Art-Porn

March 15, 2007
A thought by James Berardinelli

The DVD release of Shortbus got me thinking about the growing body of films often referred to as "art-porn." These are "legitimate" titles featuring explicit sexual activity. For the most part, art-porn films do not star recognizable actors but there are exceptions (Chloe Sevigny in The Brown Bunny, Kerry Fox in Intimacy, Kieran O'Brien in 9 Songs). It's interesting to examine the growing popularity of art-porn and what that may say about today's culture in the United States. First, however, some background...

Back in the heyday of porn on film (pre-video: the late '70s), the so-called "Holy Grail" of many adult filmmakers was to make a XXX feature that married hot, explicit sex scenes with a great story and great acting. In essence, they were trying to create the Citizen Kane of porn. (See Boogie Nights for a fictionalized re-creation of the era and its aspirations.) It never happened, primarily because production values were low, porn screenplays were never very good, and porn actors couldn't deliver dialogue convincingly. With the advent of video, porn became mechanical. Nowadays, it's a rarity for an adult feature to have even a flimsy excuse for a plotline - it's mostly just sex.

Enter art-porn. I can't list all the titles in this expanding category because there have been a lot of them in the last six or seven years. Some are relatively tame: Intimacy and The Brown Bunny show explicit sexual content, but it isn't lengthy. Other movies, such as 9 Songs and Shortbus, have been less coy. There's not much that these films don't show, right down to the so-called "money shot." Art-porn, however, has been no more able to achieve the Citizen Kane of porn than the XXX industry of three decades ago, although for different reasons.

There are two problems associated with having graphic sex in a movie. The first is logistical. The best talent will not sign on for something that's viewed as a "sex film." Maggie Gyllenhaal has no hang-ups about on-screen nudity, but she would likely not be willing to do a Shortbus. Don't even think about asking Christina Ricci. And they are two of the more open-minded actresses working today. The minute a director decides to include actual penetration, fellatio, cunnilingus, or masturbation, he has reduced his talent pool, both in terms of who will work in front of the camera and who will work behind it.

Then there's the question of how a graphic sex scene impacts a movie. People generally watch porn for stimulation. People watch legitimate films for less primal reasons. Confusing the two can lead to frustration. The conflict is evident. There's also an issue of pacing. No movie can afford to take a several-minute "timeout" to show a sex scene, unless the movie is all about sex in the first place (in which case it's almost certainly straight porn rather than art-porn). There's another issue that Roger Ebert once raised. Graphic sex is documentary in nature. As he wrote in Roger Ebert's Book of Film, speaking about Norman Mailer: "Mailer, like so many before and since, awaits the cinematic marriage of Sex and Art. I am not convinced such a thing is possible. In traditional fiction films, art involves the filmmakers in creating a fiction about characters whose lives we care about. Sex, to the degree that it involves nudity and explicit detail, brings the whole story crashing down to the level of documentary. The actors lose not only their clothes but their characters, and stand (or recline) revealed only as themselves."

To an extent, Shortbus circumvents this problem by presenting us with actors we have likely never seen before and who are therefore largely indistinguishable from their cinematic alter-egos. It's one thing to watch a recognized actress like Chloe Sevigny giving a blowjob. It's another to watch an unknown like Sook-Yin Lee being penetrated. The problem with Shortbus (and 9 Songs and others) is that the director is so focused on putting sex into his legitimate film that he forgets about the movie. The storyline in Shortbus is trite. 9 Songs is dull. And so on... I'm not saying it's impossible for a visionary director to find the perfect way to blend explicit sex with tremendous storytelling, but I haven't seen it yet. But what does it mean that so many directors are trying?

The United States is becoming polarized. The conservative part of the country is growing more vocal and reactionary. They have more political clout than in the past. The number of people making up that movement should not be underestimated. However, mainstream society is gradually becoming more permissive. Consider, for example, the kinds of things that can be shown on network TV today - subjects that would never have been permitted 20 years ago. Teenagers have a more casual attitude toward sex and are engaging in it at earlier ages. Parents may not want to hear this, but there are plenty of sexually active 14 and 15 year-olds. (This aren't anecdotal comments; they're backed by numerous recent surveys and studies.) With sex slowly losing its taboo, it's natural that filmmakers would begin to push boundaries and explore further afield. Art houses have traditionally been a bastion for liberal films, so it's a natural fit that this is where these experimental forays would appear.

Considering that I consider human sexuality to be a natural and healthy aspect of life, I welcome these movies. I just wish they were better. So, while some will protest the depravity of art-porn, I will consider to look on in interest, watch with a critical eye, and hope that some director will discover the perfect blend of sex and story.


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