A German pornography expert in North Korea.
In an age in which certain great cities are being neutered at lightning speed, it's worth remembering that people like Johannes Schönherr exist. The point is not so much that Schönherr traffics in smut, shock and other crypto-traditional pleasures, though he certainly does all that. It's more that he stays the dissolute course by such inventive means.
Growing up in East Germany, Schönherr didn't want to contribute to the Communist regime, so he got a job with the church as a gravedigger. This simple equation-do something weird in the interest of freedom-became his trademark. Eventually wriggling free of the DDR, he fashioned himself into a purveyor of trash cinema and started traveling the globe. Along the way, he has managed to introduce Nick Zedd's blatantly misogynist films to German feminists, American Red-scare movies to confused Russian viewers and his own lanky, long-haired, bespectacled self to the hapless organizers of a film festival in North Korea.
His Trashfilm Roadshows captures much of Schönherr's permanent Wanderjahr with dark humor and unabashed glee. Veteran New Yorkers may read the passages on the meteoric burnout of G.G. Allin and the brief tenure of the Lighthouse Cinema ("Manhattan's only full-scale desolation row theatre") as elegy, but Schönherr himself is hardly falling prey to nostalgia. I caught up with him by phone recently, and found him fighting the good fight, as ever.
When I saw you last summer, you were planning to show porn movies in South Korea. How did that go?
Oh, it went fine. Unfortunately, no police showed up. But it got a lot of press and people really liked it.
What did you show?
Vintage American porn from the 20s and 30s. A Free Ride. Some people claim it's from 1915 and the oldest surviving American porn, but it's debated. Nobody really knows. And I showed this famous porn animation from the 20s, Buried Treasure, also known as Eveready. And Pete the Tramp, which is a kind of Depression-era porn movie. I showed the same program in Japan in 1999, except in Japan I showed Mexican Dog. The Koreans told me, "No need to bring that one. That might be a little too much."
Why didn't the police break it up? Did the movies manage to pass as art?
It was the festival people who came up with all the strategies on how to avoid police harassment. They worked it out with Korean lawyers beforehand. People had to fill in forms before buying a ticket, stating that they were over 18. They had to prove that, and they had to give their reasons why they wanted to see the films. After the movies, there was a panel discussion between me and a Korean film studies professor, who was also a member of the Korean film ratings board. So it was all arranged as an academic seminar. That's why nobody bothered [us]. Although the bland cultural center where the show was held had been redecorated by the festival folks in 70s-style Times Square porno fashion.
You also mentioned that some of your North Korea stories didn't make it into Trashfilm Roadshows.
Yeah. The North Korean embassy in Berlin used to be involved, and still is, in renting movies via some movie theater. They tell the movie theater, "We need this and this movie," and give them a list. Then the theater rents it, claiming that they're going to rent it out, but in fact they just give it to the North Koreans. I got involved for a while in early 2000. They just had a typewritten title list, but they didn't know at all what the movies were about, who made them, or anything. It was bizarre what they wanted. Like, a 15-part movie series from the 70s about the wives of the Yakuza, and a Jackie Chan movie, and some strange German tv production that never had a film print made.
What was that about? Intelligence gathering? Corruption?
It was always very urgent and money didn't matter. Even the language that the movie was in didn't matter. That gave me the impression there must something more behind it. They always said, "We show it at the embassy" but I don't believe them. It started in the 90s at some point. Then the successor also ordered those movies, and then another guy came in. They all claimed to be big film lovers, but it was as if North Korea had one person in the embassy who did nothing else but get movies. And the Great Leader is known to be a film lover. So I figured, ah, it might be that just he watches them, and in some way they fly them to Pyongyang.
What's next for you?
I want to try to find some way to finance living in Japan and learning Japanese. For now I just plan to be there for four months or something, because that's what I have the money for. But I hope something will come up, where I could make some money there, writing or getting involved in documentary productions, this kind of stuff.
Why Japan?
Japanese girls is number one. Japanese food is number two. I caught the last great years in New York. Now you can't even smoke there anymore. But in Japan, more and more things are happening all the time. Lots of weird things. The place gets more and more interesting every time I'm there.