timely connections
At the same time that journalists of German news-magazine “Der Spiegel” seem to have difficulties coming to terms with women who like fucking, Vienna’s “Imperial Kino” shows Gustav Machatý’s “Ekstase” (1932 or 1933), starring 18-year-old Hedy Kiesler, later to become Hedy Lamarr, in the role of a woman in ecstasy. Apparently, “Ekstase” is the first film in history to actually show a woman’s orgasm at all. The close-ups of Lamarr’s face in ecstasy were all too shocking at the time – the film was severely cut and censored, and forbidden in many places (in the US: until 1940; in Germany the film was forbidden because Ms. Kiesler was Jewish). There are several versions in circulation, censored as well as uncensored, and the “Imperial” seems to show all of them. Just wondering whether you can see a woman in ecstasy in the video release.