Sex Scenes

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

More often than not i find sex scenes to be a particularly good time for a bathroom break. Often too long, too lewd (fumbly, ugly sex scenes often seem to be short hand for "keepin it real!)

What makes a sex scene good for you? Is nudity better than the strategic placing of camera angles and bed sheets?

I though the sex scene in Cold Mountain was kind of beautiful and genuinely erotic. (in a over-heated capital R romantic kind of way)

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 06:53 (twenty-two years ago)

also the sex scenes in Y Tu Mama Tambien were very good mostly for the fact that they were almost entirely in long shot and/or unbroken takes.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 07:03 (twenty-two years ago)

and is the famous saying true: "once someone takes their clothes off, you're making a documentary"

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 07:03 (twenty-two years ago)

At the risk of coming off Howard Stern-ish, I say Bound.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 07:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought the sex scenes in Sex and Lucia were done well. I think it was because it wasn't just one event, it was a series of scenes, sometimes funny, sometimes erotic, but it seem to work well within the boundries of the film.

I also like the sex scene in Pola X, the one with the guy and his half-sister.

― Jeff-PTTL (Jeff), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:04 (twenty-two years ago)

Romance
Don't Look Now

― Girolamo Savonarola, Wednesday, 28 January 2004 14:09 (twenty-two years ago)

At least Monster's Ball tried, I guess.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm hoping that between the two (no wait, make that three?!) Alexander the Great films and Ang Lee's gay western there will be at least something hot and heavy. However, since I think they're all relatively big studio films, I'm not hoping for much more than a collective 30 seconds of heavy petting from the entire group.

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 15:56 (twenty-two years ago)

"Pink Flamingos", with the chicken.

I'm kidding, of course (or AM I?....) :)

I think the greatest failures I can think of for sex scenes come from larry clark films ("kids", "bully", "ken park")--in their desperate attempts for authenticity and shock value, they end up coming off as ridiculous.

And I don't agree with the "once the clothes come off, it's a documentary" line. I can see where the concept comes from, but it's kind of a shallow, disrespecting view of both actors and directors (except for that perv bertolucci!)

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 16:44 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah but no matter what is going on, if starlet X takes of her shirt, the first thing i think "so that's what starlet X's boobs look like."

there is an instrinsic interest in seeing actual people, and not characters, naked.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:16 (twenty-two years ago)

that's why i wondered about nudity above--i dont really think there is a way around this.

― ryan (ryan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 17:18 (twenty-two years ago)

Favorite of all time -- the opening of Betty Blue. (Which, according to some was not simulated.)

One of the worst I can think of -- Irons and Binoche in Damage. Yikes!

― BabyBuddha (BabyBuddha), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 19:04 (twenty-two years ago)

"yeah but no matter what is going on, if starlet X takes of her shirt, the first thing i think "so that's what starlet X's boobs look like."

well, that's because you're a pervert :)

but really, this brings up the important question of the "star system" in general. I know that I've never been so pulled out of film by a performance that I create a total dichotomy between character and celebrity. How many times have you said "remember that scene in the matrix when keanu reeves...?"

I think nudity might demolish the line between celeb/role a little bit more strongly, simply because we're such puritans in the U.S. If we were Bushmen & all the women in our tribe walked around topless 24/7, then it wouldn't be so surprising to see them in a nude role.

The nudity is only shocking because our culture allows it to be shocking. Other taboos work the same way--straight celebs doing a fully clothed on-screen gay kiss? same reaction--"whoa, patrick swayze is kissing a dude!"

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:28 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah but no matter what is going on, if starlet X takes of her shirt, the first thing i think "so that's what starlet X's boobs look like."

That works even if she's not a star. Maria Schnieder didn't do a lot of work in English after Last Tango in Paris. She spent enough time naked in that movie, she became known as essentially a porn star.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:50 (twenty-two years ago)

i think that has more to do with being typecasted as a easy chick to get to take her clothes off. Just like we associate jean-claude van dam with action flicks, you can associate, say, kate winslet as the chick who gets naked in every film she's in.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:00 (twenty-two years ago)

But Kate Winslet never went to get the butter.

Last Tango is a tough case, because it's a serious film, but it's also seriously erotic. And her performace is wonderful, but she's playing a willing sex toy. I understand the reluctance to have her play Ophelia after that. Not that that makes it right.

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:08 (twenty-two years ago)

(Actually, Ophelia is a bad example. She would have gone to get the butter, had she been asked.)

― Kenan Hebert (kenan), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:09 (twenty-two years ago)

LOL!

Hamlet: Get thee to a creamery!

― BabyBuddha (BabyBuddha), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 22:16 (twenty-two years ago)

There's only one mainstream film that got it right - "9 and a Half Weeks". Because there is very little on show but Lyne films Kim Basinger with such loving and such admiration that she looks incredible for beginning to end.

That aside there are moments in films where you justifiably go, "Holy shit that's (such and such) naked" and I think that's more sexy than any hardcore movie (Meg Ryan getting it off in "In the Cut", Ashley Judd in "Double Jeopardy", Uma Thurman in "Mad Dog and Glory" et al).

― C-Man (C-Man), Thursday, 29 January 2004 05:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I totally let Adrian Lyne go by...

What about a thread of directors who have the most interesting sex scenes? Or we could just discuss it here.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Thursday, 29 January 2004 13:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Unfaithful's were hot.

Destroy: The Tony Scott Blue Sex Scene (TM)

― ModJ (ModJ), Saturday, 31 January 2004 18:50 (twenty-two years ago)

Destroy: everything sexual in Bully.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Saturday, 31 January 2004 21:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I don't think Bully's sex scenes were meant to be erotic.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 2 February 2004 23:02 (twenty-two years ago)

The way Clark shoots the bodies tries for erotic (as only Larry Clark can do 'erotic' - yeaaaagh) - but I think you're right, the sex scenes are supposed to be trashy and a bit ugh (and there's that rape scene).

But I don't want to destroy them because they're not erotic, I want to destroy them because they're disturbing in ways I didn't know possible.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 02:41 (twenty-two years ago)

"Pink Flamingos", with the chicken.
I'm kidding, of course (or AM I?....) :)

the sex scenes in desperate living are GREAT. but in that not erotic at all and just fucking weird and amazing at the same time way, of course.

― joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 23:05 (twenty-two years ago)

eleven months pass...

come on you pervs...there has to be some more.

― ryan (ryan), Monday, 10 January 2005 04:21 (twenty-one years ago)

The Paris Hilton video?

"MOVE YOUR HANDS!"

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Monday, 10 January 2005 04:25 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.