Wow, it's been a while since I've posted here. Horrible, horrible, me. I've been crazy busy lately, what with the remaining scene of Dead But Dreaming, the pre-production of Olalla, and more interviews coming my way. Hey, it takes time to think up those scintillating answers!
Below all of my text is a little tidbit of the Fangoria interview, with yours truly. Even if this issue has flown off the newsstands in your area, you'll still be able to get a copy of
#323 on
Fangoria's website! I love the tag lines, "The Passion of Amy Hesketh", and "An American filmmaker pushes bloody boundaries in Bolivia". Seriously love this (as well as the alliteration)!
I read an article today (
click here for the link) about how Lars von Trier is super-imposing the genitalia of porn actors over his own actors for the sex scenes in his new movie, Nymphomaniac.
Is this cowardly, and done just for shock value, as my friend
tweeted? Or was this a compromise made in order to have the scenes he wanted, with the cast he wanted? With names like Charlotte Gainsbourg involved, it begs the question.
This was rather prevalent to me since, last week, the Bolivian TV station ATB interviewed us about the "type of films we make". We asked what the show was about, they waffled around a bit and said something about "erotism in film". We did the interview, talked a bit about the erotic scenes in our movies, how we feel about that, how others feel about that, etc. Basically, I told them that we make art, artists/actors use their entire bodies as their "medium". Therefore, nudity is not the subject, nor the object, but the vehicle for expression. I was stating the obvious.
So, later that night Jac and I sat down to watch the show, and lo and behold, the feature was about pornography. Due to the shoddy journalism involved many viewers were left with the impression that we were making pornographic films. This would not bother me if we were actually making porn.
What bothered me is the fear the TV people apparently had at coming out and telling us about the content of the show. That was cowardly and unethical. They attempted to clear it up the following night with a statement basically saying that "(the filmmakers) in last night's feature contacted us to say that they don't make pornography". Whatever.
Was this just shoddy journalism, or are people here really that intimidated and unable to understand the movies we make? I'm not talking about all people, there are many educated, intelligent people in this country.
The only intelligent speakers on the show were three women who were very good at defining what pornography is and isn't. Citing Georges Bataille, and the Marquis de Sade, among others, as examples of eroticism, not pornography. Better.
This does bring up that age-old question, though: How far will (or should) an actor go in the name of art? Personally, the only reason I would be opposed to an actual pornographic scene in one of my movies is what most people fear with any casual sexual contact with someone else, disease. I do not demonize sexual acts. Sex is part of who we are as human beings, and quite often the motivating factor for many of the zany things we do in life.
Other than my neurotic fear of disease, I don't see why it's such a big deal. I enjoy portraying, whether as an actor or director, realism in my films.
According to TV and some movies, one would think that men never touch women's breasts, and that women never take their bras off during sex.
So including real sex acts in a film about one woman's sexual journey, is completely justifiable. What would have happened if some of Lars von Triers actors had said, "Sure, ok, let's do it!". Would the world have ended? No. Would some closed-minded people have thereafter demonized these actors? Perhaps, but we also would have gotten over a huge (pardon the pun) hump in filmmaking. And I don't know why Lars would be worried, because many people already think he's crazy. There's a certain freedom in that.
When I saw Catherine Breillat's Romance, which has real sexual penetration, I was intrigued. But not scandalized. Was it important for the film, or did the director do that just because she could? I certainly don't remember the film for the sex, but, instead, the acting and character arc of the lead protagonist.
Perhaps this has something to due with how I view the medium of film. Cinema, to me, is a medium for making conceptual art. It is a translation of the story, and of the self.
I think we have a long way to go before real sex in film is no longer shocking and can be seen a simply part of the storytelling.
