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February 3, 2008
No sex please, we're Americans
HBO created a media storm last fall with its most sexually explicit series, “Tell Me You Love Me,” about three couples with sexual problems and the 60ish therapist (Jane Alexander) who is treating the two married couples.
I have smart friends who dismissed the whole enterprise as “porn” after one episode, but the show seemed to me like a valiant attempt to rescue sex as a topic from the pornographers, rather than an emulation of the faceless-bodies-in-motion XXX films that are designed simply for titillation.
It was interesting to me that the most “shocking” element in the debut episode was a sex scene involving Jane Alexander and David Selby (as her husband) that showed them to be the only couple in the drama with a healthy sex life. But, to see seniors enjoying themselves in the boudoir was too much for the ladies on “The View.” Imagine, someone like Jane Alexander having — and enjoying — sex!
(The complete first season of "Tell Me You Love Me" will be released on DVD Feb. 12.)
European filmmakers have been exploring the same territory for many years in pictures such as "Betty Blue" and "The Piano Teacher," but in this country, frank sexual dramas have had a rough time in mainstream media.
Several weeks ago, at a screening of a Godard film at the Avon Theatre in Stamford, I met a Stamford filmmaker named Dutch Doscher — who has worked on “Afterschool Specials” among other projects — and he asked me if I would look at a short film he made last year (“Leave You In Me”) that has been entered in many festivals, but has been tough to screen publicly because of the full frontal nudity.
Dreading another vanity production (the cinematic equivalent of a self-published novel) I put off watching the film for several days. But, when I popped it into the DVD player I was stunned by the combination of Doscher’s technical prowess (the black-and-white film is flawlessly shot end edited) and the fact that he and screenwriter Michael Darin Cohen were willing to deal with sex so directly and had found two excellent actors (Sarah Jaye and Andrew Ramaglia) who were willing to bare their bodies as well as their emotions.
The movie is a story of that age old sexual problem between men and women — she demands absolute fidelity, he believes sex doesn’t “mean” as much for a guy and that his dalliance with another woman did not take anything away from the love he feels for his romantic partner.
The 20-minute film is set entirely in the bedroom, where these elemental characters hash out their differences in the nude, just after they’ve made love.
Doscher’s film is the farthest thing imaginable from porn — because he makes us care about these two people and to accept their nudity as being entirely natural. The filmmaker doesn’t stray into the graphic, porn-like sexual moments that resulted in many U.S. art theaters refusing to book “Shortbus” and “9 Songs.”
The filmmaker told me that at some screenings he had run into that age-old nudity problem of viewers saying that it was somehow more “graphic” to show Ramaglia’s body than to display his female co-star without clothes.
So far, Doscher hasn’t been able to line up any local public showings of this honest and honestly daring film, but I was pleased to hear from him recently that the movie will be competing next week in a Los Angeles festival devoted to the short film — “Show Off Your Shorts.”
(For more information on Doscher's film, go to www.innervisionsmedia.com)
Posted by Joe on February 3, 2008 3:06 PM
Comments
It never ceases to amaze me that a country that embraces Playboy Magazine, the Victoria's Secret catalog and the Hooters restaurant chain gets squeamish over a little thing like a penis. :)
Posted by: Rosemary Harris at February 5, 2008 11:00 AM
