I have a long-standing issue with the entire category of "documentary films", of which this portrait of director Joe Sarno and his actress wife Peggy qualifies under standard definitions. It is filled with interviews, cinema verite recording of the movements and conversation of the two principals, lots of film clips to illustrate (quite incompletely) a career, and talking heads interjections of so-called experts. But the result is sentimental slop, apologia, fawning and slavish fandom, and a completely misleading look at both the artist and the larger issues stemming from his choice of pornography as creative outlet.To begin with, this is no more objective than any random screenplay concocted and directed by a "fiction" filmmaker. That is because we do not see the real people, only a representation of them according to the whims of the principals themselves but more significantly according to all the choices made by the director & his team. Even when scenes are not staged as in a play or a "screen" play in the cinematic version of theater, the decision as to which found footage to include or in this case interview footage has zero objectivity. What we see is what the makers want us to see, and what we think about it is heavily slanted by what's in and what's out.I say this because one would believe from watching this film, along with other sycophantic defenses of Sarno's latter-day status as a great film pioneer (SEE: wife Peggy's pride at the very end of the film pointing to the NY Times lionizing of her husband in its obituary for him, as if the Times actually stood for anything other than hype and self-promotion), that Sarno was a great artist who gave up his career when hardcore pornography drove his beloved soft-core "sexploitation" genre out of the marketplace.This is patently untrue; without relying on other sources you will note that I have watched and reviewed in IMDb over 50 of Joe's XXX hardcore videos and films that he made in the late '70s and 1980s that are completely swept under the rug by this documentary. The so-called film historians shown on screen help to perpetrate this cover-up. Admittedly, his early work before explicit sex was permitted (pre-1970) includes many excellent films, but they do not give a complete picture of his oeuvre, and the dozens of emphasized references to his refusal to go along with the new commercial XXX content are all false.So an accurate documentary would mention and perhaps summarize this vast output of pornography directed under dozens of pseudonyms by Sarno, and perhaps mention several quality moments contained therein (notably a couple of '70s explicit Swedish titles that are well worth rediscovery, never having been subtitled in English for wide distribution). A balanced picture could be provided.But no, we have mindless and misleading platitudes from the likes of John Waters, Ed Grant, Michael Bowen and a quite untrustworthy scholar Linda Williams, whose remarks on DVDs by gay pornographer Wakefield Poole are flat-out idiotic. As with so many (now into the thousands) "Bonus" featurettes usually by British self-appointed historians of exploitation and genre films, a whole new generation or two of fans are being consistently misled on both the conditions of these films when first released as well as their relative importance in cinema history.At the end of this movie I certainly was persuaded to have extreme sympathy for Peggy taking care of poor Joe, but his quest to make a new movie according to his oddball, antiquated standards (which of course never came to pass) is merely pathetic in the extreme.

Joe Sarno was the undeniable master of soft-core cinema in the 1960's and 1970's. Basically a 42nd Street version of Bergman (Sarno even made a handful of movies in Sweden), Sarno's films were unique in the genre because they put a greater emphasis on women over men and were sincere attempts to capture genuine emotion on celluloid. This documentary follows Sarno and his marvelously feisty, yet still loyal and doting wife Peggy in his twilight years: The Sarnos visit Sweden, attend screenings of Joe's pictures at film festivals, and Joe feverishly toils away on a script for a film that alas never got made. Meanwhile Peggy does her best to take care of the troubled financial situation -- she admits that she's responsible for putting Joe in a kind of hermetic bubble that caused him to lose touch with reality -- and, in an especially sobering scene, goes to see her elderly mother who was vehemently opposed to Peggy marrying Joe. Moreover, various Sarno fans such as John Waters and noted historian Michael Bowen give their two cents about the artistic merits of Sarno's enormous body of work. The single most remarkable thing about this documentary is the fact that it's at heart a very affecting love story about a sweet old couple who just happened to make so-called dirty movies for a living; one can't help but care about this charming pair. Although not without a few flaws (for example, this documentary for the most part glosses over Joe Sarno's career in hardcore porn after the soft-core market dried up in the mid-1970's), it's nonetheless essential viewing for Sarno aficionados.

I didn't know what to expect with "A Life in Dirty Pictures" but what I wound up watching just broke my heart. Joe was soon to leave this world when the documentary highlights his unsuccessful attempt to secure a film he had written due to the lack of a budget necessary to see it get made. Peggy, his long-suffering wife, has endured the ongoing struggle to keep them out of debt and remain at home, all the while hoping his movie will be more than just a pipedream. Sadly, he would be hospitalized and die not long after this doc. The documentary comments on Sarno's disdain for the uptick in the hardcore genre after he, and others like him, tooled their trade in softcore smut, considering their sexploitation work of better quality and value than the explicit and raunchy trash soon to come afterward. Clips from his early work and the last gasp at achieving something substantial (like Confessions of a Young American Housewife (1974)) before that just wasn't enough to thrive during the decade of "Behind the Green Door" and "Deep Throat", "Water Power" and "Forced Entry" are included along with interviews from admirers and insiders of his work. Not focused on is all the smut he directed in the 80s. He even had a film in 2004. However, he doesn't appear as some perverted, creepy elderly dog, but just an old sweetheart who is associated with a genre that deals with sex (he preferred focusing on women in his old exploitation days in the 60s and early 70s) in a number of ways not necessarily considered by moral society as appropriate or respected. Peggy's noble efforts to keep him afloat are shown as is Joe's desire to make one last film. Although shot in New York City, this was a Swedish documentary.

A Life in Dirty Movies (2013)*** 1/2 (out of 4)Highly entertaining documentary that focuses on the life and career of writer-director Joseph W. Sarno. The name might not be overly familiar to most but he was a pretty big figure in the softcore days when he tries to deliver more than just sex and nudity. This documentary does an extremely good job at explaining what the sexploitation genre was all about back in its boom days and it also shows how different the films of Sarno's were. The best thing is that we've got the man himself here discussing his past work and we also see him trying to get a new picture made. This film was made towards the end of his life and also centers on his relationship with his wife Peggy. We get to see what it's like for them trying to get the film off the ground, to get Sarno's worked looked at and of course the various financial issues.A LIFE IN DIRTY PICTURES also features interviews from film historians and fans including John Waters. Over the past decade there have been several documentaries taking a look at the sexploitation pioneers and this one here is certainly one of the best. Fans of Sarno will certainly want to take a look at it and if you're new to the genre then you're going to see several great clips.