Thursday, January 23, 2003

No Nude Body Stockings Here


John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig fame has started this interesting project... He's going for this cinema verite, dogme style of filmmaking featuring real couples having sex on camera.
Ok. I'll stop smirking for a minute and say that while I thoroughly applaud the efforts - he's missing the point of raw sexuality. It's raw, as in natural... Unstaged. And... A very unassuming part of the plotline. Like films "Happy Together" and "Pola X" - the sex isn't the mainstay, the constant or even the climax (no pun intended) of the plot. Thus - You don't make a quirky relationship film with real sex unless there's something deeper at the core. Those cutting edge films he name checks certainly did take risks - but they had heavy handed themes to go along with the titilating scenes.
Think of the "raw scenes" as the salt on the rim of the movie's tequila shot. Porn is just "salt". Lars Von Trier is just "tequila".
Whatever.

Wednesday, January 22, 2003

Rather than sit complacently and not do anything about this war, I think I'll join this group... Afterall, they're protesting in prada and recognize the power of a good soundbite when you get one (i.e., "Do - smile for the camera", "Don't - be a silly bare-titted hippy in nothing but body paints and butterfly wings in a misguided effort to try to break the dominant paradigm. The dominant paradigm doesn't want to be broken just yet.")