Lasse Braun

Lasse Braun (born Alberto Ferro; January 11, 1936 – 16 February 2015) was an Italian pornographer, film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and researcher.

Lasse Braun
Lasse Braun in 1976.
Born
Alberto Ferro

January 11, 1936
Algiers, Alger, France (now Algiers, Algeria)
Died16 February 2015 (aged 78)
Rome, Italy
NationalityItalian
OccupationPornographer, film director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and researcher
Years active1961– 2015
ChildrenAxel Braun

Braun earned a law degree from the University of Milan (1956–63). He initially accumulated the funds for his lavish productions from the profit gained with so-called loops, ten-minute hardcore movies sold to Reuben Sturman, who distributed them to 60,000 American peep show booths.[1]

Background

Braun was born into a wealthy, aristocratic Italian family as Alberto Ferro, and was destined to become a diplomat, following in his father's footsteps. He passed all of his law exams at the State University of Milan (1956–63), and while preparing the defense of his doctoral dissertation entitled Judiciary Censorship in the Western World, its contents and underlying radical ideas provoked so much controversy that it was promptly dismissed.

A Member of Parliament from Denmark translated the thesis into Danish; and the translation laid the foundation for the legalisation of pornography in Denmark on 4 June 1969.[2]

Braun placed himself firmly in the tradition of 18th century pornographers such as Rétif de la Bretonne, who was the first author to coin the word "pornography" in his plea for the institutionalisation of brothels in Le Pornographe (1769) and to describe a comprehensive range of sexual variations in L'Anti-Justine ou les Délices de l'Amour (1798).[3]

Another source of inspiration for Braun consisted of the Priapistic rituals and orgiastic festivals of the Dionysus cult, as well as ceremonies in veneration of Aphrodite (Porne), the goddess of lust and patroness of courtesans.[4] According to Braun, censorship itself is obscene, and the suppression of sexual desire by the political and religious establishment over the centuries has only led to psychological damage and frustration.[5] In his 740-page novel Lady Caligula, Braun goes against the grain by portraying Caligula as a brilliant character, instead of the deranged emperor described in Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire[6] and in I, Claudius.

Two of Braun's films, Sensations (1975) and Body Love (1977), (the latter featuring a soundtrack composed by Klaus Schulze) were shown at the Cannes film festival.

Having withdrawn from the world of pornography out of disappointment with the purely commercial approach of American distributors and the resulting inferiority of video productions, Braun has dedicated himself to writing scientific works on sexology (L'impeto di Venere, dealing with the G-spot) and on anthropology, erotic historical novels such as Lady Caligula (both in English and his native tongue, Italian), erotic thrillers, a study of prostitution, and his autobiography.

Braun died from complications of diabetes on February 16, 2015 in Rome, Italy at the age of 78.[7]

Movie career

From 1961 onwards, Braun took considerable personal risks by producing hardcore movies in Franco's Spain and Pompidou's France. He continually changed his nationality, used various aliases (Stuart Falcon, Alberto Ferro, Charles de Rossi, Miguel Dospassos and Al Harvey, among others) and moved from residence to residence to avoid being arrested. He used his father's Corps Diplomatique number-plates to smuggle his pornographic materials in the form of movies, magazines and novels from country to country. After immersing himself in the technical side of cinematography in Sweden for a year, Braun set up his own studio in Copenhagen.

Two years later, he moved to the Dutch town of Breda, where he bought an old meat factory, to be renovated as his headquarters. Using photogenic women he had become acquainted with in European bars and discothèques, the polyglot Braun produced his longer movies starring the German-American Brigitte Maier,[8] the voluptuous Frenchwoman Nathalie Morin[9] and Catherine Ringer.

Braun's movies differ markedly from the traditional so-called stag films made from 1916 onwards;[10] storylines featuring Viking invasions, James Bond spoofs, and exotic locales such as Caribbean islands, the Dutch Groeneveld Castle and an Amsterdam art gallery, not to mention props such as chocolate cake, champagne and bananas contributed to a more playful and relaxed atmosphere than commonly seen in this inherently limited genre.

Lasse Braun Cinema in Amsterdam (1977)

After his French Blue had been shown at the Amsterdam cinema of City 2 from June until December 1977, Braun was offered a five-year contract to extend its run along with Sensations, but the Catholic Minister of Justice Dries van Agt terminated the public showing of pornographic movies by reintroducing an 1880 Law concerning fire hazard at public theatres that happened to contain more than fifty seats.[11] Disillusioned, Braun decamped to Italy, where he made a number of softporn movies. Facing several lawsuits on charges of obscenity, Braun countered by arguing that recording the licit act of consensual sex on film could not be condemned as illicit. His only known son, Axel Braun, continued the family trade in the United States of America, after obtaining a doctorate in Psychology.

In 1980, Lasse Braun's former wife burnt the entire photo and movie archive out of fear for an impending police raid, but Braun has managed to retrieve three major movies and thirty short films with the help of collectors, and re-mastered the collection on DVD. He appeared in the television series Pornography: A Secret History of Civilisation (1999) [12] and in a documentary about himself, I, the King of Porn ... the Adventurous Life of Lasse Braun (2001).[13]

Trivia
  • Lasse Braun is the first European movie director to have been inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame by Adult Video News.[14]
  • His son, Axel Braun, followed in his footsteps becoming the only other European movie director to have been inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame by Adult Video News in 2011.[15]

Partial filmography
  • French Blue/Sensations/Body Love

interspersed with 30 short films from 1961–77 (2008)

  • Night and Day
  • Possession
  • Intrique (1999)
  • Diamonds Are for Pleasure (1996)
  • Tender Blue Eyes (1992)
  • Zozzerie di una moglie in calore (1989)
  • American Desire (1981)
  • Sex Maniacs (1977)
  • Body Love (1977)
  • Love Inferno (1977)
  • Satin Party (1977)
  • Sensations (1975)
  • French Blue (1974)
  • Close-Up (1973)
  • Cake Orgy (1972)
gollark: I doubt they'll actually give you one.
gollark: Or an address or whatever.
gollark: Try and ask for a PO box to mail to.
gollark: Use your totally standards compliant email setup to complain about lack of standards compliance by others.
gollark: Trying to send email to mailing lists about email standards, obviously.

References
  1. Eric Schlosser (2004) Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market, Houghton Mifflin Books, p. 143, ISBN 0618446702.
  2. Ove Brusendorff, Poul Henningsen, The Complete History of Eroticism (Copenhagen: Thabing & Appels Forlag, 1963)
  3. Patrick J. Kearney (1982) A History of Erotic Literature, London: Macmillan, p. 89, ISBN 1858131987.
  4. New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London: Hamlyn, 1959), p. 130
  5. Dutch interview in VPRO TV guide Archived 2007-11-08 at the Wayback Machine. Lassebraun.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-09.
  6. Edward Gibbon (1776–88, repr. London: Bison Books Ltd, 1979) The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 30 ff.
  7. "Lasse Braun, Adult Film Pioneer and Father of Axel, Passes Away at 78 - TRPWL". therealpornwikileaks.com.
  8. Brigitte Maier on IMDb
  9. Nathalie Morin (I) on IMDb
  10. Al Di Lauro, Gerald Rabkin, Dirty Movies: An Illustrated History of the Stag Film 1916–1970 (New York: Chelsea House, 1976).
  11. International Press Clippings on Lasse Braun – Holland: Dutch interview in VPRO TV guide, 2003 Archived 2007-11-08 at the Wayback Machine. Lassebraun.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-09.
  12. Pornography: A Secret History of Civilisation on IMDb
  13. I, the King of Porn ... the Adventurous Life of Lasse Braun on IMDb
  14. Lasse Braun in AVN's Hall of Fame. Nndb.com. Retrieved on 2013-08-09.
  15. "AVN – 2014 AVN Awards Show – The Adult Awards". Avnawards.avn.com. Archived from the original on 2013-03-18. Retrieved 2013-04-03.
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