06-05-2006, 07:08 AM
Mark Kermode wrote an interesting piece in The Observer on Sunday about sex in mainstream films. Kermode wrote about a number of films aired at the Cannes Film Festival this year that featured quite explicit sex scenes. He says that this sort of cinema has become extremely hip amongst the film cognoscenti. As he puts it, “Over the past few years, Cannes developed a reputation for championing porno chic, much of it thoroughly meretricious.” He then lists 4 or 5 films that feature graphic scenes, yet despite being pretty poor cinematically (I’ve seen one or two and they weren’t very good at all) they got rapturous applause from critics evidently hoping to seem daring and edgy. Kermode’s point is that it won’t be too long before A-list Hollywood stars “perform actual sex acts on screen.” He believes this won’t convey graphic sex (as Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie did in Don’t Look Now without actually doing it) but will just leave the spectacle of a famous person having sex on screen – character and plot “momentarily destroyed.”
Do you think this is an inevitable step? Will it become fairly normal within the next decade to see actors going the extra mile? Or do you think that there is already far too much sex in movies as it is?
Personally I hope not. Filming actors having sex “in character” doesn’t really strike me as acting. I’m not convinced that there is any plot-line that demands that graphic sex must be in a movie - that isn’t porn obviously. Quite often I find that nudity is used far too often in a movie for no apparent reason – though usually as a means to attract people to a movie rather than create a fuller character or story. For example, Halle Berry sitting topless reading a magazine in Swordfish seemed laughably silly to me. It seemed such an odd choice too considering that most young actresses that make it big tend to keep their clothes on once they are recognized for their acting. Instead Berry finally got recognition and then bared herself seemingly because people kept asking. And nudity is such an odd one way street – yes you can see all of her, no you can’t see any of him. The worst sex-on-camera for me was Vincent Gallo convincing Chloe Sevigny to blow him on camera for Brown Bunny. I imagine if it weren’t such a truly terrible film that it might have made more sense. Instead, from what Sevigny and Gallo (idiot that he is) have said since, it was a terrible idiotic mistake for her, and for Gallo it is just a reason to gloat. Besides, to me sexiness isn’t conveyed necessarily by nudity, and even less so by showing a character actually having sex. Sophia Lauren conveyed sex appeal like no-one else I’ve ever seen, and she kept her clothes on. Watch 8 Women, which Chloe Sevigny is in, and no-one does anything close to getting it on, but the sex appeal of most of the women in it is way above and beyond that of Halle Berry in Swordfish. This, presumably, is also the reason why so many women have found Sean Connery so sexy for so long. I have absolutely nothing against porn – in fact I think I’m far more liberal about it than most – but I really don’t see the merits of having actors actually have sex on camera. To me it’s a befuddlement of logic anyway – Ray Winstone stamping on Kathy Bates in Nil By Mouth isn’t any less brutal or inauthentic because he didn’t really do it. And those critics that Kermode talks about cheering graphic sex in dire films remind of those that think Tracy Emin is a daring artist.
Do you think this is an inevitable step? Will it become fairly normal within the next decade to see actors going the extra mile? Or do you think that there is already far too much sex in movies as it is?
Personally I hope not. Filming actors having sex “in character” doesn’t really strike me as acting. I’m not convinced that there is any plot-line that demands that graphic sex must be in a movie - that isn’t porn obviously. Quite often I find that nudity is used far too often in a movie for no apparent reason – though usually as a means to attract people to a movie rather than create a fuller character or story. For example, Halle Berry sitting topless reading a magazine in Swordfish seemed laughably silly to me. It seemed such an odd choice too considering that most young actresses that make it big tend to keep their clothes on once they are recognized for their acting. Instead Berry finally got recognition and then bared herself seemingly because people kept asking. And nudity is such an odd one way street – yes you can see all of her, no you can’t see any of him. The worst sex-on-camera for me was Vincent Gallo convincing Chloe Sevigny to blow him on camera for Brown Bunny. I imagine if it weren’t such a truly terrible film that it might have made more sense. Instead, from what Sevigny and Gallo (idiot that he is) have said since, it was a terrible idiotic mistake for her, and for Gallo it is just a reason to gloat. Besides, to me sexiness isn’t conveyed necessarily by nudity, and even less so by showing a character actually having sex. Sophia Lauren conveyed sex appeal like no-one else I’ve ever seen, and she kept her clothes on. Watch 8 Women, which Chloe Sevigny is in, and no-one does anything close to getting it on, but the sex appeal of most of the women in it is way above and beyond that of Halle Berry in Swordfish. This, presumably, is also the reason why so many women have found Sean Connery so sexy for so long. I have absolutely nothing against porn – in fact I think I’m far more liberal about it than most – but I really don’t see the merits of having actors actually have sex on camera. To me it’s a befuddlement of logic anyway – Ray Winstone stamping on Kathy Bates in Nil By Mouth isn’t any less brutal or inauthentic because he didn’t really do it. And those critics that Kermode talks about cheering graphic sex in dire films remind of those that think Tracy Emin is a daring artist.