Episode #110 - Daniel Goldhaber (Showgirls)

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"For me, it's about finding ideas that are exciting and translating them in a bigger way."

The fine line between art and pornography is as old as visual culture itself, but only recently have those within the industry crafted their narratives for large scale audiences by avoiding the old hat critiques often placed on the profession. Cam, a new horror thriller financed by Blumhouse and made by the creative duo of Isa Mazzei and Daniel Goldhaber, does exactly that by following a cam girl as she fights to reclaim her identity. Dan sits down in this long ranging interview to discuss his creative apprenticeships on documentaries and the lessons he learned from Harvard, the work he and Isa did crafting pornography that thought seriously about aesthetics, and the creative workarounds necessary to make a good film about screen life. Finally, the two talk about Showgirls, a tricky film that nonetheless influenced Cam—Peter and Dan examine how and where the film takes these burlesque dancers seriously, and how the film straddles its campy existence. Plus, Carman Tse joins the show to talk about a few restorations that played the recent AFI Film Festival.

0:00-3:10  Opening
4:13-27:48 Establishing Shots — Repertory Talk at AFI Fest with Carman Tsse
28:33-1:36:45 Deep Focus — Daniel Goldhaber
1:38:00-1:42:00  Sponsorship Section
1:43:08-1:58:40 Double Exposure — Showgirls (Paul Vehoven)

1:58:48-2:00:37 Close / Outtake

Notes and Links to the Conversation

—Watch CAM on Netflix. Follow Dan and Isa on Twitter.
—More on the AFI Film Festival and their Legacy Program. Follow Carman Tse on Twitter.
—Listen to our interview with preservationist Mark Toscano
—Information on Drylongso, The Cruz Brothers and Miss Malloy, and Nitrate Kisses
—Harvard Square Theatres: Harvard Film Archive, Orson Welles Cinema, Brattle
—Boulder's Video Station closed in 2017.
—Chasing Ice
—Harvard's Department of Visual and Environmental Studies
—More on CAM editor, Daniel Garber
—More on Philippe Grandrieux
—Baseball scene from Bad Lieutenant 
—Watch Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising. David James's Allegories of Cinema addresses this complex relationship between Hollywood and the avant-garde.
—More about Teddy Blanks (his partner is Dan Shields)
—Chappie in Cam. The original "that's chappie" tweet.
—Neil Young on Chappie
—Listen to our interview with It Doesn't Suck author Adam Nayman
—Susan Sontag, "Notes on Camp"

Theme Music: “Forward” by Northbound

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