"Extra Criticum is a forum for commentary and dialogue about what's on the minds of artists working in the performing arts." So, what's on my mind? Sex! But I'm supposed to write about film here, so what's a blogger to do? Eureka! Write about sex in films.
I recently watched Last Tango in Paris over two nights and I fell asleep during it. Both times! Seriously. I can appreciate the film as one of those groundbreakers, and it's kind of fun to see Brando do his "looking around the room for the cue cards" thing, and Maria Schneider's wardrobe is fantastic, but the sex scenes weren't steamy. Worse than that, the end of the "rape scene" had me in stitches (the profane version of church giggles?). Look, I'm all for using the unexpected reaction, but Schneider rolling and rolling and rolling on the floor seemed downright goofy. I don't know, maybe it's just me. Maybe that's how I'd react if I'd just been fucked by Marlon Brando. Who can say?
Unsatisfied, I thought I'd try In the Realm of the Senses. That, I thought, will be hot. Extra special hot because I would be watching it as a cineaste with a deep love and growing understanding of Japanese cinema and culture and as a softcore porn art film. You can't beat that, I thought. I moved it to the top of my queue and when it arrived in that double-condom Netflix envelope I felt like I had indeed received something naughty in the mail. Here was a film with plenty of full-frontal nudity, male and female, and with actors (not "adult film actors," either) actually having sex. But Netflix didn't ship me the new Criterion Collection disc, but instead sent me an older release and this proved to be very distracting. The transfer was lousy--the colors of the kimonos were completely washed out. What's worse, the film was dubbed in English, apparently by the same actors who did Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? and subtitled, and I couldn't turn off either. So, I spent my time watching for the incongruities between the spoken and written words, and there were many. Here are three spectacular ones:
Sada the courtier drinks straight from a saki bottle and says, "Do I look elegant?" and the subtitle reads, "Do I look ugly?"
While in bed with a timid professor Sada lures him into a little s&m and instructs him to pull her hair. She says, "Make it hurt. I want to feel pain, go on." The subtitles read, "Make it harder ... or I'll kill you."
And to her lover Sada says, "I warned you" and the subtitle reads, "I wanted you." Talk about your mixed messages.
And the sex scenes? More explicit, but sexy? No, not really.
I wondered if perhaps the problem was the 1970s. Maybe I needed to watch something more 21st Century. Shortbus came to mind and I wish it hadn't. "Polymorphous sexual couplings," the Netflix description promised. And it delivered that. Here we have true Bacchanalian excess and lots of erect penises, a few vaginas, and some breasts. It's a direct descendant of In the Realm of the Senses (in fact, a sex toy in it, a vibrating egg, is called "In the Realm of the Senses"). It's all about people trying to fill one void or another by filling their voids or the voids of another, and it ends with the beautiful sex therapist finally having her elusive orgasm. But Shortbus left me cold and unsatisfied, intellectually, emotionally, and sexually. Sex used merely to provoke will do that.
I decided to try the 20th Century again and rented The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Midway through the film Daniel Day Lewis visits Lena Olin in her studio. They were once lovers who understood every fiber of the others' being and it's been a while since they've been together. He enters her studio and they circle each other while they exchange pleasantries; it is a dance, really. They are close, often very close, close enough to kiss, to touch, but they don't. Their dance seems to leave them both breathless. He heads for the door to leave, his back to her back. He pauses. She pauses. She grabs her bowler hat and puts it on. She turns to face him. His hand reaches for the door knob. Will he turn around and catch her gaze? Yes. And then? She smiles deliciously. He smiles and his eyes ... my lord, Daniel Day Lewis' eyes in this movie are beyond description. In an instant they're on each other, kissing passionately. The room swirls. They're on the floor. He's on top of her, his pants still on. Her stockinged leg rises in the air, then stretches out. The bowler hat rolls. Sexy!
And that's when it occurred to me. Seeing genitalia is such a novelty in nonpornographic film that when presented with them the viewer winds up focused on them. The problem with that is genitalia are not very expressive. Genitalia's range, in fact, is pretty limited. Excited. Not excited. That's about it. And then another thing occurred to me: sexiness is not about explicitness, in fact it is about the opposite. Sexiness is about mystery and tension. When you show genitalia on screen, there's no mystery left; when you show genitalia in action on screen, there's no tension left. You've shot your wad.
So if you want to get me hot and bothered while watching your film, draw out the tension and cloak those beautiful bodies in ways that highlight the mystery, that keep me wondering, that make me tilt my head to see if I can sneak a peek at what's underneath that piece of silk or wool or cotton. Or leather or vinyl or PVC tubing.
Care to share your favorite sex scene? And please, don't tell me it's the one you just shot last night and uploaded to milf.com. Pornographic moving images are another topic all together.
Crickey, I need a cold shower.
