Within "Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm"

By Emiko Omori, producer/director

From In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki:
"A Japanese room might be likened to an ink wash painting, the paper-paneled shoji being the expanse where the ink is thinnest, and the alcove where it is darkest. Whenever I see the alcove of a tastefully built Japanese room, I marvel at our comprehension of the secrets of shadows, our sensitive use of shadow and light...Were the shadows to be banished from its corners, the alcove would in that instant revert to mere void."

There's an old conundrum: What's the difference between porn and art? The answer: fill light (the light that "fills" the shadows and reveals more than you might care to see). Porn leaves nothing to be imagined - no nook, no cranny unlit; no shadows for the imagination to explore. And what is sensuality without imagination?

The challenge of our documentary, Passion and Power: The Technology of Orgasm, about the history of the vibrator and its relationship to women's orgasms, was to create an evocation of sensuality without being too literal or too oblique; that is, too much light or not enough. A second challenge was to freshen up a tired, old form: an historical documentary with a lot of talking heads and abstract ideas. The decision to use the dutch angle (the tilted camera) for the interviews was in response to a question: Why must we always see the horizon as flat? At some early screenings, we noticed that our viewers tilted their heads and a few grumbled about it. So we developed what we call the "double dutch": We straightened the horizon (more or less) by dutching the image again on the computer. That led to the answer of a second question: Why must we always have a screen that is rectangular, sort of an "outside the box" concept? The "double dutching" created spaces around the images that we layered with other thematic elements - cluttered up like a Victorian room. All of this, both Wendy (my co-producer/director) and I concluded, fit perfectly with our theory that there was something wrong with the picture we had been led to believe of the history of women's sexuality. It's the "TSWWTP" visual style ("there's something wrong with this picture"). It makes some people uncomfortable - exactly what it was meant to do.

The greater challenge, perhaps, was the evocation of sensuality. At first, we thought about spoofing love-making scenes from feature films from the 1950s: the slow zoom in to the blazing fire in the fireplace, the train racing into a tunnel, the couple in a rumpled bed, the man lighting up a cigarette. Um...and women as flowers. What about it? Originally, a beautiful metaphor; now corny and over used. But why? We like being compared to flowers. And what is more sensuous than undulating moon jellies? And sea anemones with their fleshy petals swaying gracefully? And those exquisite sea dragons? The theme of creatures in water seemed right for us. And not the least, Mark Adler's brilliantly shimmering music added the final sensual flourish. A woman confessed to us after a screening that it was the first time she had seen an image that expressed how she felt during an orgasm. It was the moon jellies rhythmically opening and closing, free from gravity - floating, floating, floating.

Film screens at the San Francisco Women's Film Festival, held April 9-13, 2008. 
Images courtesy of "The Technology of Orgasm"; top: antique vibrator; bottom: Beann Sizemore; icon image on previous page: Director Amiko Omori.

For more information on the film, please visit www.thetechnologyoforgasm.com
Producer/Directors: Wendy Slick and Emiko Omori
Director of Photography: Emiko Omori

MPM also explores the San Francisco Women's Film Festival through an interview with its founder, Scarlett Shepard, in "No Chick Flicks: San Francisco Women's Film Festival."