Sex, it is sometimes suggested, is, along with violence, one of the driving forces behind cinema. Seen this way, it is actually strange that sex in cinema films is so ambiguous. Romantic stories and problematic relationships abound, but when it comes down to it, only little visual satisfaction follows seduction. Images of real sex are so rare on the big screen that there is invariably some uproar when a filmmaker once steps over the prudishness.
It is an intriguing phenomenon that the wide-ranging Cinema Erotica left a bit to be desired. One or two telling examples of recent titles with explicit sex would certainly not have been out of place.
Then I am not talking about Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), although that popular sm-fantasy shows just how difficult it is. Writer E.L. James was regularly at odds with director Sam Taylor-Johnson over openly showing sex. She wanted to show more, Taylor-Johnson less.
One of the most talked-about examples from the arthouse sector in recent years is Love (2015) by Gaspar Noé. The latter explained dryly at Cannes that it is now simply difficult to make a film about sex without filming genitals. So he opens Love but immediately with a non-disguising mutual masturbation that really got many a person hot.
Pizzaseks
Two years earlier, coincidentally or not, a couple of films also surfaced that cared little about the taboo of openly showing real sex in cinema. In the refreshingly playful Feuchtgebiete David Wendt surprises us with a scene in which a couple of boys satisfy themselves over a pizza. It is the daydream of an eighteen-year-old girl experimenting vigorously with sex. In the thriller L'Inconnu du lac by Alain Guiraudie, you don't have to guess what happens at such a meeting place for gays.
And in 2013, the Golden Palm at Cannes did not go to La Vie d'Adèle by Abdellatif Kechiche? That beautiful love story caused a stir with a long, undisguised release scene of two young women.
Even more challenging was Lars von Trier's intelligent sex exploration Nymphomaniac.
Even former Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe modestly joined in with an, otherwise modestly filmed, gay bed scene in Kill Your Darlings. For a while it seemed that filmmakers had agreed not to be skittish about portraying sex any more.
Nice and dirty
Was this a revival of the porn wave that Deep Throat triggered in cinema in 1972? Certainly not. Although prominently displayed erections are clearly gaining ground, the term 'porn' - film with the aim of arousing the viewer - is nowhere applicable here. Nymphomaniac is even distinctly non-erotic.
In the brutal Feuchtgebiete sex is just allowed to be nice and dirty. Quite a relief, actually. Besides, not everything in that film is explicit. There is still a lot of suggestion involved. When Helen attacks a dirty toilet seat with her vulva, the camera looks away. Then we dive into a cheerful computer animation of energetic microbes.
Said films are not meant to seduce. Nor is the sex a snare on a romantic comedy. Instead, it is serious business, sometimes even the main subject. Challenging images are not an end in themselves, but neither is it taboo. It is up to the filmmaker to decide what is necessary.
"Our sexuality is what we are," summed up Nymphomaniac-actress Stacy Martin summarised the film's premise at the press conference in Berlin at the time. In it, Lars von Trier conveys the view that sex is a powerful driving force from which no one can escape. A force that not only gives pleasure and enjoyment but also has dark sides.
Joy and pain
At La vie d'Adèle that frankly displayed sensuality is part of a richly varied picture of life. A portrait of a young woman experiencing the joy and pain of a first love. In Feuchtgebiete painful traumas from her childhood loom behind Helen's sometimes hilarious sex antics. Also in some earlier - not necessarily explicitly filmed - dramas about sex addiction, including Shame (2011) by Steve McQueen, similar themes crop up. In it, sex often emerges as a poor surrogate for more substantial contact. We also saw it in Dutch Sky (2012).
Sex touches us deeply. So it is not surprising that its portrayal sometimes evokes powerful reactions. That apparent open-mindedness with which a number of filmmakers have put sex on the big screen in recent years is also less straightforward than it seems. It is not easy for actors, for instance. Just think of the controversy that arose between the director of La vie d'Adèle and his actresses.
Often, it is stipulated in advance exactly how far the sex scenes can go. For more explicit images, stand-ins with porn experience sometimes come to the rescue. Lead actors having unsimulated sex is still something exceptional. It happened in Michael Winterbottom's 9 Songs (2004) and in Intimacy (2001) by Patrice Chéreau. For the actresses involved, the experience was still traumatic afterwards. Not because of the shoot itself, but because of the panting way they were besieged by nosy journalists.
Explicit or not
So if we ask whether explicit images are really necessary, it is not difficult to come up with both pros and cons.
Yes, it can and should, because it is part of life, with all the pleasure, lust and obsession that comes with it. And if the story takes a tragic turn then it can help to feel the characters' cravings deep in your loins too. For all its simplicity, it seems like a valid argument.
But those who say "No, because it defeats its purpose" may also be right. Whether images that can cause some excitement in the viewer are enjoyable or uncomfortable is personal. But all those strong stimuli - even in publicity - risk distracting attention from what the story is really about.
The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015), also a film about a stormy sexual adventure, proves that without pontificating erections, it remains better balanced.
Intense and complicated
Still, as Noé suggested, why should we have to be circumspect when making love is on screen anyway? Why are we allowed to see everything in film, but not just that one? Why are we extra accountable for it? To hell with prudery. Besides, is a film like The Diary of a Teenage Girl, all appreciation notwithstanding, not a wee bit sexist by being less fussy about the girl's nub than about her older lover's dick?
Sex is intense and complicated, but a rewarding subject for that very reason. Surely, after the mini-game three years ago, it has largely disappeared from view again in cinema. But let's hope that there remain filmmakers who don't shy away from showing what's going on. With or without noise.
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