Original subtitles

Pornography was the great revelation of the ’50s, ’60s

and the ’70s.

It’s actually unknown why

they...

opposed...

A great number of organizations, persons...

sexual freedom opponents.

So...

It was a good fight.

Now...

when they have other things to think about,

the sexuality slips in

where it's possible.

PORN TO BE FREE

My friend's brother got arrested in Genova.

Lasse Braun (Alberto Ferro) Director

He was caught with 3 suitcases... coming back from Monte Carlo

He also had some Danish magazines with nude women for painters.

And, obviously, he has bought them to sell them later.

So I called a friend of mine and asked about him. He was in prison.

In prison. Unbelievable...

It's like...

Like the Spanish Inquisition.

I mean, you imprison someone for looking at magazines...

with nude women... And they weren't all naked, some wore a bikini.

It's crazy... It's just completely crazy.

This had an enormous effect on me, so I sad to myself:

''Something has to be done about this.''

I was fluent in all languages, more or less

and I was a member of the Diplomatic Corp in Vienna,

so I could transport anything because at that time

the DC's were untouchable.

So I said: ''Now we are going to fill them up.''

We need to slap their faces with porn...

hit them really hard, from all angles.

I continued to go back and forth, non stop.

I carried all these ''packages'' that I would pick up in Denmark,

in Amsterdam...

and I would take them to Germany etc.

It was all prohibited, to be clear.

If pornographers were caught with these things in their hands

they would go to prison.

I mean, this is the highest example of stupidity.

In Italy we came from...

Giampiero Mughini, Writer

- I remember because I was a boy-

from a cage...

whose chains were made firstly by the Empire

of the Catholic Church, which claimed that it was a sin.

Desire is a sin, a mortal sin...

Lust...

This is what we came from... And from another cage, too.

It's clear that the left communist wing was studded with puritanism,

And so we were fighting against these two puritanisms.

It's not like you could say:

Giuliana Gamba, Director

''Now I'm going to protest''

or ''Let's repeat the '68''

because I'm against this or that.

You were anxious.

You felt like strangled... Because of the authority,

the formalism, at home, in school, everywhere.

We had to break those patterns.

On January the 4th, 1968

- '68, the revolution -

Pay attention, what I did was revolutionary.

It was a big revolution.

Because I said that we have to strike on sex,

which is their most vulnearable spot...

Because, who would listen to these four old imbeciles,

who tell you to cut here, there...

They can cut off their own balls, I said.

This is the best thing.

And we arrived to the point where, on June 4, 1969,

for the fist time a parliament,

an European Parliament

- not just any small country, but a big nation-

has abolished the censurnship on sex.

So basically they said that the pornography is free.

There was a big party and so on.

It was a marvellous thing.

And from that point onward actually, Denmark apparently became the center.

People from all over the world came to witness this situation.

Because it was severely prohibited in Europe and all over the world.

They surely realized that it could give birth to...

something big, something that strikes down right into intimacy.

Because I said that with sex...

we'll reach the intimacy of imagination,

the intimacy of desire...

Undercover, I started to organize and create selling locations.

I thought: If there's interest, we'll see it.

And it did, so a large quantity of money was in circulation...

Because without money, you can't do anything.

With this money

I managed to set up

a proper production.

In Sweden and in Denmark

I made these videos

which were connected to a certain concept

- the Tropical series.

The three videos were shot in the Caribbean islands.

Than there was the Nymphomenia series

where we had 3 particular situations

connected to Sweden and Denmark.

The Vikings, I even thought about them.

And at a certain point all of this reached an American.

Robert Sturman was his name.

He had the idea of making ''peep shows'' machine.

Machines, he said... That was the idea.

He thought that we should put in some interesting videos.

In the United States porn didn't exist. Let's be clear about that.

They had Marylin Monroe movies in which she pretends to fuck.

So when they saw this...

There was no acting there, you could see everything.

For 450.000 dollars in cash they bought

the rights for my first 30 videos.

He made these peep-show machines and distributed them everywhere.

Including Miami, where this Damiano guy was...

Who after that immediately shot Deep Throat.

But it's not like they invented porn. Let's be clear about this.

I invented it, and that's the truth.

In Italy, the modern pornography,

was founded basically here in Rome

by a very particular person,

adventurer on one side,

intellectual and a businessman on the other.

His name is Riccardo Schicchi.

- There’s Riccardo. Hi!

- Hi!

At the church entrances you could find

handbooks which contained all the things one shouldn’t do.

Among other things, don't buy L'Europeo, don't buy L'Espresso.

I was in love with nature and therefore also with women. So I couldn’t understand their motive.

As I loved to paint, before I enrolled the academy,

and I couldn’t have a female model, I used to buy magazines.

On the pages of “Grazia” and in magazines

which accidentaly had half-naked girls I saw the models for my paintings.

Then a magazine called “Men” appeared, but even there the breasts were corrected.

Thank God because I could see more... I was pleased!

When the second edition was published,

it was taken out of my hands at the newspaper shop.

They were being confiscated!

I tried to keep my magazine but they took all the copies.

I was right there at the subway station.

I took the subway to the city center and went to the publisher.

I was climbing the stairs, the street number was 54,

and an old man opened the door.

He was Men’s manager, marvellous!

I realized that by listening to what he said

and by following his and others’ experiences,

I would not only reveal, understand, but enter that meccanism.

And actually, year after year, my experience at Men

made me a friend of all the female models.

But above all, it allowed me to start writing, to take photographs.

In my opinion...

Goa was a marvellous girl bathing under a waterfall

Afganistan was a woman breastfeeding her child.

Every county had this image of a woman in close up,

it could almost complete this magnificent nature.

At the same time, I was travelling as a photo reporter.

And these photographs were very charming

to Buttafava, head of Epoca,

and Dario Tibaldi, head of Panorama.

So I find myself, very young,

with photographs published in these magazines

which were like the big Bonatti.

A whole new world lay upon me.

The search for the woman's glance or body.

For me, photography was surely a way of...

Not only to make them look better and tell their stories,

but to try and understand who they are.

My photographs reached the hands of a fashion agent

who sent them to Roger Vadim

and to America,

to one of the biggest agencies in New York - the Ford.

And from that point onward

my extraordinary journey through Eros started.

French Blue is a documentary of mine, shot with my film crew,

in which why try to shoot an impossible scene

to put two cocks up a girl's ass.

So... A pretty crazy scene...

All in all, all sorts of things happened,

but we didn't make it.

I always liked to be in charge, so as I director,

I got furious and so on.

Here we inserted some videos that I made earlier,

they were cartoons made with my friend Sine

who was a great illustrator in Paris.

All of this made it possible for me to make this movie

which lasted circa 75 minutes,

And I absolutely wanted to take it to Cannes.

I wanted to get to Cannes

because my goal was...

for pornography to break out at the center of the cinematic world.

Because it was important to throw it into their faces,

to make them see it well, on the big screen.

I managed to smuggle this suitcase filled with 35 rolls

and to take it to Cannes

where I had an admirer

who immediately called the manager of the biggest cinema in Cannes.

So we managed to have the film screened for 3 nights

at that cinema.

The cinema was the old Cannes Olimpia,

800 seats.

A friend of mine, Bob from Cannes,

spread out the voice, so thanks to the word-of-mouth

we managed

to fill the cinema up, all seats were taken.

Everyone was there to see the film, their eyes were wide open

because the scenes were crazy.

When you see sex,

in close-up, like it was seen in Cannes:

A gigantic penis which occupies the whole screen

penetrates a vagina, and the two, well...

make sounds, women scream and so on.

When you see this, it disturbs you,

it's disturbing and that is culture.

I mean... If you want to sow,

you have to plow first.

If this is not culture, what is?

Attempts of censorship

come from these yokels,

these people with no culture.

They are scum with no culture.

They are simple accountants who tell you where to cut...

It's pathetic,

the censorship is an offence

to the human dignity, it's awful.

It's like nazism, a few words.

My relationship to politics was to do politics,

to do it my way, not in any other way.

The first time she came to me...

Fiorella Etro Secretary at Playmen

A young girl arrived, she was very pretty,

from Hungary I believe.

I think she had her brothers with her

and they all needed money.

Rehearsals were done immediately

and the main director, Dr. Oppo, who now is deceased,

told me: Fiorella, don't let this girl slip away.

Look how pretty she is.

I remember waiting for her, outside the house she lived in,

in a yoga position, with my head upside down,

after telling her that I arrived.

She was a bit surprised seeing this strange person,

a young man who does yoga.

And I really stole her heart,

because I showed her things she didn't know about.

She never went to the sea at night to bathe,

she never spent the night in the middle of forest...

Her experience was tied to the city life.

I fell in love with her because she was completely different.

She was spontaneous, wild,

She didn't behave rationally,

but irrationally.

So se was that kind of a person who could become a cult figure.

Today, mankind puts up war axes

in order to counteract to the pale face of Lama (general secretary at left-wing union)

Radio Alice full 100 megahertz

with Garibaldi playing the cello and Rintintin playing the Jew’s harp,

we respond: ZUT!

In the ages of the birth of the free radio stations,

the radio had very moral contents.

The idea to reverse the meaning

and to start talking about Eros during the late hours

was an incredible invention.

We started with a radio station called Radio Luna.

And it was a sheer chance...

Come, we'll make love if you want.

Love, love, love. I'm all yours

Oh believe me, it's so nice to undress,

Oh yes... Kiss me also there...

Cicciolino I like you so much.

I remember that it was very exciting that in a bar, in Rome,

when you would go in during the night to get something to drink,

people would recognize Cicciolina's voice

not knowing that she is, physically, Cicciolina.

Ilona, is this sexy voice something natural or an act? Be honest.

It's natural.

- It was always like this? - Yes.

Up, up, higher up

it goes, in the mind it goes,

It must be the idea that I will caress

awaiting the fate.

We organized a big show. And who with?

Obviously with the person who at that time had the biggest shows,

Bibi Ballandi, who is still one of the biggest producers in Rai.

He gave us the possibility to start off with a big show.

We had trucks, dancers, special effects.

There were no limits, so I made a Plexiglass sphere

for her to bathe in.

We were in all disco's and dance halls in Italy,

we were destroying the barriers, barriers which really existed.

Look at me freely my little Cicciolinis,

that's what I'm here for!

If Cicciolina's panties would fall off, so it was

with the assessors, mayors, protests,

police warfares, we've seen it all!

One experience led to another. We were also arrested...

It was really an incredible journey.

I was a teenager...

Francesco Coniglio, Publisher

in the '60s and in the late '60s

so I presonally experienced

the transition from the, so called, ''soft porn''...

- in other words, erotism distributed through newspaper stands-

to the real pornography.

This transition took place in the early '70s.

Riccardo Schicchi debuts precisely in the Playmen,

with the first photo shoots of Cicciolina...

One day I met Andrea Bianchi,

and I said: Let's make a new magazine,

you can be the secretary.

After a few first numbers of ''Playman'', we showed pubic hair.

Here you can already see it.

Barbara's eyes...

Barbara's pubic hair.

At one certain point there was a convention

between the editors and the attorneys.

So, by putting this ''not for under 18'' we could move on.

There were confiscations, trials and continuous controversy.

“Ifix Tchen Tchen!”

I think Andrea invented this one.

Everybody was “Ifix Tchen Tchen!” all the boys.

Pornography was popular, extremely popular because

these magazines were sold in hundred of thousands of copies.

Men start off with a figure...

Lidia Ravera, Writer

we need a story.

We are the tactile type, they are the visual type.

We are not bigots.

We are just...

women who want to defend

women's entirety. A woman is a person.

She sees the world in a different way.

There are two protagonists in the story:

the male and the female.

And no one has the right to reduce the femininity.

''How come? How come?''

''We never decide''

''From now on, from now on''

''We will the only ones to decide!''

The incipit of ''Porci con le ali'' (Pigs with Wings) says:

Dick. Dick, dick, dick, pussy, cunt. All smelly, bitchy bitch.

It was...

some sort of a poem,

like a personal mantra

that Antonia recited during one of her's sexual fantasies.

But ''Porci con le ali'' wasn't pornographic, on the contrary...

The initial idea was the rejection of pornography.

It was a rejection from different points of view. Maybe the weariness

due to the sexual freedom as a must, as an obligation.

Because we, girls of that time, in the beginning of the '70s,

we were forced, in a certain way, to free our sexuality

and always to be shrewd,

and not to be at all shy or have any limits.

In a way, we were called upon to embody

the unconscious of male sexuality.

They tell you that the sexual revolution is this:

you are a woman, open your pussy and fuck, because if you don't,

you are marginalized, inhibited, you don't want the revolution

and you don't believe in the social warfare. And you are frigid.

You need to study your understanding of sexual freedom

because you are middle-class if you don't let your colleagues do you.

And as men are repressed, you should wave around with your ass

and let them unload that whole repression of the world inside.

During the '70s

that great energy

Porpora Marcasciano LGBT activist

spread like the spring wind.

This wave was released...

Amazing...

and people started to search, to experiment,

to regain

what really makes them happy.

The state of neverending happiness was decreed exactly here

on these steps,

by the metropolitan Indians.

That was the real thing...

But we didn't know about it.

It all started in that period of time,

All we knew was that feeling that there's much more

to be discovered, to be done,

to fight for in particular, and there was...

The other night there was a very sweet moment when we all

took our clothes off.

Men and women, naked,

we seemed like infinite beings in this space.

During those moments we've realized

that humans are infinite beings, right?

So the rediscovery of the body became a subversive fact.

The next day we went to break all the cages that...

- as the young man before said- will entrap us again tonight.

''Naked - yes, but against the DC.''

(DC: Christian Democracy)

So what's the point of the festival?

Always go beyond, higher, towards the thing that we call madness.

To become mad!

But...

not in a way the people in the mental institutions are.

Because if you think about what mad people

who are locked inside do...

They do what we do. They take off their clothes.

Just like us. But the difference is that we had the will

and the brains to organize it.

If people are Gods,

they can't discover that fact, if they still have to work

in order to make a profit, to make a capitalist happy

or to sell their body 8 hours a day.

That's the first thing that we're going to eliminate

and then we'll head towards madness.

When things change we'll be more conscious and lucid.

Don't give us a utopia!

That's exactly what I'll give you.

He said not to give you a utopia...

But, if a man doesn't follow his dream, where can he go?

Life is a dream, a neverending dream,

and we do want a utopia!

Judith Malina, actress and founder of Living Theatre

In '77, which was a year of grace,

Living joined the movement.

Where the movement was present, Living was there too.

Those who are interested in sexuality

are also interested in the irrational.

And this leads to people who behave in an unpredictive manner.

On the other hand...

Giuliana Gamba Director

A person who doesn't have a pre-costructed mindset,

on which you could rely on

will always have ideas which are...

freaky, weird, politically uncontrollable.

I have to say something now... I'll confess in front of the cameras.

It's the first time that I admit in public to have made porn videos.

Because I think that, calculating...

- 70', 1970, '80, '90, 2000... By now it has become statute-barred.

Everyone was against me: the Feminist movement, the left wing...

Moralism was against me, and I'm still paying for that.

My intention was to create something out of the ordinary.

But there was strong conformism with the left wing,

and also with the Catholic Church.

Moreover, the world of pornography has always been considered dirty.

For me, on the other side, in the '70s, it meant...

Today we would say turnover, discontinuity

something that was done with great pleasure and agility.

In Italy I was the only one, and I believe in Europe too,

the only woman who in the 70's

was making porn videos and erotic videos later on.

I think I was the first one, there was no one else.

After me, after many years there was a girl from Germany.

But at that time we were like rare birds.

For a short period of time I had a show at “Radio Alice”,

going on air right after the one run by the feminist union.

Helena Velena Writer

At that time, the feminist movement was very ambitious.

In Milan for example, some cinemas were assalted,

and afterwards in Bologna too,

cinemas which screened porn movies.

In that period of time, the feminist movement

saw pornography as a product created by men and for men only,

which exploited women’s figure, body and unconscious.

In the following years, I discovered with great happiness,

that for the first time many women saw a different vagina,

that for the first time many women saw a different vagina,

different from their own body.

And they discovered how a vagina can be stimulated,

how to give pleasure to their own bodies – by watching a porn movie.

In Italy above all, this politicization

was strongly oriented towards a communist vision of things.

They were certain that the political debate

regarding sexuality

has to be postponed.

Beacuse the No.1 priority

was the communist revolution.

After that comes dealing with the needs of women

with the needs of gays, homosexuals...

The needs of all minority groups.

The young working class doesn't even guarantee

a poor ghetto for the homosexuals.

Fine, than we'll leave.

This means that from now on we will not only fight, but we will challenge.

Mario Mieli was surely one of the most devastating

who promoted pornography

as a political claim,

more than a cultural claim.

Mario Mieli understood, for example, the meaning of transgender,

before the idea of it came to life,

in his graduate thesis ''Elements of homosexual critic''.

El pueblo unido are better if transvestite!

And now, and now the makeup to those who work

Pornography was...

''generalized''

Antionio Veneziani, Poet

and popularised just like folk poetry.

The people who attended the Castel Porziano festival

contributed to the liberation.

The title of this poem is ''Fuck off'':

fuck off with the rent and the landlord,

the city you live in; yesterday's, today's and tomorrow's loans.

Fuck off with the success of millions of people,

the applauses and the revolution,

the great show, the great fuck.

Fuck off with the State, the middle and the upper class,

the rhetoric of the working class.

Fuck off!

At that time, many of us mixed,

or were pretending to mix

reality and literature, cinema or theatre.

The brave declared themselves as homosexuals

or openly gave their support to pornography.

In my opinion, when there's no violence and oppression

everything is ok.

Anything that makes a person feel free and happy.

The real problem is finding happiness.

Our porn cinema originates from the heart of the '70s.

Marco Giusti, Film critic

In the years of lead...

When cinema was extremely wild and violent.

The culmination was reached with ''The Last Tango'',

with Marco Ferreri's ''L'ultima donna'',

These movies contained a great amount of violence,

ideological too.

Because without this you are nothing, no one, you don't exist

This one here, yes, what didi this one do to you?

Pheraps it did not do its job?

When Bertolucci and Oshima went international,

or Pasolini with the Decameron.

One could see the first male nudity,

the first erections.

Then ''Flesh'' conquered all cinemas,

and Warhol's world too.

It was absurd, violent, weird.

The protest was raised against the abnormal verdict

of the Court of Appeal

regarding the movie ''The Last Tango in Paris''

reclaims that censorship is still unacceptable,

as it represses the right to the liberty of expression

which is sanctioned by the Constitution

as a mere verbal statement

and it ignores the cultural modulation of the society

which on many important occasions

demonstrated the possession and the awareness of discretion

and morality

which is completely inconsistent regarding the aims of the same...

I requested for a very precise task from my party

regarding the key elements which are:

abolition of the administrative censorship,

a radical change of the articles in the fascist Rocco regulations

and freedom for pornography, as the only possible mean for victory.

Pornography has to be completely set free.

Adults have the right to spend time wherever they want and like.

All these things are very strong

Very strong...

And it produces a porn unconscious,

which later on will emerge in our cinema

in the late '70s

and then in the '80s.

At first we went to see them, I recall well...

There was a mixed audience,

not just the peeping-Toms, soldiers or young boys,

but also university professors and intellectuals.

Because you couldn't see them at home, right?

You had to go out. It's kind of funny actually.

In '78 there were... 20 porn movies released.

In '79, 150 I believe.

The mass was exterminated

the serious theatres were shut down, the erotic ones opened.

During the occupation of the Bologna University,

when everyone screened Elio Petri's political movies,

I mean, they didn't screen Battleship Potemkin

because it was a bit rubbish...

Activist movies were made. A few fake ones, too.

One day, during the occupation, I said:

Could I choose a movie? They said: Yes.

They didn't know what the proposal would be.

So I suggested ''Ciocciolina e l'orgia atomica''.

It was very pleasing to see all the friends,

because it was the occupation of the university,

so it was all about the dynamics of cultural legitimacy.

And we could finally enjoy a porn movie.

And that was liberating too. Step by step...

Short moments of urban and metropolitan subversion...

We are entering the main hall

of our Mam - Museo dell'Arte Mai vista (the never-seen art museum).

Here we have...

many Fanze's works of art,

these beautiful Finocchi. Down there we have Tamburini

This cover was made by Liberatore.

That one by Tamburini. Liberatore, Ranxerox.

This is Cicciolina in a flexible pose...

These are various Pazienza's works. Apart from that picture of Zanardi.

We see all these different ladies...

Some of them we used for the 1982 calendar.

Scozzari and Male represent well

how shall I say... The symbolism.

All the things that shouldn't have been done, but they were done.

What I see in these comic books

is an...

an interweaving and overlapping of elements

and symbols of homosexuality, heterosexuality,

pansexuality, everything...

Because it was a phase in which different genres appeared.

This is art and culture that Italy produced.

With Frigidaire we discovered

that we can use all kinds of styles.

Vincenzo Sparagna journalist, illustrator

In a certain way...

It was a development of the '77 movement,

and others like Male, Zut ecc.

Both Riccardo and Cicciolina

were a part of the Frigidaire's editorial staff.

We wanted to interview Cicciolina...

And it would be a part of the interview with Norberto Bobbio.

The idea was to join

how to say...

Bobbio's philosophy

and this radically liberal one

which was the one that finally caused the turnover

in terms of censorship.

They all had this common vocation, a libertarian one.

And it was Riccardo's.

He didn't just...

enter the world of porn,

but in a way, he invented a variation of porn

which was rich and interesting.

In these terms, I believe that we were

detachments of an army

which spread in different directions but with the mutual aim:

to strike this single-themed society.

There you are Filippo! Where were you?

Come on, let's go.

I remember that in Piacenza we organized a show

and there was police surveillance.

The officers blinked an eye on us and did nothing.

While in Aulla, a city

which was no longer their territory,

where the local authorities were happy about Ilona Staller's show.

They were careless and a little bit drunk,

so they took us...

They drove us away with their cars...

after dragging Cicciolina by the hair all over the bar...

Her face was all bloody.

So they shut us down into the barrack of Massa Carrara,

where they've put away all the crucified Christ

before interrogating us. Then they threw us in jail.

Judge, in the world there are special people too,

and this person is a celebrity,

it's Ilona Staller.

Ilona Staller was charged 3 days ago by a magistrate from Naples,

on the account of the show that she's presenting

on her Italian tour

and on account of some private radio shows.

So I said: Ilona, stay here and calm down.

Oh, it's Cicciolina. - You know Cicciolina?

He doesn't know Amanda Lear, but Cicciolina he does.

That's Cicciolina's name.

Okay. Don't look at her with grimness. Ilona, calm down.

No, it's not grimness, it's disgust...

No, with disgust, no. She is a pretty girl after all.

Beauty is not what you can show with your own body,

The beauty of a woman is not like that.

Don't look at her judge.

Some women seem even less pretty when they take their clothes off.

Look at this!

Staller Elena Anna

spoke publicly to the ministries

on May 4th, last year.

And she declared:

I am aware of all the elements of my accusation,

I acknowledge the existence of video tapes entitled

''5 racconti sensuali di Cicciolina'' (Cicciolina's 5 Sensual Stories)

and ''Carne bollente'' (Hot Blooded Flesh)

which were viewed using proper equipment

at the Public Minister's offices.

It is acknowledged that the tapes contained

scenes of various types of sexual intercourse.

Riccardo...

was imprisoned.

He did time

and he did it to free all of us,

to show that pornography is not a mere consumer product,

but some sort of initiation.

Because it initiated the conflict

with the Vatican's control in social terms.

In Italy...

In Italy we can identify only two political cases

which really had the courage

to fight this inconceivable power which can do anything

wants everything and controls everything.

These two were the Radical Party and Riccardo Schicchi.

It started in the most simple way.

We called Riccardo and he said: Okay...

Marco Pannella founder of the Radical Party

Let's do it. And so...

And so we candidated ourselves. I talked with Cicciolina...

We put also Ilona, with an S, Staller.

It was in alphabetical order, so she came last.

And I made a list...

In Rome...

We as radicals said

F.U.O.R.I. with the abortions, (F.U.O.R.I. - Italian homosexual revolutionary united front)

divorces, military services, all that stuff, I put them all.

But...

Not until the voting day,

a bunch of those who were supposed to vote for us

were scandalized.

No...

A porn star?

They didn't vote for us.

The result was that, on the other hand,

others voted for us and preferred her,

so she got elected.

She got elected

because of that percentage of compliance and conformity

that we all possess.

The capitalis, consumerist press...

Hollywood, not neo-realist,

not right... That sort of thing...

Everybody, everybody feels that

for their public, the world news is rooted there.

At that time we didn't say global, we said of the world.

And they were coming in.

We went to the Montecitorio square to host Ilona Staller.

Sergio Rovasio, Political activist

She was here for the first time and didn't know how things work,

how the building looked like and so on.

I think I've never seen so many TV reporters, from all over the world.

And apart from the millions of people

who wanted to see this phenomenon.

Although I think it was more of a media show.

From my personal point of view,

it was an extraordinary phenomenon and very important

above all because of the message

regarding the sexual freedom that we wanted in this country,

and the fight against sexophobia.

Well, at least she did well.

She wasn't corrupted, on the contrary...

She paid tribute to all

for being imputend.

For being what she was...

and showing it... Not being ashamed of it.

And she won with discretion.

Did she do something wrong? No, she didn't.

When Jeff Koons remakes the work and the photos with Ilona Staller,

he will actually recall the world of Schicchi.

She transcended onto a different level,

She became an icon suitable for art.

It's clear that Ilona Staller

was a porn star

Achille Bonito Oliva Art critic

Despite that, Jeff married her.

He used her as a model for his sculptures

for what she represents in the collective unconscious.

Art always wants to strike the collective unconscious,

It wants to disorient, displace.

Art hesitates with everything. It can use everything

and redeem any vulgarity

using style.

''L'origine du monde''

is a work of art which

truly repudiates pornography

and produces an image

of a body part which was forbidden

in the art iconography for centuries.

At most there were some positions,

legs crossed or even nude, but...

there was no...

general open-mindedness

regarding the feminine sex, to the world.

I saw a video, my friend Roberto D'Agostino sent it to me,

in which Paris Hilton lets some friends fuck her

and maybe it's the least erotic sequence

in the whole Western history.

Her facial expression is like...

I don't want to say a cow that's about to... No, because...

It's the same expression like, I don't know who...

It's empty!

There's nothing going on inside her head.

I don't know if sometimes something does go on in her head,

apart the extreme shrewdness,

but in that moment, nothing was on her mind.

The prerequisite for erotism and so on,

is that you feel hell inside your head,

that there are flames and fire, thank God, flames and fire...

The world of...

reappropriating the woman's body has made a lot of progress.

There are many bars, festivals,

situations, shows in which there is, for example

BDSM.

Bondage, Burlesque...

That's another new word...

There are disco's for transvestites,

they wear women's clothes,

publish their photos on Facebook,

everybody's happy, everybody's pleased,

but there's no...

overflow,

no one feels like the swollen river

Everything is calm, controlled.

Now there's a category for everything,

And this is very bad!

Because it doesn't mean that we've overcome a phase

in which that is not necessary,

on the contrary, we are going through

a descending phase

and this is needed more than before.

But it can't be done now

and that is not good.

It's not good because it means

that the consumer society, the show business society,

the society of the show business ideology,

managed

to restrain,

managed to take away

that subversive and vibrating power

that sex, not sexuality,

that the fuck and the porn had,

and which is now gone.

One day we went to Rome’s city center, to the Rinascente mall

- I’m talking about the ’75-

I was penniless, he was penniless...

We went in, and I remember this counter in the shop window,

there was some kind of a rosary with cloth at the edges.

I said: How nice! Please... - I said to the saleswoman-

Could I try it?

She gave it to me and...

strangely, instinctively, I put it onto my head.

I had long, blond hair.

So I put this sort of a rosary on my head

and it looked very good.

At one certain point, the saleswoman said:

Listen, you don’t put it there, it’s actually for the neck.

I said: No, I like it this way!

And at that moment Cicciolina with the rosary was born.

Italy owes a lot to us,

because Schicchi and I opened the door to sexual freedom,

and all in all this wouldn’t have happened

if we didn’t do it in spite of all the complaints,

all the problems, troubles and raids.

Just by saying Cicciolina

or sexual freedom there were immediate complaints.

Practically, if you think about it, via Veneto,

which was so thrilling: La Dolce Vita...

and the stars, starlettes, meetings, lights...

It’s dying down!

As if the people got tired of emotions,

after experiencing them they throw them away, right?

And it’s not like they want to change for the better,

they change for the worse.

Two weeks ago... I was in bed

Around 4 or 5 am, I jumped and said: Oh, God!

I had a dream. What happened?

Schicchi was already buried, in his tomb, under the earth.

I saw him coming up

straight up, with all the sand

while I was sitting next to him. I said: Riccardo,

but you've already been buried!

He was smiling. So I said: Oh, Holy Mary, you're alive then!