Porno Joe Cage interview
L’original de l’interview de Têtu
What made you choose Titan for that famous 10 movie deal ?
We met, responded to each other’s esthetic ; they offered, I accepted.
I know it’s a question frequently asked, but you left the porn industry after establishing yourself as a leading director and just as video was becoming widespread. What happened ?
When videotape replaced film, a quantity-over-quality philosophy resulted and the marketplace became flooded with inferior material. I considered myself a filmmaker (still do), not a manufacturer, and decided to walk away for awhile until I saw how everything shook-out. During my hiatus, I got married, started a family and went on to pursue other interests. When my kids started college, I decided it might be time to get back in the game.
I was in Paris in 1977 when your first two films were shown in gay cinemas. They had a huge impact on the French clone scene.
The Gage Men-as they were called at the time-were specifically presented as average, unstylish, working class citizens. Clothes from Sears-Roebuck ; vehicles (usually trucks) American-made and damn proud of it. Disco had just enveloped the known world, and my guys were judged to represent the opposite side of the coin. The look pretty much took off with a certain type of gay man everywhere—it’s called butch.
Mike Morris in "El Paso Wrecking Corp" was one the most beautiful clones on film at that time.
I agree. I saw him in a Colt magazine layout, and tracked him down.
At the time, you used flashbacks, for example an eerie scene from Vietnam in "L.A. Tool & Die". There is a lot of footage in your movies that is very close to the real gay scene of the time (hangouts, bars, toilets, glory holes).
Then and now I try to create context for the stories—presenting a (slightly altered) reflection of the real world is my way of bringing the viewer into the story and into the heads of the characters.
Is pornography a redefinition of gay aesthetics and morphology ? Your casting shows a wider range of men, from big guys to twinkies with big dicks.
Sexual situations arise everyday in real life. Why not in the movies ? I’ve always been interested in exploring the life of an average Joe, an ordinary guy—un homme moyen sensual, if you will.
Now you have a way of making famous young kids who maybe wouldn’t fit in the porn industry : like Blu Kennedy who shot to stardom in "Alabama Takedown". Or Cole Ryan who seems to be the virgin guy in "Closed Set : Titan Stage One". Can you tell me a few things about these two ?
Blu and Cole separately approached Titan through the company website and inquired about getting into movies. Blu had done some internet stuff, and the time was right to expand the definition of the kind of guy who would appear in a Titan movie. When the casting director and I found out that Cole was literally a virgin, we immediately contacted him about coming to town to have his first sexual experience with someone take place on a Titan soundstage.
Is there a wish to confront the uniformity of porn actors whose looks have a cultural impact all over the world ?
I’ve never been interested in recording the by-the-numbers gymnastics of West Hollywood escort boys. Give me Joe Six-Pack (and I don’t mean abs) any day of the week.
You always seem to emphasize on what gays can do sexually at any given moment, either blowing, sucking or fucking, but with no special tools required or heavy duty action. Do you think this is the core of gay sexuality, when nowadays people are more than ever very technical in sex, with fisting and all ?
Technical, heavy sex games are for the very sophisticated—something my men aren’t and never will be. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Your men look more working class, and some could be described as “white trash”. There are very few black men in your movies.
The story almost always drives my movies. When black men appear—as they do in "Back to Barstow" and "Cop Shack on 101"—it’s because they can be seamlessly blended into the blue collar world I’m portraying, and not used as if they were exotic props.
Your movies are also very safe. It’s reassuring to see that this strong policy is not waning when more and more gay movies show bareback stuff or step in a “grey area.”
I was eroticizing condoms as far back as "L.A. Tool & Die", which was made in the late ‘70s. Safe sex can be just as hot as bareback on the screen, if it’s done right.
Tell me more about one of you recurrent movie fantasies of incest between father and son. It’s always about initiation, isn’t it ?
I’m not sure how that came to be. I did dad-son stuff back in the day as well. I guess it’s because the rites of initiation—which have always intrigued me—are often found in the father-son dynamic. In a way, it’s about passing on knowledge and power.
Your work is based on good photography and good sets. The image may be more luxurious in Colt and heavier in Raging Stallion but your focus makes the sexual action more precise, more to the point. You used three angles on cumshots that make them unique.
Every director has his own ideas and methods for pulling this stuff off. I hope there’s room out there for many voices to be heard.
How do you deal with the sexual erosion of your own work ? You directed so many movies and your style is even more sexually charged than before.
Maintain a balanced diet and get plenty of sleep.
What is the future of gay porn for you ?
Mainstream acceptance.
And, to finish, tell me about what seems your trademark : cumshots on 4 angles and repeated many times. You did that in the old movies, still doing it, still wonderful.
Thanks. I try to extend the moment as much as I can. It’s all about point-of-view.