Chasing the Muse

French filmmaker Jean-Francois Davy's essay/exegesis/skinflick documentary Chasing the Muse serves up plenty of explicit female nudity and sex as it follows the bearish Davy—a Fred Flintstone lookalike and longtime purveyor of steamy stuff—who quotes Godard and Lelouch while ruminating on women, repression, and how he makes no distinction between raunchy porn and allegedly higher-class eroticism. Supposedly auditioning actresses, Davy and a cameraman tour Eastern Europe, interviewing beautiful girls and paying them for orgasmic sessions and sex, finally settling on one blonde. Some will certainly find this distasteful, and may be disappointed that Liam Neeson never crashes through a door and sprays the set with gunfire while rescuing a daughter. Slightly more interesting is an included second feature, Davy's 1975 film Exhibition, in which the filmmaker talks with French prostitute-turned-XXX-star Claudine Beccarie (who condemns Deep Throat as "sick...deformed sex" and regrets that she can no longer take Holy Communion because she's divorced) in between a number of hardcore sex scenes. Not a necessary purchase. (C. Cassady)