critics have used the disparaging term “Euro-pudding” to mark such ventures, but as various recognized auteurs have come to exploit the possibilities of European funding, this type of transnational film production has become much more common and is not routinely disregarded anymore. The same kind of transnationality can be found in a 1970s porn context: if an Italian pornographer, with a production company at the time based in Copenhagen, makes a film in France with French and Vietnamese performers—how do we describe that film, in particular if the film surfaces in an American archive with an Italian title? Such is the case for the film Hotel Amour (Lasse Braun), of the Oh Paris! series from 1971 that also includes Petite fleur and Magnifique! Comparing Dancer in the Dark (Lars von Trier, 2000), described in the first instance, with Hotel Amour may seem far-fetched, but I would say that in terms of maverick transnationalism the two directors are not so different. The opportunistic transnationalism—that is, “responding to available economic opportunities at a given moment in time and in no wise about the creation of lasting networks or about the fostering of social bonds”—is evident in both cases, and in their respective contexts both are recognized as auteurs with distinct personal visions.1

The purpose of this article is not to compare Lars von Trier and Lasse Braun. Rather, I wish to point to and discuss some aspects of late 1960s to early 1970s pornography, using Lasse Braun and Hotel Amour to argue that adult film history provides a perspective on transnational film studies that contests received notions about how transnational films are produced and circulate. In fact, adult film and pornography in general challenge three traditionally strong conceptualizations of film history. First, because many such films were made in some [End Page 158] sort of transnational collaboration but were also often excluded from national film histories, they make evident the concept of national cinema as a clearly demarcated canon of films. Second, the history of adult film and pornography contests the notion of a world-dominant American (Hollywood) cinema, as the international diversity of productions on the internet and in the former “adult” sections of video stores demonstrate. Third, adult film and pornography defy the notion that popular European genre cinema and stars have difficulty traveling—that is, that European film stars often have to make a mark in a Hollywood film to be recognized in other European countries than their own.

Transnationality has become something of a buzzword within film studies—and, as Mette Hjort astutely observes, it seems to carry with it an intrinsic value in and of itself. Nevertheless, as Hjort goes on to point out, there are many different types of transnational cinema, and by distinguishing them, their ostensible value can be defined and measured.2 In addition, one could argue that “transnationality” per se is a neutral term, simply referring to cross-border interactions. Outside of film studies, it is used in conjunction with both positive and negative issues, like transnational cooperation or transnational crime.

However, what is quite often disregarded in discussions of transnational cinema is the importance of nationality to making someone or something itinerant. Without any kind of acknowledged nationality, travel becomes difficult and may leave the traveler in a state of suspension, an eternal limbo, much like the stranded Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks) in Steven Spielberg’s The Terminal (2004), whose passport became invalid when his home country ceased to exist. Nationality, or at least an assumed nationality, is in fact a prerequisite for transnational interactions to take place.

Perhaps the most apparent example of the transnationality of pornography in the predigital era, and...

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