On page 23 of this weeks Screen International is a review of the new film by John Cameron Mitchell called Shortbus staring Sook-Yin Lee (below), Paul Dawson, Lindsay Beamish and featuring 3 men having sex whilst singing the star-spangled banner.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a4/Sook-Yin_Lee.jpg

 

The review states:

 

After 9 songs and A Hole In The Heart, actors having real sex is beginning to feel like the norm, and Shortbus uses its raunchy action to point out that sex is a huge part of most people's lives.

 

however whats your opinion on filmmakers incorporating real sex acts in their films? do you think that its needed to portray reality? should it just be confined to R18 releases? or is it dangerous as it will just make hardcore producers become more exploitative and extreme. your opinions...

 

Note: John Cameron Mitchell also did this:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c4/Hedwig_and_the_Angry_Inch.jpg

Art or porn? The Tate's two hours of non-stop sex

One of Britain's top artists makes a "beautiful" blue movie - and it gets cleared for screening

 

By Anthony Barnes, Arts and Media Correspondent

 

Published: 09 July 2006

 

She is one of Britain's pre-eminent artists, a Turner Prize nominee who has reduced male Hollywood stars to tears. Sam Taylor-Wood has constantly pushed the boundaries, but for some her latest work goes too far - it is a pornographic film.

 

The two-hour movie Destricted, to be premiered at Tate Modern in September, has the lengthiest explicit scenes ever passed for a mainstream audience. Almost the entire duration of the film is devoted to images or discussions of sex acts and it reopens the debate about where the boundary lies between art and porn.

 

"Well, my brief was porn and I think I made porn so therefore it should be porn," said Ms Taylor-Wood. "But it's so nice and it's so beautiful it feels sort of different to porn. I think if you rented my movie as a porn film you might be a little bit disappointed."

 

It is the most extreme example of a trend for real sex scenes to be included in 18-rated films, rather than restricted to the hardcore R18 certificate movies that are available only through licensed sex shops. While previous films passed by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) with sex scenes have been relatively brief and integral to the story, Destricted has no plot. And where last year's 9 Songs featured real sex between actors, the new film, a collection of seven short films by different artists and directors, has performances almost exclusively by porn stars.

 

Ms Taylor-Wood's contribution is an eight-minute segment featuring a male porn star walking into Death Valley, California, and masturbating vigorously. Larry Clark has made a documentary on the impact of the availability of porn in the US, in which he interviews young men for the chance to have sex with a porn star, then shows them doing so.

 

The BBFC thought the film sufficiently different from porn - which is entirely for the purpose of titillation - to class it 18 for a DVD release. And the distributor of the film, Revolver Entertainment, is now to apply for a theatrical certificate to allow the film to be shown in cinemas around Britain.

 

Sir Quentin Thomas, the president of the BBFC, said: "In purpose and effect, this work is plainly a serious consideration of sex and pornography as aspects of the human experience. We think there are no grounds in this case for depriving adults of the ability to decide themselves whether they want to see it."

 

Ms Taylor-Wood said: "I've never been a huge great fan of pornography, not for any other reason than that it's never particularly appealed to me - unless I'm completely drunk and then it's a bit different. But in this instance I felt that having your own control over something which is much more about me being a woman was more interesting.

 

"And then it made me realise how dominated the porn industry must be by men and their vision, rather than us and our vision.

 

The Tate saw no problem with showing such explicit material. A spokeswoman said: "The films highlight the representation of sexuality in art and contribute to the debate surrounding the representation of sex and sexuality within contemporary culture."

 

Others see it as the thin end of the wedge. John Beyer, the director of the clean-up campaigners Mediawatch-UK said: "Clearly what [the BBFC] is doing is trying to bring hardcore material into the 18 certificate. The more they do this the more the porn industry will look at these films and say, if these can go through, why can't they give porn an 18 certificate?"

 

TATE AND TABOO

 

Five of the scenes from the 18-rated art/porn film 'Destricted'

 

Artist: Sam Taylor-Wood

 

Sequence title: Death Valley

 

What is on screen: A cowboy masturbates in the desert.

 

Artist: Gaspar Noé

 

Sequence title: We **** Alone

 

What is on screen: A man and a woman masturbate while a porn video plays.

 

Artist: Larry Clark

 

Sequence title: Impaled

 

What is on screen: A male wannabe is given the chance to have sex with a porn star.

 

Artist: Marina Abramovic

 

Sequence title: Balkan Erotic Epic

 

What is on screen: Balkan fertility rites and folk tales.

 

Artist: Richard Prince

 

Sequence title: House Call

 

What is on screen: Grainy images of doctor-patient sex.

sex happens in real life.... and films nowadays portray real life in a grittier fashion than the high-gloss, vaseline-on-the-lens nonsense that Hollywood spewed out in the 30s, 40s and 50s.

 

I think real sex works in a film that is about sex - end of.

 

Too many directors shy away from sex on screen - the most lamentable of recent years being the great Stanley Kubrick who somehow managed to make a movie about sexual shenanigans (Eyes Wide Shut)... but made it possibly the least sexy film of all time.

Too many directors shy away from sex on screen - the most lamentable of recent years being the great Stanley Kubrick who somehow managed to make a movie about sexual shenanigans (Eyes Wide Shut)... but made it possibly the least sexy film of all time.

 

even worse than 9 songs?

I think real sex works in a film that is about sex - end of.

 

 

However if there is real sex, shouldnt all the films get a porn rating and not just be passed uncut?

No one would be here but for sex be it us or the makers of the film

 

I really think this country needs to drop its Benny Hill / Carry On movie attitude to sex and nudity

 

I have no desire to see it on screen but accept it as a part of life

Edited July 27, 200618 yr by Ozzy Osbourne

Sex should be shown in films... i think it's stupid for it to be a 18 plus thing.. it should be an at least 16 thing... most teenagers under 16 watch it and have sex... it's safer for them to watch porn than go out looking for sex when they are young.

Let's face it, real life sex is nothing like film sex anyway!

I thought 9Songs was rather erotic.....

 

Five of the scenes from the 18-rated art/porn film 'Destricted'

 

Artist: Sam Taylor-Wood

 

Sequence title: Death Valley

 

What is on screen: A cowboy masturbates in the desert.

 

Artist: Gaspar Noé

 

Sequence title: We **** Alone

 

What is on screen: A man and a woman masturbate while a porn video plays.

 

Artist: Larry Clark

 

Sequence title: Impaled

 

What is on screen: A male wannabe is given the chance to have sex with a porn star.

 

Artist: Marina Abramovic

 

Sequence title: Balkan Erotic Epic

 

What is on screen: Balkan fertility rites and folk tales.

 

Artist: Richard Prince

 

Sequence title: House Call

 

What is on screen: Grainy images of doctor-patient sex.

 

 

this is out tomorrow i think on dvd.

 

however looking at the above, cant figure out which one is the one about the tractor :lol: Balkan fertility rites perhaps :lol:

I really think this country needs to drop its Benny Hill / Carry On movie attitude to sex and nudity

 

 

actually, shortbus has been around the festivals recently and has had good vibes. a sweet and funny romcom they say

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

well one that has got hardcore funkin' in anyway :lol:

Let's face it, real life sex is nothing like film sex anyway!

 

well on the other hand if its bizarre tractor loving tha you want to see. then that 'art instalation' from the tate, Destricted is now avalible in woolworths in a big shiny bag.

 

well i would never have guessed them stocking that!!!

Shortbus (18)

By Nicholas Barber

Published: 03 December 2006

independent

 

In Hollywood films, sex is usually a cross between between a ballet and an Olympic event, while art-house directors prefer to see it as a sordid confirmation of what loathsome beasts we human beings are.

 

Shortbus takes a different position. Quite a few different positions, in fact. Here, for once, carnality is presented as a source of relief, frustration and healthy exercise, and something which may involve three interlocked naked men singing "The Star-Spangled Banner".

 

The main characters are a married sex therapist who has never had an orgasm, and two gay lovers who might be ready to bring in a third party. Their stories come together, so to speak, in a weekly New York "salon" where the guests socialise, watch cabaret acts, and, more importantly, have orgies. Not much is left to the imagination. When we see two characters getting intimate, the actors themselves are getting intimate. Shortbus is the most graphically sexual film ever to make it into a mainstream cinema.

 

But that's "graphic", not "pornographic". The couplings and triplings aren't there to titillate; they're there because sex is what the film is about. It'd work perfectly well even if it didn't drip with quite so many bodily fluids, partly because of its amusing mockery of New Yorkers' pretensions and neuroses, and partly because the people getting their kit off happen to be flawed individuals with plausible emotional dilemmas. Frankly, it's less shocking to see explicit sex these days than it is to see a heartfelt comedy-drama with zinging one-liners and appealing characters.