Here is the latest on Winterbottom's release for this year. I wonder if this one will be as well recieved on this board as his last one.

That link is dead. Try this one instead.

I read this somewhere else, i think it was in Film Comment or one of those magazines. It is the single most utterly disappointing development in film this year.

-s.

We talked about this film a bit here. Was Code 46 ever made, then?

It's been scheduled for a September release in the UK. There's a good review of it here.

-s.

From what I've read about it, it sounds like it goes way over the line of what I consider appropriate filmmaking technique. I tend to agree with Soderbergh, that once the actors are naked you've turned your movie into a documentary. SOMETIMES nudity and explicity sexual scenes can be employed to the enrichment of the whole film, but I've seen only rare examples of wisdom in this area. If the film requires the actors to engage in actual sex, and shows this to the extent that some articles claim it does, I personally cannot in good conscience attend the film, as I believe that the sex act is a sacred thing and should not be engaged in by actors. Simulating it for the sake of the story is another thing altogether, so long as the simulation does not become the focus, and so long as the filmmaker does not present it in an indulgent or distractingly provocative way. For the same reason, I avoided that film with Mark Rylance a couple of years ago... can't remember the title.

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: I tend to agree with Soderbergh, that once the actors are naked you've turned
: your movie into a documentary.

Which may be the point. We ARE talking, after all, about the director of In This World. Blurring the line between fiction and documentary is part of his thing right now.

: For the same reason, I avoided that film with Mark Rylance a couple of years
: ago... can't remember the title.

Intimacy. That movie had fellatio, but not ejaculation, which I guess is why the reviews call Winterbottom's film the MOST EXPLICIT mainstream British film ever.

JO, that was Intimacy. It is odd that the two films that have gotten the most press in the past few years about being flat-out explicit are both UK productions. (Maybe with the exception of a few films by Breillat or Noe.) Intimacy really isn't a very good film, it runs very limply through dialogue sections that try to score some sort of merit for the protracted and perfunctory sex scenes. The highlight of the film is Timothy Spall's role, but the backstory that surrounds the rather straightforward "love scenes" is little more than half of a watered down Leigh sketch with a little sexual provocation tossed in. It becomes obvious to the viewer that Chereau was seriously interested in evoking an odd sense of intimacy that can occur through the physical act of love, but got mired in the fact that this odd sense of intimacy only really happens in life through the privacy that begets the experience itself. When we as viewers stand in as voyeurs of this relationship through the film, we ironically strip all sense of intimacy from the relationship Chereau is trying to show us intimacy through.

The same could be said for Breillat's Romance, which introduced her bland in-your-face approach to international audiences. In that film she mistakes honest and explicit imagery for a peep-show dirtiness that does little else than alienate any viewer that has a shred of personal dignity. This is in a major distinction from the early work of Chantal Akerman (the godmother of Breillat's thoroughly French attention to sexual detail), most notably Ju, tu, il, elle. There is an extended scene in this film that is rather frank and explicit, but runs on for long enough to be considered in the realm of experimental film. I don't want to come across as making an apology for this subject matter, but Akerman's sensitive treatment of such private moments that arise out of someone willing to bare themselves to another can lead the viewer to a much different reaction. The difference between Breillat and Akerman seems to be that Breillat (and people like Chereau) desensitize us to sexual acts by forcing the audience to alienate themselves from the scene so that they don't feel like we are sitting in a XXX theater or something (because we aren't, we are really having an enlightened cultural experience... yeah, that's the ticket). Akerman brings to such sequences a length and initial distance that force us to become sensitive to the strange privacy of the act itself through the process of sitting through her imagery. The same thing happens in Stan Brakhage's very famous short film about his wife giving birth.

It seems that Winterbottom's film is going to suffer from the ironies of Intimacy and the thing that makes Breillat's use of explicit imagery back-fire on her. It may sound odd that I have just posted so much about explicit sexual imagery in film, as if this is one of my "favorite subjects" or something. Some of these issues are just really key to French cinema (note that even though Intimacy was a UK production it had a French director), and tumble down into the American scene every now and then to varying degrees. This really came to the fore last year in Friday Night which I read as a sort of meta-commentary on sexuality and romance in the experience of French film. I don't think anyone else did, but it fit really well.

"SOMETIMES nudity and explicity sexual scenes can be employed to the enrichment of the whole film, but I've seen only rare examples of wisdom in this area."

My wife and I still talk every now and then about the scene in In America. That is probably the best depiction of marital intimacy in film we could think of.

Great post, (m). For the record:

(M)Leary, you have a wonderful way with words and ideas.

stef, you have a wonderful way with double entendres.

I have the feeling many of us are trying very hard not to snicker at that. As they say in the UK: Well played.

Winterbottom's film will be playing at this year's Toronto Film Festival, as well as Breillat's latest, Anatomi De L'Enfer (which "explores the regions of women's bodies and sexuality that Western mythology has characterized as monstrous, excessive, unsightly, and repulsive").

Discovering sex on the screen
This year, the press office at the Toronto International Film Festival handed out a leaflet dividing the 300-plus festival offerings by interest. The heading "Sex" listed 23 films (FYI: films about animals: 14. Martial arts: five). . . . London-based director Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs tells the retrospective story of a love affair in graphic detail, intercutting explicit sex scenes with pop concerts. . . . Breillat, an attractive 50-ish woman who glows prettily in the sunlight of a downtown hotel courtyard, sees Anatomy of Hell as a continuation of a 30-year investigation into female sexuality. Her films, she claims, are not designed to scandalize, but to enlighten. . . . The lead actress in Anatomy of Hell, Amira Casar, requested the use of a body double for the lingering genital shots, but in 9 Songs -- widely praised and described by one viewer as that rare festival animal, a film about sex between "people who actually like each other!" -- the intercourse is not simulated. . . . But there is one person who isn't so laissez-faire about sex in cinema. "I find my own film hard to watch," says Breillat with a laugh. "I'm just as puritanical as my audience. The difference is that I ask myself why I'm so puritanical, since I suffer from being so. That's the difference."
National Post, September 16

Link to JRobert's review of 9 Songs in Day Five of the Toronto Film Festival. He is a much more mature viewer than i am, or so it seems. Then again, i have tickets to Fat Girl on the big screen next week so perhaps i am a sellout to the erotic arts after all.

-s.

Wow. So, how do the folks at Cornerstone feel about hosting a four-star review of a film with lots of explicit sex scenes? Not challenging the validity of such a review, here, just wondering how it clicks with the mandate of the site on which it appears.

SDG wrote:
: I challenge the validity of such a review.

Hmmm. I would say the validity of the film and the validity of the review are two different things, and while I think hardcore films are pretty much non-valid no matter HOW mainstream they might become, I don't necessarily think it is wrong to watch and review such films, or even to approve of the artistic merits of such a film.

I do find it striking that one viewer described the film as "that rare festival animal, a film about sex between 'people who actually like each other,'" as per that National Post article. Most hardcore art films (Oshima's In the Realm of the Senses, Breillat's Romance, Chereau's Intimacy, etc.) tend to revolve around highly dysfunctional characters, as though the cast and crew involved felt the only way they could justify doing anything so potentially voyeuristic and titillating was to pretend that there was something very grim and non-pleasurable about the whole thing. If the two characters in Winterbottom's film actually DO like each other, that could very well change the dynamic a fair bit. It would be interesting to see what sort of "chemistry" the actors have, to see if there is a believable relationship, even to see if space is given for a spiritual connection between the two characters -- and it would be interesting to see if the graphicness of the sexuality ruins all that, or if, instead, the film ends up being a rebuke to those pornographic films that are all about the mechanics of the sex but never take time to develop the relationship in any believable way.

All of which is aside from the moral issue, I think. So I can see how a four-star review might come out of all that, if one approached the film from that angle.

I am pressed for time but wanted to post.

I would like to see and read more regarding this discussion but in a way that is expressing our perspectives and convictions without pointing a finger as to who may be right or wrong, or more mature, or more subject to sin, or etc. This shouldn’t be an attack situation. Code Red – terror alert!!

This could be a discussion that allows for growth and understanding. This forum has the potential to establish a much-needed place in the world of criticism and artistic debate, a place that will establish open communication in wisdom and in grace.

These comments and/or questions are specifically directed toward followers of Christ, considering the fact that we follow a different set of standards (patterns) than those who do not know Christ and we exercise our standards differently, just like in Christ we exercise our freedoms differently.

If we are going to have such standards shouldn’t we engage in scriptural support of those standards instead of emotional responses? This seems to be where we need to differentiate ourselves as Christians engaging in the arts, theory and criticism. Shouldn’t we be able to discuss such things together in a way that shows the watching world a different interaction? Even if, in the end, we may find that we will never see eye to eye.

How do we determine our standards and why do we think we can force assimilation of those standards on all people?

Where do we begin to draw the lines of absolutes, absolute lines that stretch across all levels, for all people?

How is it that we define our standard of absolute and where is our grace in dealing with such matters?

Everyone draws a line setting his or her standard of acceptable viewing material, so how do you draw your line where you do?

In my mind, this discussion reflects rather poorly on this board and the kind of interaction I would like to see take place here.

For what it's worth:

I believe that everyone involved in the act of making, viewing, and discussing a film bears some measure of ethical responsibility. After all, the more people there are willing to watch stuff, the more of it will be made. When on-camera activity departs from the realm of "simulation," "illusion," "pretending," and asking us to "suspend disbelief," then it departs from the realm of art and enters the realm of literal communication. And when inappropriate acts are actually committed rather than simulated, we bear the ethical responsibility of responding rather than sitting by idly and merely observing.

Like killing, sex is an act of actual literal consequences. An actual, literal union is created. No matter how much the actors might say they're acting, they cannot deny that a union has been made, an intimacy achieved, that is far beyond the bounds of a kiss.

I believe that sex is a sacred act, created by God for the purpose of the private union of a man and a woman in an act of love, an expression and a symbol of commitment and union that reflects God's own complete sacrifice of himself to us. I do not have a problem with this part of human experience being "simulated" to contribute to a work of art, as I believe art has the power to communicate transcendant things to us about all areas of life. However, a real sex act on film represents A) unethical action on the part of the actors, for desecrating a sacred act; unethical action on the part of the artist, for making public what should be kept private; C) unethical action on the part of anyone knowingly distributing or contributing to such a work. Further, if someone goes ahead and views such a work knowing that they will be party to this, I feel they desecrate this union as well, by observing what is not meant to be observed by others, what was created for privacy.

Just as I do not approve of artists *killing* human beings on camera, I do not approve of artists degrading the gift of sex on camera, or involving anyone in that act.

I've heard people say equating those two things is a gross misjudgment. And clearly, they are two very different things. But just as I believe killing, physical abuse, and self-mutilation are crimes against God's creation and thus against God, I believe removing sex from the purpose for which it was created is a crime, and to remove myself from my ethical objection in order to make some aesthetic judgment of it is like divorcing myself from an act of killing or abuse onscreen and saying, "But wow, the way he made that guys blood splatter was really artful, and I encourage others to check this out."

Simulated sex between characters is one thing. Any actual engagement in sex onscreen requires actors to do something that is not, at its core, acting; it creates an exchange of permanent consequences between actors, forces them into an undeniable and irreversible intimacy that has everything to do with their real person and nothing to do with character.

I would also add that personally, having been so deeply wounded by another's sexual infidelity (and I'm NOT talking about Anne), and having been so deeply grieved to see what the abuse of sex has done in the relationships of others, I am too grieved to see sex actually abused onscreen. And it saddens me to know that others seem perfectly okay watching such inappropriate behavior; it seems to me that they are ignorant of the consequences that take place on a physical, mental, and spiritual level, even if the consequences are merely a further numbing of one's conscience to the gravity of what one has committed.

I remember a kid who tried to rent "Faces of Death" from me at the store one time defensively sneering, "Well, it doesn't do me any harm." I also remember the indifferent of the family man who rented pornos when his wife was out of town, and the expression on his face when, a few weeks later, he stood at the counter with his wife and she innocently asked to see a family rental record so she could make sense of their late-fee situation. Denial leading to consequences.

It is, when it comes down to it, the same reason I can't watch a good deal of "candid camera"-style entertainment like "Jackass" ... because we are entertained at the expense of real human beings on camera.

I haven't much time at the moment... but I second Jeffrey's comments, and add a few quick, preliminary thoughts.

I believe that Jeffrey is right about what I would describe as the private dimension to the conjugal act. I believe there are two reasons for this privacy, both rooted in God's word. One is a positive reason; the other is a negative reason.

The positive reason has to do with the exclusivity of the conjugal act itself. A man and a woman give themselves to one another as nuptial gift, and forsaking all others become one flesh. This gift belongs to the two of them alone, and its exclusiveness does not begin and end with the act of penetration itself. Spouses may not, for example, engage in heavy petting with other parties and consider themselves faithful, nor may they perform stripteases for other parties. Nor may spouses invite their neighbors to observe them in the conjugal act, either directly or via electronic media.

Nonsexual nudity in a doctor's office or public locker room is one thing. I also support the principle that nudity can be legitimately used for artistic purposes, though it also presents certain potential difficulties. The body as nuptial gift, though, is something that may be shared only with one's spouse. The gift that is for one pair of hands and arms and body alone is also for one pair of eyes alone. The flip side is also the case. The body as nuptial gift that is not mine to receive with my hands and arms is not mine to receive with my eyes either. My wife has the same right in this connection to my eyes that she has to the rest of me.

Reinforcing this is the negative reason, which has to do with the deep vulnerability of our appetites on this point, and the prominence that God's word and historic Christian belief has placed on warnings against coveting or looking lustfully upon one's neighbor's wife. Sexual sins are far from the worst sins we can commit, but temptations in this area are among the most common, powerful, and overwhelming.

It is not for nothing that God gave our first parents clothing. It is not for nothing that copulating in public, or even walking around in public naked, is generally not allowed. It is not for nothing that bedrooms have doors, or that a man goes into a woman in private and uncovers the mystery of her being. It is not for nothing that any one of us, if he accidentally walked through the wrong door and saw a couple in the throes of passion, would instantly avert his eyes and stumble red-faced from the room as quickly as humanly possible.

Movies have the potential to glamorize and glorify many kinds of immoral behavior. But depicting and watching THIS kind of behavior is DIFFERENT. A gratuitously violent film may be as contrary to human dignity as an excessively sexy one, but God, while he has commanded us not to murder, did not deem it necessary to issue commands having to do with seeing murder, and for a good reason: violent imagery has nowhere near the power of arousing the passions to do likewise that sexy imagery has.

If an action movie tempts a man to long murderously for the villain's death, it is because narratively it has got him to hate that particular villain. It's much easier for a movie to tempt him to long lustfully to see the heroine naked. No special character development or plot devices necessary.

There are limits to what can be legitimately depicted -- and watched -- in art in this connection, whether simulated or in fact. Like many questions in this area, such as what is permitted to a couple on the night before their wedding as opposed to the following night, drawing a clear line may be impossible, but it is quite possible to point to things that are clearly on the far side of the line. And in both cases, actual sex is an example of such a clear-cut violation.

I support the line of reasoning in the last few posts as a valid point of comparison / contrast, while also stressing the difference of exhibiting or watching explicit real sex on film, however it was made or acquired.

I can imagine scenarios in which real atrocities captured on film might be legitimately exhibited. I do not believe there is any defense to be made for exhibiting explicit footage of real sex, no matter how the footage came to be.

A couple might accidentally webcast their bedroom behavior via the bedroom computer webcam. They might later sign a waiver saying they wouldn't mind if it were put in a film. It would still be wrong.

Re: violence, I remember reading a strong critique of Oliver Stone years ago which said that JFK gave him the opportunity to indulge in an exploding-head shot for real; this refers, of course, to the Zapruder footage ("Back, and to the left ... back, and to the left..." or whatever Costner says). I don't have any objection to films making use of that sort of thing, myself, provided they do so responsibly. (In a related vein, I remember World magazine was very critical of Contact for taking a speech Bill Clinton gave after the Oklahoma City bombing and using that footage as though his speech was referring to a fictitious bombing in the film.)

Re: sex and the commodification thereof ... just wondering, Jeff, where you see yourself in that chain of ethical responsibility, as one who worked at a video store that included pornography among the videos it rented out. (I worked at such a store myself, too, and thankfully never had to deal with the scenarios that you describe here!)

Something else occurs to me. Y'all know how iffy I feel about the depiction of real violence against animals in film (Andrei Rublev, Apocalypse Now, Time of the Wolf, Mean Creek, etc.). But since we kill animals for food and clothing and medicine and whatnot, I cannot complain that the behaviour captured on film is necessarily or intrinsically wrong.

I wonder, then, where stuff like Tom Green masturbating a horse in Freddy Got Fingered would fall on the spectrum here. Farmers masturbate animals as part of their work, do they not (when helping their animals to breed, or stud, or when collecting sperm, or whatever)? There is nothing intrinsically immoral about this, as I understand it. So is it wrong to film that?

Not intrinsically immoral on sexual morality grounds, no.

"The Most Sexually Explicit Film Ever" Is Passed by U.K. Censors
What Britain's Sky News has described as "the most sexually explicit film ever in British cinema" has been passed by British censors. On Monday the British Board of film Classification gave director Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs an 18 rating -- allowing moviegoers 18 and older to attend it -- commenting that the numerous sex scenes in it are actually "sensual, not sexual" and that they are "exceptionally justified by context." It concluded: "Some people may find such explicit images shocking or unexpected in a cinema film. The Board is sensitive to public concerns, and its guidelines are based on extensive consultation ... The Board has concluded in this case that adults should be free to choose whether or not to see the film." The film follows a young couple from their first date to their break-up. Their relationship is punctuated by nine concerts that they attend -- hence, the title.

I can't think of any image this year I'd prefer to have removed from my memory more than that one. And I've seen Time of the Wolf.

SDG wrote:
: For example, I seem to recall in Presumed Innocent Harrison Ford having Gretta
: Scacci's breast in his mouth. That's a case in point of a degree of intimacy that, in
: my opinion, should not transpire between actors, should not be filmed, should not
: be exhibited. I wouldn't automatically consider the movie as a whole reprehensible
: just on the basis of one such scene, but I would object to the scene.

Hmmm, not sure if I remember that scene. FWIW, I think the first time I ever saw the breast-in-mouth thing was in one of the Malkovich-Thurman scenes in Dangerous Liaisons. (Much more recently, the Penn-Watts scene in 21 Grams comes to mind.)

I remember discussing similar issues in the OnFilm yahoogroup years ago, after seeing Lars von Trier's The Idiots. I didn't have any interest in defending the gratuitous hardcore insert shot (um, no pun intended -- I mean the shot ITSELF, which I believe was staged with porn "stunt doubles" and not with the film's regular cast, was inserted into the montage), but there was ANOTHER scene that I found very funny, and very defensible, even though it basically involved one man holding another man's penis for a few minutes. It's kind of hard to explain without getting bogged down in various plot points, but suffice to say, the man doing the holding is, IIRC, a tough and macho biker type who thinks he is helping a mentally retarded person go to the bathroom, while the man being held is actually a normal guy who was only PRETENDING to be mentally retarded, but who now dares not reveal the truth, lest the biker beat him up for deceiving him; and so the man being held has to make himself pee to satisfy the man who is holding him, and he has a difficult time doing this, for reasons that go beyond the normal "performance anxiety" most guys might experience when they are in a washroom and there is a line-up behind the urinal. It's a very funny scene, and there is nothing sexual about it, but still, it goes beyond what MOST movies would show.

And now I wonder if it would make any moral difference if everything about this scene was kept the same, except the person holding the penis was a woman.

Director slams movie's X rating
"In 9 Songs, I wanted to explore the relationship between physical and emotional intimacy. How is it possible to do that without trying to honestly show the two characters at their most intimate?" Winterbottom said in a statement obtained by The Australian. This statement will accompany an appeal by the distributors, Accent Film Entertainment, to have the classification downgraded to an R18+ rating. The Office of Film and Literature Classification gave the film an X18+ rating last month for its real sex sequences.
The Australian, December 10

- - -

The physical intimacy is on the same plane as the emotional intimacy? Oh, so are those two actors really in love, then? Cuz here I thought they were ACTING.

Can someone please change the title of this thread!?!?

Link to the short-lived secondary thread.

This film arrived in Vancouver last night, and it's here until Monday, and it's showing at a theatre that I can get into for free, so now I have to decide whether to see it. Hmmm.

And it's on a double-bill with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, from the director of Oldboy. Hmmm.

Interestingly, J. Robert Parks and others have said that what sets this film apart from other recent sexually-explicit films is that the characters seem to LIKE each other, for once. But Ken Eisner's review would seem to mitigate that, e.g.: "The appropriately named director shoots the couple's energetic sex-making (one would be hard-pressed to call this love) with a loose combination of swooning improvisation and clinical detachment, and it's an approach that becomes tedious when you realize that the people involved don't particularly like each other. As played by the reedlike Stilley, a novice but readily naked actor, spoiled-brat Lisa is pretty annoying in general. In any case, the sketchy attempts at plot aren't all that believable, as when Matt storms out of a strip club after Lisa gets turned on by a female lap dancer. Yeah, right."

I saw this film a couple of months ago in Ithaca. I had not read any of the hype surrounding the films sexuality, my friends and I had seen the poster and liked the bands that are in the movie, so we went. Any claims that the sexuality in this film is justified are absurd. The movie does not attempt to make any valid points about sexuality or about the nature of relationships, instead it chronicals the ridiculous sexual fantasies and antics of a female character who is so obsessed with pleasing herself that the film includes a scene or two of graphic female masturbation. And likewise, most of the sexual activity in this film is very graphic oral sex that includes lots of bodily fluids. The most shocking thing about seeing this movie, was the fact that it was being shown on the campus of Cornell University in a theatre designed for college students. Regardless of how liberal the kids I saw this film were, they were equally as shocked to have seen this movie on a college campus. Plus we were all dissapointed that there was more sex than music.
A mentor of mine when it comes to movies and film making once said, "I believe that a film should never include sex or prayer because both are acts that are too personal and intimate to showcase". I don't know if I certainly believe this, but I believe that prayer is also something that must be carefuly thought out before trying to portray it.

I agree that a real prayer should not be filmed. It is indeed something that is not to be looked at and assessed by outside viewers. (This is why televised prayers trouble me.)

Portrayals of prayer, well, that's something different. I love the scenes in The Apostle, which give us a depiction of what aggressive faith can be like, and how the saints often wrestle with their Lord.

Real sex, even between married folks, is an intimate exchange between two people, and to present it to others is to cheapen it grossly and to violate that private bond... to exploit it for entertainment and titillation.

Real extramarital sex, being celebrated onscreen, is even more obscene.

Depictions of sex that are filmed and employed with restraint can be powerful, useful, and meaningful in art.

Every time I hear art film critics praising the obliteration of the real-sex-onscreen "taboo" in 9 Songs, I wonder how long it will be before we see real pedophilia... real beastiality... being celebrated onscreen as long-overdue audacity. Hey, it happens in the real world. Why not film it?

(I gotta admit, I felt a chill at the end of Me, You, and Everyone We Know when I saw [spoiler]the sexual deviant plant a kiss on that little boy on the park bench,[/spoiler] in a moment played with a tone of tender comedy. It was like the first tiny pebble shifting in what will someday become a landslide.)

I kind of see what you are saying about some of the scenes in Me & You & Everyone We Know, but the difference is that in that film some of the scenes were justified in making overall insights into the nature of sexuality and they were done with restraint. 9 songs was blatantly sexual, used no restraint at all, and didn't appear to make any statements or insightful points about sexuality. When a director is dealing with sexual issues he or she must do so with tenderness and respect to their subjects, a perfect example of this is Bergman's The Silence, and I believe July accomplished this as well.

FWIW, I always "wonder" about prayer scenes, myself. Like, WE know it's just acting, but did anyone ask GOD if it was okay? I sometimes feel like the actors might be dialing God's phone, and making it ring, and he's answering it somewhere and thinking to himself, "Oh, they're just ACTING now."

And now I'm vaguely reminded of the reports that real Pentecostals were hired as extras for Leap of Faith because it's hard for non-Pentecostals to fake speaking in tongues.

9 Songs reminds me that I really, really need to buy a copy of Michael Nyman's Wonderland soundtrack, to replace the CD that was lost at the bus depot a year and a half ago.

Christian, I don't know if you're reading this thread, but I occasionally thought of you while watching this film. I seem to recall you asking me, back in my single days -- possibly before I had even met my wife -- how my reactions to sexually graphic films like this would change, if and when I got married.

Well, I'm married now, and I think this might very well be the first film of this kind that I have seen since my wedding 11 months ago; and suffice to say that being a married, sexually active man does give me a whole new perspective on these sorts of scenes. In the past, they were all theory; I could approach them on a more purely aesthetic level because, content-wise, I had only my speculations about sex to go by. Now, however, I have actual experiences that I can compare to the experiences onscreen, and, um, it allows me to do a bit more "projecting". If anything, it creates an affinity between me and the characters, or actors, that I would be quite happy NOT to feel, thankyouverymuch, given how these characters behave, and given that I know the actors will probably have no further contact in real life, despite experiencing something that really ought to be (and certainly has been, for me) a powerful expression of the marital bond.

I am not sure whether or not I am surprised by J. Robert Parks's 4-star review -- which, for all I know, may be the only review of this film on an explicitly Christian website. I would agree with the more critical reviews that I have seen here in Vancouver, and I am not sure what to make of these comments of J. Robert's in particular:

But it is real sex. Between two relative strangers. Who are being filmed. And we're watching. And this, of course, raises a whole host of moral and ethical issues. What is the difference between 9 Songs and pornography? If you believe in the sanctity of sexual intercourse (as I do), can you condone a film that required two people to participate in it? Is there a difference between directing a sex film and watching it? And what is the impact of watching such private moments in a large theater?

I don't necessarily have thoughtful answers for all of those questions, but I can say without hesitation that 9 Songs is not pornography. Its goal is not to titillate or arouse. Yes, parts of it are erotic, but that's intrinsic to sexuality. The fact that Winterbottom can capture even a small part of the sexual experience -- revealing its joy and intimacy, vulnerability and intensity -- without cheapening it is testimony to his thoughtfulness as a director.

In fact, I would argue that 9 Songs has a stronger moral foundation than the simulated sex of most R-rated movies, the voyeurism of reality tv, and the commodification of sex in contemporary advertising. Those aspects of our culture, which don't even arouse controversy anymore, manipulate sex and debase it. They create horribly false ideas of how men and women should relate to each other. 9 Songs does almost the opposite. It reminds us of the power of sexuality as well as its vulnerability. It celebrates the intimacy of sexual intercourse and acknowledges its consequences. The sexual acts in this film don't occur in a vacuum. They are explicit but not gratuitous. Many critics have pointed out that the man and woman don't relate much outside of the bedroom, which is a legitimate point. But it's also true that 9 Songs is able, in its short running time (barely 70 minutes), to chronicle the beginning, middle, and end of a relationship, and do it thoughtfully and sincerely.

I do wish the film were longer, though. I wanted to know more about these characters, to get a better sense of what moves them and why they came together and why, in the end, they drift apart. . . .

Okay, we get a token nod to the idea that art is better than commerce, and I can take that for what it is. But really, in what way does this film "acknowledge" the "consequences" of sexual intimacy? How can J. Robert say the sexual acts "don't occur in a vacuum" when, in fact, "the man and woman don't relate much outside of the bedroom" (and one of their few ventures outside is to a lap-dancer club!) and even J. Robert himself wants to "know more" about these characters.

And why would a Christian critic who is grappling with a film like this explicitly state that he ISN'T going to offer any "thoughtful answers" to the moral questions raised by the film, except to say that the film has a form or a structure or an aesthetic which allows it to be categorized under some other heading besides "pornography"? THAT sort of comment we could get from just about anyone, right? But isn't a Christian site supposed to offer something a little more than that -- for example, something approaching a thoughtful answer to moral questions?

As for the short running time -- not only is it "barely 70 minutes", it is, in fact, 69 minutes (get it? get it?) -- I wonder if J. Robert missed the joke, or simply thought it would be in bad taste to share it, nudge-wink style, with the Tollbooth's readers.

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:
: I agree that a real prayer should not be filmed. It is indeed something that is not to be looked
: at and assessed by outside viewers. (This is why televised prayers trouble me.)

Jeffrey, I just heard the other day that apparently Nia Vardalos asked an Orthodox priest she knows to play the priest in the wedding scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding ... and the priest's bishop wouldn't let him do it, because an ordained person performing the sacrament, even "just for show", would still be performing the sacrament! So the priest played the reader, instead (i.e., the person at the back of the sanctuary who reads the epistle and gospel readings for the service).

To A&Fers in general: If we had a thread devoted to the issues raised by, um, "prayer porn" (for lack of a better term, but you know what I mean), then I would have posted this there; but since we don't, forgive me if you'd rather not have seen this thread bumped again.

It's cool with me.

As long as its cool with Russ its cool with me.

That's too bad, I was really looking forward to watching the film Jesus, You Know.