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Canadian Cinema 12: Bonnie Sherr Klein's Not a Love Story. By Rebecca Sullivan. Toronto, ON, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 2014, 129 pp. ISBN 9781442627246 (pbk).
The 1981 pornography documentary Not a Love Story (NALS) is one of the National Film Board of Canada's (NFB) most controversial productions. NALS and its impact are discussed in the twelfth volume of the Canadian Cinema Series, which also includes the seminal Canadian films/documentaries Goiri Down The Road (volume eight), Le déclin de l'empire américain, Les invasions barbares (volume two), Hard Core Logo (volume seven), and A Married Couple (volume five). Author Rebecca Sullivan took on two tasks: first, to look more closely at the sex worker's voices in NALS, and second, to use interviews and research to better understand the different levels of meaning in NALS beyond the oft-cited critiques. Sullivan's introduction and first chapter orient the reader to Klein, the NFB, and its feminist Studio D; Chapter two outlines the making of NALS; Chapter three reorders the subject interviews to better appreciate the divergent voices within and outside of the film; Chapter four interprets the socio-political and cultural legacy of the film; and the epilogue looks at the contentious and mutually influential relationship between Klein and her key collaborator/subject, Tracey.
In the introduction and Chapter one, Sullivan notes that Klein and Tracey originally approached NALS seeking to present differing positive and negative perspectives on porn. Yet Sullivan argues that critics read the final film as a moralizing condemnation of pornography due to its Porn Wars association and its unbalanced juxtaposition and ordering of interviews, content,...