Customer Reviews

Pornstar

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you're expecting a coffee table book filled with pretty pictures of porn stars, DO NOT buy this book. If you want a well written, engaging, painfully honest account of the porn industry, this is a must read. I really enjoyed this book greatly. I wished it had a few more pictures to correspond with the story though. Still, one of my favorites.

_Pornstar_ is a wonderful, saddening excursion into the behind-the-scenes world of American pornography. Although centered in southern California and New York, American pornography affects all Americans, drives the economy, and pushes technology (would CD-ROM's and videotape be as popular without the intial pioneers that pornography creates?).

Gittler involved himself in ways that question his journalistic integrity, yes, but he is honest, almost too much so. The heartbreak I felt as I read the final chapters of this book carried over from the pain in the lives of the pornstars Gittler documents.

Gittler is up-close and personal with notable porn actors, actresses, and directors: Jon Dough, Savannah, and John Stagliano, to name a few.

This is not a book that promotes pornography; Gittler even refused to give permission to use one of his images of Nina Hartley for mouse pads, although he probably would have profitted nicely from the sales. Gittler, as much as readers may be disappointed with him for what he does in his documentary research, is a person searching for truth, not a cheap thrill or a quick buck.

Gittler is an accomplished photographer. His portraits seek to reveal the true, often hidden character of the subject. He uses black and white images, "Hollywood lighting," available light, and shallow depth of field to a wonderful advantage; I never thought that Ron Jeremy looked more sinsiter than in Gittler's shot of him and a devil's trident or that Nina Hartley could be a female nude, not a naked woman. Great technique and imagination make Gittler one of my favorite photographers and someone I would like to work with some day.

Aside from a few explicit photographs of intercourse on the set, this is a book suitable for classroom discussion or your home coffee table. The portraits are of nudes, yes, but tastefully done and REAL, gritty.

_Pornstar_ is a must read for anyone who wants to understand this highs and pitfalls of this industry.

Anyone who has seen the movie Boogie Nights knows the simple truth...IT'S NOT FUN BEING A PORNSTAR. Ian Gittler makes that point painfully clear in the very early passages of his coffee-table book Pornstar. Unfortunately once we have gained this knowledge there is not much more we can learn from our brief touches with the lives of the stars.

The Good - Gittler does a nice job of interviewing a wide range of stars and starlets. Everyone from Nina Hartley to Sharon Mitchell to Joey Silvera to Jon Dough to Tom Byron to many many more. His pictures are fine...some even haunting. My mind always comes back to a photo of one starlet who is on set and desperately looking through the lights to meet her boyfriends' eyes...even when she still has "business at hand" with an unknown partner.

The Bad - Gittler is still an outsider and just doesn't have enough skill to ask the tough questions or to find the motivation in the lives of the stars. A lot of time was also devoted to Savannah (who the author is obviously enamoured with). I myself was more curious about the pictures of several stars who received no mention in the actual text...people like Victoria Paris, Asia Carerra, or Lisa Lipps who have nice photos but beyond that we learn nothing of their lives both in-and-out of the world of adult cinema. And there are numerous big-name adult stars who don't get so much as a reference.

There is a large percentage of people who are both interested and fascinated by the world of adult movies. Raw Talent by Jerry Butler does a better job of providing some perspective into this field (albeit from one person's point of view). Hopefully in the near future we'll get a book that allows us entry into the lives of the stars...and digs a little deeper than what we can merely see with our eyes.

After reading the other reviews here, I was extremely disappointed in this book. It does not live up to the hype.

This book is not an "inside look" into the lives of porn stars. Just the opposite. It is nothing more than a collection of the author's impressions, mostly first impressions, of the porn industry, and lacks any real insight.

Gittler actually got to know very few porn stars and most of these people he never really interviewed. In fact, he recounts only one in-depth conversation with only one porn star (Jon Dough). By his own admission, he never got close to anyone in the porn industry and severed all ties as soon as his book was completed. He basically told one actress never to call him again.

One gets the impression that he spent less total time with his subjects than the average Playboy interviewer spends for one article. This lack of depth even led me to question not only whether the stars upon whom he builds the book (e.g., Debi Diamond) shared any real angst with him, but if they were even being honest. Once you question the sincerity of the stars' quotes the entire premise of the book falls apart.

And falls flat on its face.

I thought that Gittler's book was extremely well done. A lot of the other reviews(which I read before I purchased) were very negative. It's all a matter of what you expect. First, is the book worth it. Again, in my opinion, yes. Where else is "behind the scenes" material like this, authored by an outsider available? The pictures showed you "the Wizard behind the curtain". I liked the pictures of John Stagliano and Nina Hartley together. I liked the pictures of Savannah and April Rayne. They were thoughtful, artistic and moving. They are a snapshot of time, how those people looked at that moment, not now, not earlier. It is frozen for our voyeurism, at lesiure. The text was a refreshing surprise, Gittler has an honesty about himself, and those around him, and an excellent way of recounting the details. He is not afraid to be percieved as an insensitive butthead, and while being very artsy and "sensitive", he is a butthead. He showed Debbi Diamond, April Rayne and Jon Dough an unwarranted coldness and professional discourtesy. A perfect example is an assumption that he made about Debi Diamond's pearls, and he could have offered her a printed apology for that faux pas, but he let it slip away, like so many other lost opportunities that he had. He met people who wanted to become friends and slapped that mantel of friendship away. Gittler started out with some really great ideas, and by the time the book was over, showed himself to be the scared little boy characterized by his good friend Brett Easton Ellis's sucky books. All show, no go. I feel sorry for Ian Gittler, but I still think that this book is a total must have for the subject material.

Interesting read, not many revelations about the adult industry that aren't already well known, just didn't delve as deep into the subjects, the persons, as I would like.

Gittler teases the reader into thinking we will get an inner knowledge into the psyche of the folks who...well, lay their wares out for the world to see for a living.

He does scratch the surface, maybe a degree deeper than a paper cut, but there was plenty of room left to go a lot deeper. Not to lay harsh judgements on Gittler, perhaps he worked with exactly what he was given...which falls in line with the fact that for everything these porn stars are willing to expose in public, there's that much more they hide in private.

Interesting dichotomy here, while the book attempts to dispell myths/double standards of the industry, it still embraces them: good biz for men if they can maintain the gig (glorified Jon Dough), cautionary tale for women who consider entering the business...

If you have a porn addiction or know someone who is obsessed by porn, get him this book. This book's chief virtue is not its black-and-white pictures but its honesty. I was about to date someone, lets call her Heather, who came from the stripper/porn world and it allowed me to understand her mood shifts, drug problems and difficulty committing to even just a normal date --once I told her that I wasnt rich. A self-destructive cycle was at work in a woman who wanted to break out of it...

Very few women in this world, such as Nina Hartley, seem to form normal relationships; most are emotionally abused as children (usually raped by a relative) and enter adulthood still damaged and get further damaged by this profession. Savannah committed suicide and this photographer did nothing to help; he seemed as awed of her as did the friends of Elvis before his death by prescription drugs.

You will never look at these impossibly beautiful women again in the same way. Instead of desiring them, you may pity them and wish to help them out of their self-destructive cycle of sex for money -- that's what it is, after all: prostitution of the self on film. These people desperately need the love of a person who cares about them, to fill their emptiness and to stop them from becoming another tragedy like Elvis.

Such honesty helped cure me of my obsession for these women. They are so beautiful still but most are tragically destined to end up on the scrap heap of discarded flowers whose blooms have faded. After reading this book, I just desire to help these women if I can.

Buy it and it may help you (or your friend) also cure their "supermodel porn" addiction as well.

First of all, this is not a coffee table book. It is more like an extended disjointed expose (w/somber pictures) by a Details magazine writer. Although I feel that the latter is true, the subject matter is inherently interesting and it is somewhat cool to experience vicariously the forays of an obviously sexually motivated (as opposed to literary or artistically motivated) man into this secluded subculture.

I was highly anticipating a quality book on a fascinating subject that hasn't been properly chronicled yet. Unfortunately, it still hasn't been. The paper-thin moralizing of the poorly written text combined with okay-but-nothing-more black & white photograpy results in a book that promises more than it delivers.

I can't ad much to the other positive reviews here. The photography is real and sober, it takes the hype and other worldly qualities we usually associate with the porn product away. Gittler makes those who work in this industry real people like anyone, If you cut them do they not bleed, if you smite their face do they not shed a tear.Gittler as well stepped back and allowed his subject to speak for itself. I found this one of the most informative books on the industry,and it is rather difficult to step back,and see porn from the inside.Everyone is quick to denounce it,yet the entire advertisement entertainment industry behemoth couldn't exist without peddling their stuff through the female body.

There seem to be untold layers surrounding porn, well protection.And it shares itself with other industries, where a few make the most, and most fall from it without much$$$$, And there never is a shortage of deaths as Savannah, (The Book's Cover),and double dealings. There are probably more people who enjoy porn than you think.