MARQUEE IMAGE IN 'VINYL' PILOT CALLS BACK TO 'DEEP THROAT' DAYS
The pilot episode of HBO's Vinyl is directed by Martin Scorsese, who created the series along with Mick Jagger. The pilot, essentially a new two-hour Scorsese picture, begins with its main character, Richie Finestra (Bobby Cannavale) scoring some drugs on a New York street before being shaken by rowdy partiers into abandoning his car to follow them via some sort of Dionysian impulse into a building where the New York Dolls are performing to a crowd of rabid fans. Finestra observes motionless, but drugged-out impressed as the band has the crowd eating out of its hands. A little later in the movie (actually, after the story has flashed back a handful of days prior to its opening), Finestra is riding in a car and spies the marquee of a movie theater showing a double feature: Deep Throat and The Devil In Miss Jones."IT OPENED UP THE SOCIETY"
With the latter scene mentioned above, I couldn't help but be reminded of Scorsese's mention about going to see Deep Throat with Brian De Palma in the 1970s. The following is from page 116 of Richard Schickel's book, Conversations With Scorsese, during a discussion of Scorsese's Taxi Driver:
Schickel: The woman—a society campaign worker—is attracted to Travis because he’s so out of her league, as it were. Her Junior League, I guess. Which makes this notion of taking her to a porn movie—Scorsese: Oh! I know. Well, you have to remember, a lot of people don’t remember now, but at that time, they were trying to make porn acceptable, with Deep Throat and Sometimes Sweet Susan, and pictures like that.
Schickel: I went to a few of those.
Scorsese: It was okay to go with a girl. But Brian De Palma and I went to see Deep Throat, and he said, Look at the people around us, it doesn’t feel right. There were couples. I said, You’re right. We should be with all these old guys in raincoats. It was a wonderful kind of hypocritical thing that was happening—it opened up the society.
Updated: Monday, February 15, 2016 12:23 AM CST
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