Ali Larter flashing ass upskirt
Why does Blue Is the Warmest Colour beat Fifty Shades hands down? Is Showgirls really so bad? And why is most movie sex so awkward?
Trieste Kelly Dunn
We asked porn director Erika Lust …
Sex in the movies has never been more explicit than right now. There were risquƩ moments of nudity in the early days of Hollywood, before the 1930 Production Code reined it in.
Even after that fell apart in the late Sixties, Hollywood ā wary of the rating system ā responded cautiously with suggestive moments and partial nudity, swiftly outpaced by racier hits like Donāt Look Now.
Malin Akerman
So where does the line between movie sex and pornography now fall? We spoke to Swedish-born, Spanish-based director Erika Lust, who has become celebrated for her female-friendly and surprisingly tasteful approach to explicit sex scenes. āI see myself as a filmmaker. The subject Iām interested in is sexuality, but I donāt define myself as a pornographer. I do want to excite you, to inspire you. I want to show a positive side of sexuality and show that women can enjoy sex.ā
Mandy Moore
Given her experience of shooting sex scenes, we asked Lust to talk us through what mainstream movies get right – and wrong – about some of Hollywoodās most notorious films.
Fifty Shades Of Grey
This is probably the most talked-about film of the year.
When I watched Fifty Shades it felt a bit like a parody. I donāt know if thatās because thatās what I would have done. For me itās not an erotic film, itās a romantic film. I think the audience would have loved to have seen more eroticism. The books may be bad but they have more sex.
So is it a bad story?
Well, itās a story that has a poor female character, a very innocent virgin who knows very little about sex for a modern girl. She falls in love with this man who has this special interest in dominance. She doesnāt understand it, she doesnāt like it. Still, she decides that to be with him she is gonna go with his way of looking at sex. That is troubling to me. That is a story I donāt really want my daughters to read. Itās the classic narrative of a woman that needs a man to show her sexuality, and for me weāre past that point.
But surely itās good to have a mainstream film that focus so much on sex.
It is great that so many women have found a new awakening sexually with a book that they felt had some erotic parts. That part I love about it, so my feelings are complex. Itās like porn: it depends on who is watching it, the importance it has. If Iām watching mainstream porn, with my experience of sex as a human being, then you can see that itās fictional and that not all thatās going on is really the way itās done. But when a young girl or guy who never had sex looks at it, they feel that thatās what sex is. Thatās the problem with the porn that shows this sexist structure.
Amanda Seyfried
Showgirls
This scene in the pool has become notorious as one of the worst sex scenes in film history, but itās also a cult favourite.
I havenāt seen Showgirls since I was a girl, but I had a positive feeling. It felt like Flashdance or Fame, but more adult. Seriously, I donāt have a bad memory of it! This is the one that starts in the strip club where the girlfriend is looking at her dancing?
Yes, and then Elizabeth Berkeleyās Nomi stars in Vegas and has sex in the swimming pool with Kyle MacLachlan.
Thatās funny; I donāt remember that scene. I remember the girlfriend sitting in the club, next to her boyfriend. The showgirl is dancing for them, and the eye-communication was very interesting. Thatās my strongest memory. That scene is much sexier than the sex scene! What makes sex sexy is not the anatomy. What makes it sexy is the connection, the intimacy, the power. In Spanish thereās a great word, morbo. It means, like, animal magnetism. Itās about that gut feeling. The pool scene has no guts; the other one has!
Elisha Cuthbert
Basic Instinct
This one had Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas dancing in the nightclub and heās wearing a horrible jumper and sheās in this incredibly sexy dress. Then they go back to hers and heās naked apart from this jumper. Itās such an odd decision. Surely that is the first thing you take off?
Itās where a detail destroys everything. In mainstream porn, they donāt care at all about the details. It doesnāt make sense, a lot of times. In Hollywood films, we are so used to see sex without seeing sex. You see a couple kissing and getting into the bed, and then it goes black and theyāre wrapped in sheets. Or you maybe see a leg, and she always has her bra on. Itās the formula!
But Basic Instinct is one of the examples showing that a strong female character who is sexual will probably be a psychopath! Something will be terribly wrong with her because a strong woman canāt just enjoy good sex and be happy. If she enjoys sex, she must be very, very sick.
The first half of their sex scene shows him dominant, and then she flips him over and ties him up and it suddenly becomes threatening. It feels like heād demanded the first half contractually.
But they do that! One of the problems is that men will not take roles if they are not the strong character. I had a similar problem a year ago; I was in development of a fashion film and I had proposed two very famous American porn stars. In the script I had written, she was the strong character and he was more of a nerd. And when he got the script, he said no. What we need is more feminist actors.
Jessica Simpson
Blue Valentine
This almost got an NC-17 rating in the US because it has a scene where Ryan Gosling goes down on Michelle Williams.
Female pleasure! When films have female sexuality they are rated much tougher than when they have masculine sexuality. Boys Donāt Cry, for instance, got outside that rating system and had a very, very small distribution. Thatās a wonderful film, one that should have a broader audience. Then what is very disturbing is they are so OK with violence and terror and blood pouring and heads chopped. That is something thatās very difficult for me to understand. I canāt watch violence; it makes me feel sick.
And a very emotional and honest movie like this suffers because of that.
I like that movie very much: beautiful lighting, great ambience, interesting characters. I found the realism great.
So how do you achieve a feeling of realism like this in your films?
We talk about what weāre going to do and the characters they are playing. Then we do a choreography. It is a film so it is an illusion. I try to make it as authentic as it can be, but because I have a camera and a crew I may need your head to be on that side of the bed, or I may need you to move a leg. It is manipulated.
When we shoot, for my film crew itās like a dance around the actors. I am sitting in front of a screen. I see everything that happens. My director of photography, who is also my camera operator, is the one choosing the framing in the moment. Thatās why I find it so important to have a woman in that position, because she looks at the world the same way I do. When I had a man, he tended to focus on the woman all the time.
Sometimes we pause to change a battery or a card. Then I sit with my notebook or my iPhone and I write down all these pieces of the puzzle that I am missing for the edit, to create the dialogue of sex. It gets very technical and quite boring, because I need to fake the same situations and match it up. But itās one of the things that make my films look so good. I have a feeling that most porn directors are not really directing. I donāt think they even give instructions to the actors.
Blue Is The Warmest Colour
This one raised some eyebrows.
I loved this. For me itās one of the best examples of how explicit sex works in a movie. He treated the sex exactly the same way he treated other situations. Itās a piece of life. They go to demonstrations and you see a piece of whatās happening there and itās kind of long. Then they have sex and you see a piece of that and itās quite long.
Which moments worked best for you?
A scene I thought was very beautiful is when Adele has seen the other girl and she goes home in her bed with her pillow, and you have a few flashes of how she imagines her coming in. That scene, the culmination of it really works. You feel like youāre in her mind somehow.
But the actresses really hated shooting these scenes. How do you put people at ease to shoot a sex scene?
With the actors, itās basically getting to know them, who are they, whatās their story. Then I ask them what they like sexually, how they define themselves in bed. I try to find people who would be interested in each other. So Iām a matchmaker! I make a proposition of a script and a partner, and we start the dialogue.
9 Ā½ Weeks
This got a bump in attention after Fifty Shades because it also has an element of dominance.
But I mostly remember Kim Basinger with her haircut and the shades casting lines across her skin. And the food from the fridge of course, and playing with the hat. Thatās what pops in my head. I remember Mickey Rourke from that and Wild Orchids. I was crazy about him in those days.
Making the film, the director almost method-directing Basinger and try to break her down in the same way that her character is broken down.
Thatās not my way, definitely not. It feels like quite a masculine way of doing things. Probably it works. Is it human, is it ethic, is it nice? For a movie like 9 Ā½ Weeks, is that really necessary? I donāt know. Power play is interesting, of course it is. It has to do with the basic dynamics of sex. But you have to understand the context. I made a short film called An Appointment With My Master. They have a discussion in the beginning that explains the situation and how you can use that power play, and what kind of words they use to communicate ā mercy; yellow; red. Itās something I havenāt done much, so I shot with two experts who have been in that situation before.
Are you sometimes limited by the people you can find for your work?
One of the limits I struggle with is that they are not trained actors. When you give them directions to do something physically they do it well, but when it comes to dialogue itās complicated. I donāt have much time for rehearsal, so itās not that I want to complain about those actors but the structure.
Itās one of the things that is amazing about Nymphomaniac; they used body doubles and digitised the sex scenes. It would be interesting to learn more about body doubles, because it would give me the opportunity to work with trained actors and still keep in the sex.
A History Of Violence
There are two important sex scenes here. Early on, Maria Bello dresses as a cheerleader and seduces Viggo Mortensen, and then later they have sex on the staircase which is a sort of turnaround, very passionate and almost violent. Itās quite an interesting case of sex being used to show how a character has changed.
Yes, it shows the relationship between them and how they are reacting. I remember that being powerful. Iām trying to remember the exact situation, his mood in that scene, but he was very violent. Was it crossing over or was it almost crossing over into a rape situation? Or am I completely wrong?
It was certainly clear after a few seconds that she was willing but there is a moment where you donāt know. Is there a line there that you have to be careful of crossing?
Well, there is a clear line; both must want to do what is going on. If one is saying no, get off me, then itās not OK. Thatās completely clear I think. Thatās one of those questions I get sometimes about pushing limits. People say that women have rape fantasies, and would you be in to shooting a rape fantasy? Iām not really planning it, but the only way of doing it would be to make very, very clear that this is a fantasy that the character has.
What is very interesting with almost all of these films is how they incorporate the sexual want into the characters, and how that works to understand the rest of the film. Itās a moment of transformation for the character, and thatās very interesting. That shows us, again, the power of sex.
Itās extremely interesting and extremely rich, and itās strange that there arenāt more people wanting to explore the nuances. We started off talking about regulations and rating, but we are in a moment of change, where distribution is changing. So letās see what happens! I think weāre going to see new creators daring to film sex from different perspectives.