tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20641876202610207452024-03-13T23:44:16.203-04:00Sex in American CinemaAS4440A Dept. of Arts & Humanities
Corcoran College of Art and DesignBernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-40196736839235914332011-05-09T17:19:00.000-04:002011-05-09T17:19:15.099-04:00Colby Keller Interview - 5-5-2011.mov<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2vkwiuOpwwU?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" width="425"></iframe>Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-22051408194979597512011-04-01T09:22:00.001-04:002011-04-01T09:23:30.805-04:00Smut Capital of America<iframe frameborder="0" height="410px" src="http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/15215410/smut-capital-of-america-documentary-short/widget/video.html" width="480px"></iframe><br />
Believe it or not, I wish I could get hold of this 15-minute documentary (now being shown at the Tribeca Film Festival) to show in our class April 21 or 28, cause this is just what we're going to be talking about.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-7480154442136973992011-03-25T12:54:00.000-04:002011-03-25T12:54:55.337-04:00Imitation Of Life Part 1/13<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3s62HiPVlls?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="295"></iframe><br /><br />You can see Douglas Sirk's <span style="font-style: italic;">Imitation of Life </span>on YouTube--in 13 parts. Many consider it the greatest Hollywood melodrama of the sound era.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-67103066811746595662011-03-25T12:53:00.000-04:002011-03-25T12:53:24.514-04:00Imitation of Life (1959) - (Original Trailer)<iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1qIZoYfSTLM?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen=""></iframe>Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-13885019821570418972011-03-25T12:35:00.000-04:002011-03-25T12:35:51.769-04:00All That Heaven Allows<iframe width="480" height="295" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/B-TddoL1ip8?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen=""></iframe><br /><br />"Life's parade at your fingertips." What is sadder than substituting television for passion with Rock Hudson down at the old mill?Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-18240319849478627202011-03-25T12:34:00.000-04:002011-03-25T12:34:18.531-04:00All That Heaven Allows<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/naeda28rdjg?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="295"></iframe><br /><br />Ron's debut at The Club, featuring the horrible Mona and the revolting Howard. Disaster ensues.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-36075929485198055852011-03-25T12:30:00.000-04:002011-03-25T12:30:56.002-04:00Love was not gentle with these two . . .<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/g8I1p1Hmko0?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="425" frameborder="0" height="344"></iframe><br /><br />The trailer for <span style="font-style: italic;">All That Heaven Allows.</span>Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-76380556559839664412011-03-12T11:55:00.000-05:002011-03-12T11:55:40.969-05:00Check This OutAA Bronson, who was part of an influential artists' collective, General Idea, has been in the headlines recently because he requested that his work be withdrawn from the National Portrait Gallery's "Hide/Seek" exhibition after David Wojnarowicz's "Fire in My Belly" video was removed. There's been a major retrospective of his work in Paris recently, and his contributions to art were recognized with a knighthood by French culture minister Frederic Mitterand.<br />
Now Bronson has curated a series on Queer Cinema for the Museum of Modern Art, featuring some filmmakers we'll be looking at later in the semester: Kenneth Anger, Andy Warhol, Scott Treleaven (and including Bronson's own film, with one of the greatest titles ever, <i>Shut the Fuck Up</i>). You can see some of it if you're in New York during spring break. <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrSRrtGrOWTCD-E4xB2XXB6LFsftXNUX1R2oICK-yC4ewrE9rKuVaVz-207lEZl_kHIGaSPKTOlcR50fJP9Xenjw-nVSOwvUao_Rc6QE8xb80iPXeX7njoe9ZQgNMrhzAlpA4JjmBOgAY/s1600/healer1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrSRrtGrOWTCD-E4xB2XXB6LFsftXNUX1R2oICK-yC4ewrE9rKuVaVz-207lEZl_kHIGaSPKTOlcR50fJP9Xenjw-nVSOwvUao_Rc6QE8xb80iPXeX7njoe9ZQgNMrhzAlpA4JjmBOgAY/s400/healer1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><h2>Queer Cinema from the Collection: Today and Yesterday</h2><div class="gray-type"><b>March 11–17, 2011</b></div><a href="http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/films/1161#related_screenings">View related film screenings</a><br />
<div class="box br-margins"><div class="top">In conjunction with the Museum’s current exhibition <i>Contemporary Art from the Collection,</i> AA Bronson, an artist, writer, curator, and member of the artists’ group General Idea, curates a small and idiosyncratic selection of queer cinema and AIDS-related films and videos, drawn from and inspired by the Museum’s collection. <br />
<br />
AA Bronson offers these thoughts about the program: “Toronto, February 17, 2011, 7:59 am: I am sitting at my computer, feeling rather jet-lagged, and anticipating my return flight to New York several hours from now. Let’s say I am feeling queer: I have just come from Paris, where a 25-year retrospective of General Idea brought huge lineups to the opening night. That exhibition circulates around ideas of queerness, and especially General Idea’s queerness, the means whereby we queered whatever we touched, including concepts of the artist, the audience, the museum, the media, and the work of art. I am even later than usual in providing this text, and I am not sure exactly what it is I want to say here. I know that I do not know, and that is already a kind of queering. The films and videos that I have chosen represent a loose narrative of my own history; there is a story to go with each one. The story begins in the mid-sixties, when I screened a double bill of Kenneth Anger’s <i>Scorpio Rising</i> and Jack Smith’s <i>Flaming Creatures</i> at the School of Architecture where I was studying. Both films had been banned, and that was reason enough for me to present them, in a long evening that eventually became rather rowdy, ending in some sort of happening, with wet noodles and nudity. I include Anger’s <i>Eaux d’Artifice</i> for equally personal reasons: in 1970 a friend who was working at a film distribution house stole a copy of this soulful work, so moved was she by its beauty. We played it again and again in our rather cold and barren General Idea loft, stunned into (stoned) silence by its cold blue luminosity. Our loft was situated on the third floor of an old office building in the heart of the financial district of Toronto, and I remember that blue light flickering through the night, reflecting off the sea of desks that presented itself so mesmerizingly in the building facing ours. Each work in this series carries memories for me and perhaps I will be able to tell stories as we proceed. I have included one program of General Idea film and video, because those carry the most memories of all. And I begin with some new and younger talent, because as far as queerness goes, we are only just beginning.” <b>All film descriptions are by AA Bronson.</b></div><hr /><div class="exhibitcredit">Organized by AA Bronson, with Joshua Siegel, Associate Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.</div></div>Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-67415527293171444562011-03-09T21:38:00.000-05:002011-03-09T21:38:50.356-05:00Alfred Hitchcock Geek<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5SqVsuErj9mOhVOCjYSSs_s8AKAGftkUseTBTOJYp2A_7J6rlKduLL0_5G47Blg_fWtPA6S3IQshFnA81EF7YDBEx555-Qtc4w1SL8LCHMD_Gf4RcYcRWoT-p7CKcHWEoUoorb-VPqw/s1600/alfred_hitchcock_face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV5SqVsuErj9mOhVOCjYSSs_s8AKAGftkUseTBTOJYp2A_7J6rlKduLL0_5G47Blg_fWtPA6S3IQshFnA81EF7YDBEx555-Qtc4w1SL8LCHMD_Gf4RcYcRWoT-p7CKcHWEoUoorb-VPqw/s400/alfred_hitchcock_face.jpg" width="302" /></a></div><br />
Found a blog I didn't know before - check the list to the right for a link to <a href="http://www.alfredhitchcockgeek.com/">Alfred Hitchcock Geek</a> -- where Portland hipster Joel Gunz posts really insightful personal essays on Hitchcock's greatness, usually emphasizing the distinctive, charged atmosphere of sexual repression that makes them unique. Gunz gets it.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-56739128350024442122011-03-04T11:30:00.000-05:002011-03-04T11:30:53.204-05:00The More You Know . . .<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXkf9ImHl1-gzdBIOejJNoywuy99nR5X5g-0sWkzFh15u4x3eAI24ArEwsu8tflkcQR6XqVxle1kpLfgZrnXIATssaM8_LHtAjmGGBHBgmXmznD7mtkgkLPpPjkH8yE7BnXx6m21kPPI/s1600/wednesday+morning%2527s+lecture+for+multiple+classes+at+papal+university%252C+right+side.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYXkf9ImHl1-gzdBIOejJNoywuy99nR5X5g-0sWkzFh15u4x3eAI24ArEwsu8tflkcQR6XqVxle1kpLfgZrnXIATssaM8_LHtAjmGGBHBgmXmznD7mtkgkLPpPjkH8yE7BnXx6m21kPPI/s320/wednesday+morning%2527s+lecture+for+multiple+classes+at+papal+university%252C+right+side.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Extracurricular Sex Toy Lesson Draws Rebuke at Northwestern</b></span><br />
By JACQUES STEINBERG<br />
March 3, 2011<br />
<br />
The president of Northwestern University said Thursday that he was “troubled and disappointed” by a psychology professor’s decision to present his students last week with a demonstration outside class that featured a couple engaging in a live sex act using a prop.<br />
<br />
The demonstration had been arranged by J. Michael Bailey, whose Human Sexuality class has an enrollment of nearly 600. On Feb. 21, after concluding a lecture at a university auditorium about sexual arousal, Professor Bailey brought onto the stage a man whom he had invited to participate in a discussion of “kinky people,” according to an e-mail the professor later sent to his students that was reprinted by The Daily Northwestern.<br />
<br />
On the way to the stage, Professor Bailey wrote, the man, Ken Melvoin-Berg, the co-owner of a business called Weird Chicago Tours, “asked me whether it would be O.K. if one of the women with him demonstrated female ejaculation using equipment they had brought with them.”<br />
<br />
After receiving what the professor called “explicit” warnings of what they were about to see, about 100 students watched as the woman was penetrated by the device.<br />
<br />
Professor Bailey, who has taught at Northwestern for two decades, said in his e-mail that the presentation was part of an informal series of events — each “entirely optional” and “not covered on exams” — that had previously featured “a transsexual performer, two convicted sex offenders” and “a swinging couple.”<br />
<br />
In his statement, Morton Schapiro, the university president, said: “Although the incident took place in an after-class session that students were not required to attend, and students were advised in advance, several times, of the explicit nature of the activity, I feel it represented extremely poor judgment on the part of our faculty member.”<br />
<br />
Mr. Schapiro said the university would “investigate fully the specifics of this incident, and also clarify what constitutes appropriate pedagogy, both in this instance and in the future.”<br />
<br />
In his e-mail to his class, Professor Bailey expressed no regrets.<br />
<br />
“Student feedback for this event,” he said, “was uniformly positive.”Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-37065064042627469202011-02-24T07:03:00.001-05:002011-02-24T07:04:30.079-05:00The Kinsey Institute<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XIPC4LY3fmN4U8fycIIb_Sdfu-iPqaC2nl4HnbZSJZIyaaxtWesPmBoADmteKAR2lB9cDRVUXw-sXUPBU890qLJG-UeUsGabATYUtwdSGmenfc9XZiunWIgMTGYj81jiRQ8axi5osyk/s1600/KinseyTIME.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XIPC4LY3fmN4U8fycIIb_Sdfu-iPqaC2nl4HnbZSJZIyaaxtWesPmBoADmteKAR2lB9cDRVUXw-sXUPBU890qLJG-UeUsGabATYUtwdSGmenfc9XZiunWIgMTGYj81jiRQ8axi5osyk/s320/KinseyTIME.jpg" width="241" /></a>It would be hard to overestimate the impact of the Kinsey Reports, and the Kinsey Institute, on changes in American sexual morality and behavior in the past 70 years or so. However controversial some shifts of behavior and beliefs may appear to be, Kinsey's fundamental message seems to have prevailed: Sexual behavior is more diverse than is generally acknowledged, and there is some wisdom in considering what people actually do, rather than what they say think they ought to do.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0XIPC4LY3fmN4U8fycIIb_Sdfu-iPqaC2nl4HnbZSJZIyaaxtWesPmBoADmteKAR2lB9cDRVUXw-sXUPBU890qLJG-UeUsGabATYUtwdSGmenfc9XZiunWIgMTGYj81jiRQ8axi5osyk/s1600/KinseyTIME.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0neDtLTBl0Zk926fJgCQoVmcketACAERTK3YWdG3sAxBVwRrTVoRjAHq5g-YvzsZem59aqXf7ocWeNtF_RkEyoUogUwN2VOlV8noAZWZ9kYEibs_HC7uHyPy-bD0pBQfsQUx-BhgGrY8/s1600/Kinsey_Liam_Teach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0neDtLTBl0Zk926fJgCQoVmcketACAERTK3YWdG3sAxBVwRrTVoRjAHq5g-YvzsZem59aqXf7ocWeNtF_RkEyoUogUwN2VOlV8noAZWZ9kYEibs_HC7uHyPy-bD0pBQfsQUx-BhgGrY8/s320/Kinsey_Liam_Teach.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<br />
Fortunately, the Kinsey Institute, which is still the target of ideological attacks, maintains a public-information <a href="http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/">website</a>, where you can look up the specific <a href="http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/ak-data.html#Scope">findings of the Kinsey reports </a>and look for opportunities to <a href="http://www.kinseyinstitute.org/research/surveylinks.html">participate in ongoing research</a>.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-88051014287573138472011-02-14T23:56:00.000-05:002011-02-14T23:56:46.940-05:00Private Romeo - Official Trailer<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ajExqERK0p8?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="480" frameborder="0" height="295"></iframe><br /><br />Significant--maybe. Way artsy--yeah, looks like. Unspeakably silly--'fraid so.<br /><br />Happy Valentine's Day, cinema-sex fiends. Hope you found your Romeo or Juliet--in fact, why not try one of each?Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-14082134019539423752011-02-13T10:47:00.005-05:002011-02-13T10:52:51.783-05:00"Monkey Nipples"<span style="color: #9fc5e8;">From today's </span><i style="color: #9fc5e8;">New York Times</i><span style="color: #9fc5e8;">: the paper's great film critic Manohla Dargis comments on the disappearance of really good sex from contemporary American films. Well worth reading as context for the whole of this course.</span><b><br />
</b><br />
<br />
<div style="color: #ea9999;"><span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Closing of the American Erotic</b></span></div>By MANOHLA DARGIS<br />
February 12, 2011<br />
<br />
<br />
Lenny Bruce used to ask why it was obscene to show sex in American movies but not violence. Fifty years later, our screens remain washed in red, with severed if not necessarily naked body parts. More than half of the mostly American titles that received R ratings last year contained some kind of violence (as in strong, bloody and “grisly bloody violence and torture”) while only a third had sexual content. No NC-17 ratings were handed out, which bar youngsters, the viewers the studios most lust after.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #ea9999; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>American filmmakers shy away from sex, </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>especially the hot, sweaty kind</i></span></div><br />
One film did receive an NC-17 last year, if only fleetingly: “Blue Valentine,” a bruising independent drama about a marriage that goes south starring Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams. The scarlet letters were for what was vaguely described as “explicit sexual content,” words interpreted to mean that the ratings board had freaked out at the realism or perhaps intimacy of the sex, including an instance of oral sex and another scene in which the unhappy couple make uncomfortable, crushingly sad love. The movie’s combative distributor, Harvey Weinstein, successfully appealed the NC-17, and the rating was changed, without cuts, to an R (for its “strong graphic sexual content, language and a beating.”)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-7DcKFEXjXMkxHvv7zSQwIAUeOkaJr4h1qa5qwK6cJVIzIeISlY7gGQtZQB52-hxQy8hy6Y_FhGmWvfFsDh4C6vTQV_213zvHMgHnFF7qmb1HZIoBGyYY1KeD23oGt-JOwnLS0xCde5k/s1600/ryan-gosling-michelle-williams-blue-valentine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-7DcKFEXjXMkxHvv7zSQwIAUeOkaJr4h1qa5qwK6cJVIzIeISlY7gGQtZQB52-hxQy8hy6Y_FhGmWvfFsDh4C6vTQV_213zvHMgHnFF7qmb1HZIoBGyYY1KeD23oGt-JOwnLS0xCde5k/s1600/ryan-gosling-michelle-williams-blue-valentine.jpg" /></a></div><br />
When I saw the original version of “Blue Valentine” at the Sundance Film Festival last year (the film was subsequently trimmed before it was rated), I wasn’t shocked by the sex — after all, it’s about two lovely young people who can’t keep their hands off each other — but I was startled. American characters — heterosexuals! — were having sex in a movie. Even at this pre-eminent independent festival, American filmmakers shy away from sex, especially the hot, sweaty kind. The old production code might have crumbled in the 1960s and couples can now share a bed, but the demure fade to black and the prudish pan — coitus interruptus via a crackling fire and underwear strewn across the floor — endures.<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #ea9999; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>“this genuinely vile and disgusting Swedish meatball is </i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i>pseudo-pornography at its ugliest and least titillating.”</i></span></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>The recent deaths of the actresses Lena Nyman and Maria Schneider were poignant, useful reminders that there was a time when Americans used to troop in droves to go watch serious or serious-enough movies, domestic and imported, in which sex mattered as much if not more than violence. Ms. Nyman, a theater student turned screen siren, starred in the notorious 1969 Swedish film “I Am Curious (Yellow)” and its less popular sequel released three years later, “I Am Curious (Blue).” Ms. Schneider remains best known for holding her own, sometimes naked, against a more coy Marlon Brando in “Last Tango in Paris,” the Bernardo Bertolucci landmark (and French-Italian coproduction) that forced audiences to regard butter in a new light much as Hitchcock’s “Psycho” had forced them to reconsider the shower.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDxnInmJicQcDeQbwR6oAFNFbet2OX-BeicrEjf1vzSOEphBa4NOgR_6Bk0s1WSRQ-0RmbN2G1eb5BAh6eJCxMKM_HaMXZnaithQrKbRJIuy84M8PPviEeTXfRISyVe3jmQKhuIARnYQ/s1600/I+am+Curious.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDxnInmJicQcDeQbwR6oAFNFbet2OX-BeicrEjf1vzSOEphBa4NOgR_6Bk0s1WSRQ-0RmbN2G1eb5BAh6eJCxMKM_HaMXZnaithQrKbRJIuy84M8PPviEeTXfRISyVe3jmQKhuIARnYQ/s1600/I+am+Curious.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<br />
After being banned and then cleared, “I Am Curious (Yellow)” opened to long lines and blockbuster business, reaping $5 million in six months. (Adjusted for inflation, that figure translates roughly into $35 million in today’s dollars.) The critics, professional and otherwise, staked out their turf: Writing for the defense in The New York Times, Vincent Canby called it a “wise, serious, sometimes deadpannedly funny movie about the politics of life.” Opposed, Rex Reed fumed that “this genuinely vile and disgusting Swedish meatball is pseudo-pornography at its ugliest and least titillating.” Norman Mailer said it was “one of the most important pictures I have ever seen in my life.” Judith Crist just found it “pretentious.”<br />
<br />
<div style="color: #ea9999; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>“This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made.” </i></span></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>“I Am Curious (Yellow),” about a young woman (Ms. Nyman) investigating Swedish social and political mores, sometimes by pushing boundaries and making love al fresco, wasn’t the first sexually explicit movie to shake up American screens. In the 1950s and into the 1960s foreign-language stars like Brigitte Bardot, Hollywood directors like Otto Preminger and avant-garde filmmakers like Jack Smith did their part to ready the audience for the imminent sex-screen revolution. By the time “Last Tango in Paris” first played in New York in 1972, naked breasts and butts if not always penises had jiggled across screens and “porno chic” had turned Linda Lovelace into a household name. Forbidden topics, deeds and blue words had entered the mainstream: “Monkey nipples,” Richard Burton had announced in 1966 in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”<br />
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Seen now, “Last Tango in Paris” — which centers on strangers who become something else after having sex every which way in an empty apartment — scarcely seems the landmark it was heralded as, including by a breathless Pauline Kael: “This must be the most powerfully erotic movie ever made.” What’s striking about the film, beyond that it was an American (X-rated and then R) hit, beyond Brando’s beauty and Ms. Schneider’s too-tender youth, is its blissfully unselfconscious sexism, its celebration of maudlin masculinity and warmed-over crazy chick clichés. If Ms. Schneider holds her own against Brando it’s largely because she’s at times full-frontal naked. This cinematic revolution was, like so much of art, built on the bared backs — among other fetishized body parts — of women.<br />
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<div style="color: #ea9999; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>At last, a film with sex and romance, pretty boys</i></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><i> and no Jennifer Aniston. </i></span></div><div style="color: #cc0000; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>The movies still exploit female bodies, though today American actresses working in the commercial mainstream rarely strip down past their undies. If they tend not to bare it all it isn’t because of feminist progress. Neo-Puritanism and the mainstreaming of pornography have played a role, as have corporate blockbusters aimed at teenage boys, with their sexless superheroes and disposable pretty women smiling on the sidelines. Mind you, there isn’t much for women to smile about when it comes to American film, where for the past few decades, the biggest hits have starred men in stories about and for men. Though every so often there is something for us too; after all, women helped make a success of “Brokeback Mountain” a few years ago. At last, a film with sex and romance, pretty boys and no Jennifer Aniston.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-13451473076531692312011-02-06T10:33:00.000-05:002011-02-06T10:33:12.820-05:00The Sheik (1921) - with Rudolph Valentino<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/5YJqG8dqlUU?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="425" frameborder="0" height="344"></iframe><br /><br />The plot of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Sheik</span> is very different from that of <span style="font-style: italic;">Our Modern Maidens</span>, but the mixed message about women and sexuality is the same.<br /> Lady Diana Mayo (Agnes Ayres) is admired for her independence, high spirit and modern ideas, but when she is kidnapped by an Arab sheik, Ahmed Ben Hassan (Rudolph Valentino), she finds herself falling under the spell of his exotic masculinity. In the popular novel on which the film is based, Lady Diana learns to appreciate the sheik only after he takes her by force; in the film, he restrains himself and wins her with his consideration and respect for her. (When the film was re-released during the Code years, a scene of attempted rape had to be cut.)<br /><br /> Even so, the character of the sheik is recast for the film as the child of European parents, adopted by an Arab sheik; anti-miscegenation laws of the time would have precluded scenes suggesting romance and kisses between a European lady and an Arab man. The film was banned in Kansas City all the same.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"> The Sheik</span> was crucial to Valentino's career as the greatest male sex symbol of the time--and created a huge backlash among American men, who boycotted the film and railed against the "effeminacy" of his screen image. He died at 31 in 1926, setting off a mass outpouring of grief among American women that was a significant moment in the history of Hollywood's power over the public imagination.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-85762796260345561402011-02-05T23:14:00.000-05:002011-02-05T23:14:16.466-05:00Our Modern Maidens - After the wedding<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Ij3nWlnX7HA?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="425" frameborder="0" height="344"></iframe><br /><br />Right after the wedding, Billie discovers Kentucky in tears, and puts it all together: Kentucky is pregnant by Gil! She resolves to free Gil by pretending that she herself is a fallen woman.<br /> Note the gay friend who comes forward, offering to stand by Billie when everyone else spurns her (at the end of this clip). As Vito Russo shows in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Celluloid Closet</span>, such clearly gay characters--especially sympathetically portrayed, as here--virtually disappeared from Hollywood movies under the Code. Now, of course, they're a recognized convention.<br /><br />Heiress Billie Brown, (Crawford), is engaged to marry her long-time sweetheart, budding diplomat, Gil Jordan, (Fairbanks). When Billie goes to see senior diplomat, Glenn Abbott, (La Rocque), about ensuring that Gil get a favorable assignment, Billie and Glenn are undeniably attracted to one another. Gil is likewise attracted to Kentucky Strafford, (Page), Billie's houseguest, who becomes pregnant by Gil. Gil finds that he loves Kentucky, but marries Billie instead. Once Gil finds that Billie really loves Glenn and Billie finds that Gil loves Kentucky, their marriage is annulled and both are paired up with the people they truly love.<br />-Wikipedia synopsis.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-61973138152016588222011-02-05T23:11:00.000-05:002011-02-05T23:11:33.605-05:00Our Modern Maidens - Billie and Glenn<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vF9NB9g0cgU?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="425" frameborder="0" height="344"></iframe><br /><br />When Glenn realizes Billie has been using him, he takes his revenge by pretending to believe she is as "modern" as she says, and then rejecting her. The scene exemplifies the great paradox of sexual innocence and seduction in Hollywood cinema: A woman is insulted if a man attempts to seduce her, and just as insulted if he doesn't want to.<br /><br />Heiress Billie Brown, (Crawford), is engaged to marry her long-time sweetheart, budding diplomat, Gil Jordan, (Fairbanks). When Billie goes to see senior diplomat, Glenn Abbott, (La Rocque), about ensuring that Gil get a favorable assignment, Billie and Glenn are undeniably attracted to one another. Gil is likewise attracted to Kentucky Strafford, (Page), Billie's houseguest, who becomes pregnant by Gil. Gil finds that he loves Kentucky, but marries Billie instead. Once Gil finds that Billie really loves Glenn and Billie finds that Gil loves Kentucky, their marriage is annulled and both are paired up with the people they truly love.<br />-Wikipedia synopsisBernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-38304841034980537072011-02-05T23:10:00.000-05:002011-02-05T23:10:31.342-05:00Our Modern Maidens - The Seven 'Leven<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nUChrK7eqUE?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" width="425" frameborder="0" height="344"></iframe><br /><br />The world depicted in <span style="font-style: italic;">Our Modern Maidens </span>(1929) was collapsing even as the film was completing production--the Depression ended the era of flappers and college hijinks. Audiences soon lost their taste for stories of the carefree rich. And within a year of the introduction of sound in 1927, they would no longer go to silent pictures. (<span style="font-style: italic;">Our Modern Maidens</span> was filmed without sound, music and sound effects being added later.)<br />The film's treatment of sexuality is typical of the period: The audience is teased with the image of a woman who is daring and "modern," and refuses to be bound by conventional morality. But of course it's a pose. The female lead can't be allowed to be a truly "bad" girl. Still, there are several elements that would never have gotten past the Code a few years later.<br /><br />Heiress Billie Brown, (Joan Crawford), is engaged to marry her long-time sweetheart, budding diplomat, Gil Jordan, (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.). When Billie goes to see senior diplomat, Glenn Abbott, (Rod La Rocque), about ensuring that Gil get a favorable assignment, Billie and Glenn are undeniably attracted to one another. Gil is likewise attracted to Kentucky Strafford, (Anita Page), Billie's houseguest, who becomes pregnant by Gil. Gil finds that he loves Kentucky, but marries Billie instead. Once Gil finds that Billie really loves Glenn and Billie finds that Gil loves Kentucky, their marriage is annulled and both are paired up with the people they truly love.<br />-Wikipedia synopsis<br /><br />In this early scene, Billie sets out to fascinate Glenn because she believes he can advance her fiance Gil's diplomatic career.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-89273963436733638412011-02-05T15:28:00.000-05:002011-02-05T15:28:19.004-05:00Old Wives for New - Cecil B. DeMille, 1918<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1kTMB_8a4dA?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />DeMille became famous making slightly provocative films about beautiful women and "modern" love affairs. In <span style="font-style: italic;">Old Wives for New</span>, Charles Murdock feels trapped in an unhappy marriage. His wife Sophy has "let herself go" and takes no interest in the world beyond her home. On a camping trip he meets the fascinating Juliet Raeburn, a beautiful young self-made woman he feels is his true soulmate. When rumors circulate that Charles has found a lover, he throws suspicion upon a less reputable woman who has pursued him in order to spare Juliet from social disgrace.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-19853411961424745092011-02-05T14:19:00.000-05:002011-02-05T14:19:23.611-05:00A Kiss in the Tunnel - G. A. Smith, 1899<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/91jwTCcXW2Y?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">A Kiss in the Tunnel</span> was made in Britain, not the US, but films circulated very widely internationally before the introduction of sound, and especially in the very early years, when French, British, Danish and Italian film-making practices strongly influence Americans. What's notable about this film is that it appears to be the first instance of using edits to give the viewer the sense of seeing into a private, hidden space--a technique that conveys obvious sexual metaphors.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-16091780546795923102011-02-05T14:06:00.000-05:002011-02-05T14:06:40.690-05:00Sandow - Edison Studio, 1894<iframe width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HWM2ixqua3Y?fs=1" frameborder="0" allowFullScreen=""></iframe><br /><br />Another early film displays the male form. Eugen Sandow is said to have been the first body-builder.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-49627283357594986642011-02-05T14:04:00.000-05:002011-02-05T14:04:36.686-05:00The Kiss - Edison Studio, 1896<iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Q690-IexNB4?fs=1" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" width="425"></iframe><br /><br />One of the first short films to create a sensation. "The Kiss" allowed viewers across the country to view the climactic moment that had electrified audiences on the New York stage.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-17821027338637583632011-01-31T14:43:00.002-05:002011-01-31T14:43:55.291-05:00The Big Heat (1953)<object height="344" style="background-image: url("http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/fDGQCXa2kxs/hqdefault.jpg");" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/fDGQCXa2kxs&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/fDGQCXa2kxs&hl=en_US&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br />
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Another film noir classic from Fritz Lang. In <i>The Big Heat</i>, Gloria Grahame is not a temptress--well, only a little, anyway. Instead, she's the gangster's girl with her own moral code. When she steps outside the gangster's influence, she's punished with shocking violence.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-52277045739620942202011-01-31T14:40:00.004-05:002011-01-31T14:45:17.751-05:00Scarlet Street (1945)<object height="344" style="background-image: url("http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/_S2N7qzhywY/hqdefault.jpg");" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_S2N7qzhywY&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_S2N7qzhywY&hl=en_US&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br />
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Another pairing of Fritz Lang as director with Edward G. Robinson as the "little man" who turns murderous under the influence of a temptress. <i>Scarlet Street </i>was considered so dark and sordid that it was actually banned in several American states and cities, despite passing the Code board.Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-59651948469774080592011-01-31T14:38:00.002-05:002011-01-31T14:45:35.824-05:00Film Noir: The Woman in the Window<object height="344" style="background-image: url("http://i3.ytimg.com/vi/21jezRGSgL0/hqdefault.jpg");" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/21jezRGSgL0&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/21jezRGSgL0&hl=en_US&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br />
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The German director Fritz Lang was a very direct link between the German expressionist films of the '20s and film noir. Lang claimed that he fled Germany immediately after Joseph Goebbels invited him to become the head of a nationalized film industry under Nazism. In the US, he directed some of the classics of noir. It's possible that the genre reflects the disillusionment of German refugees like Lang and Billy Wilder when they discovered the same struggles for power in the promised land of America that corrupted their native European world.<br />
In <i>The Woman in the Window</i>, a mild-mannered professor falls under a woman's spell and finds himself enmeshed in a web of criminality, deception, and homicide. (The professor is our friend Edward G. Robinson, Keyes in <i>Double Indemnity</i>.) Lang got around some of the strictures of the Code by framing the main action as a dream.<br />
(You can find the rest of the film on YouTube following this initial excerpt.)Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2064187620261020745.post-61876704924609722152011-01-31T14:30:00.004-05:002011-01-31T14:42:03.901-05:00More Film Noir - Maltese Falcon trailer<object height="344" style="background-image: url("http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/yRSCV2qc2IY/hqdefault.jpg");" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yRSCV2qc2IY&hl=en_US&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yRSCV2qc2IY&hl=en_US&fs=1" allowscriptaccess="never" allowfullscreen="true" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" height="344" width="425"></embed></object><br />
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<div style="color: #cc0000;"><b><i>Come closer . . . I'm going to tell you an astounding story . . .</i></b></div><br />
<i>The Maltese Falcon </i>is, like <i>Double Indemnity</i>, one of the sources and pillars of film noir as style and genre. Even in the trailer you can see another of the hallmarks of film noir: Deception, duplicity, lies, and deceit. The typical film noir not only appears cynical and "dark," it unravels a complex plot in which nothing is as it first appears. (This may be another reason why retrospective narration is common in film noir.)<br />
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At the heart of the mystery, spinning out webs of deceit, there always seems to be a woman.<br />
Mary Astor as Brigid O'Shaugnessy is one of the great deceitful <i>femmes fatales </i>of noir.<br />
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<i>Sam: Was there any truth at all in that whole story?</i><br />
<i>Brigid: Some . . . not very much. </i>Bernardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08428785668185125514noreply@blogger.com0