…pornography receive serious attention & be considered as art when it succeeds?
No !
…was the pornography in the movie necessary when it could’ve been simulated?
I think you need to separate sex from porn. I think whether is simulated or actually performed is inconsequential to an art-film. Porn is mostly simulated acts anyway – it must be for technical reasons
So filming non-simulated sex is your definition of pornography?
How do you know that the actors weren’t as convinced as the director of the value of what they were doing, and willing to ‘have real sex’ because they thought the film merited it? Would that still be ‘prostitution’? What motives are acceptable for ‘sacredness’? And – if non-simulated sex is a definition of pornography – what is the definition of ‘success’? You seem to feel that ‘In the Realm of the Senses’ ‘succeeds’ – but in what? Why?
Did anyone see Lust, Caution? Apparently not simulated. None the less, it didn’t matter, because Lust, Caution is not a movie that people rent to jerk off to (or at least I assume they don’t.) It’s a big epic with a few sex scenes. When I think of pornography (simulated or not), I think of something that is designed to get people off. The whole point of a pornography film is to show sex, and nothing more. A feature like In the Realm of the Senses or Lust, Caution does not do this in my opinion.
The whole point of a pornography film is to show sex
To show an act that is a hyper-real representation of sex.
There is a female porn director who (i can’t find googled) she says that porn it not sex – it is camera work.
Nathan you are right about the intent of porn – it is auto eroticism
Okay. Seeing that I may have went the wrong foot bout what defines porn, please forget bout about how I defined porn because it’s obviously wrong.
My concern here is more about the ethics behind presenting non-simulated sex in a movie. My concern is whether it’s necessary for actors to do it for real just for the sake of the narrative & what the director is trying to get across. My question is: was it necessary for Oshima to present non-simulated sex & what aspects of those scenes offer new insights into the topic of eroticism that movies that have simulated sex scenes didn’t have? Were they necessary or were they simply there to provide eroticism for the audience?
Secondly, if anyone has an article regarding whether Lust, Caution was non-simulated, I’d like to know where I can find this. Because I’ve read that it was faked.
On an exploitation message board I go on, we tried to define pornography in a way as to separate it from sexploitation films, which seems rather tricky to do. The definition we agreed upon was that in a porn film, the only reason to watch was for the sex, whereas in a sexploitation film sex was only one of many aspects. I realize this isn’t exactly the official definition, and it’s highly subjective, but it’s extremely useful in trying to differentiate the 2 genre. Granted this definition also pushes a lot of what is normally considered porn, especially cheesy soft-core stuff, into the sexploitation genre. By this definition, porn cannot be art, but sex can be.
That might be overall useless to this discussion, but I thought I’d throw my 2 cents in. And I think for this discussion to happen properly, you must first define what exactly porn is, because it’s not at all a simple question.
But what is the difference between simulated and non-simulated sex? If the former was easier and achieved better results, then why not?
And why does it matter if sex in Lust, Caution was simulated or non-simulated?
“When I think of pornography (simulated or not), I think of something that is designed to get people off”
watch In the Realm of the Senses or 9 Songs with a very sassy lady and oh boy,i’ll tell you what gets off!!!
Because Law, it’s one thing to pretend to have sex in a movie and it’s another thing to actually have sex in a movie with someone you are prolly not in love with. It may produce the same intentions for the movie but what I am against is the ethics behind the actor’s decisions to have it non-simulated.
I mean, are the actors going too far by doing what they do in a movie? What are the moral implications in having real sex in the movie? Is it ethically correct to make a movie with non-simulated sex when the director wasn’t aiming to make pornography but instead, a reflection on eroticism?
It may not matter for those who chose to have sex in real life, but it will matter to some, it will shock & disgust others that they even had the intentions, let alone actually doing it.
Ryan, you’re right that I should’ve given a proper definition of pornography. Next time, I’ll recheck my post but until then, I’m curious as to what people think.
Is it morally & ethically wrong to have non-simulated sex just for a movie? What’s the purpose of showing it unsimulated if the movie is not aiming to be pornographic? Was the unsimulated sex necessary in In The Realm of the Senses?
Someone might get off to In the Realm of the Senses, but as far as I can tell, that’s not Oshima’s point with the film. He didn’t make it for people to sit in a theatre and jerk-off to.
Ryan, your definition made me think of a Russ Meyer film (Vixen I believe) which was wall to wall soft core sex and then, at the end, there was a political discussion added in, just to provide some non-sexual content so it wouldn’t be accused on being porn.
“He didn’t make it for people to sit in a theatre and jerk-off to”
of course not,but no one forbade me to get horny while watching Maria de Medeiros in Henry and June either,hehe.
in the end,it’s all a matter of relativity,no?
John, I am one of those immoral bastards that does not think that sex is sacred hence my view differs vastly from you on this.
Even if you view sex as sacred, I’m not sure how the ethics really matter. If sex is sacred, then any portrayal of it (simulated or not) could be deemed an immoral undertaking, right? By reducing a sacred act to a tawdry presentation on a film screen, you are debasing it.
So, to answer John’s question: I don’t think it really matters much one way or the other. The actors know the score, and they know what they are and are not comfortable with. If they don’t want to have real sex for the screen, then maybe they need to take some acting classes and get some non-sex related roles.
And I’m happy to accept that word ‘sacred’ and also to accept that being ‘in love’, which covers a multitude of situations, is far from the only reason to engage in it without making it any less ‘sacred’.
(For a very long time that anthem ‘sex is sacred’, once in the code, was used with the addendum that it was unthinkable to have sex with someone you weren’t intending to make babies with … in love or not in love. Or that you hadn’t made public vows to, at least if you were a woman. And sex, when ‘sacred’, has also been very deliberately none of these things. Dionysos, please come to the witness box. So …)
yes, it’s all relative but that doesn’t make such a venture not worth one’s time :)
Read Donald Ritchie’s essay about In the Realm of the Senses. It should clear a lot of things up. Granted I have yet to see In the Realm of the Senses but the essay should bring some things to your attention.
.. am i the only one that found ‘Have they went too far in evoking eroticism when they could’ve made it simulated & still drive the point into our throats?’ funny in this particular discussion?
I could swear we have an existing thread on this …
John, whether it goes against your ethics is irrelevant to the actors’ ethics. They were willing to go that far for their art and to me, that is highly respectable. That takes some serious guts and confidence. Plus, I know several women who’ve slept with many many people that they weren’t in love with or whatever…which is fine but I would respect them more if they did it for an artful movie as good as “In the Realm of the Senses”. But that’s just me
double post
This is tough. It’s kind of like horror movies. They can horrify you with extreme violence, or they can horrify you with quiet moments and darkness and what you don’t see and what isn’t there.
>>John, whether it goes against your ethics is irrelevant to the actors’ ethics. They were willing to go that far for their art and to me, that is highly respectable.<<
Nice summation, Ryan.
If a director thinks that filming real sex (and filming it in such a way that it’s obvious it’s not simulated) is necessary to his vision, the it’s necessary to his vision. If the actors cooperate with him then they apparently agree.
And if it bothers you to view such things, don’t watch these films.
This is still the best explanation I have found: http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1108. If I knew all the tricks here I would make the link more tidy but this will have to do for now.
@Knozgrul – you were not the only one who noticed. I loved it.
Here’s a question nobody bothered to ask. John, why do you find unsimulated sex on film to be unethical? More to the point, why do you find the act to be sacred?
1) The actors are the ones choosing to do it. So?
2) Mainstream films with unsimulated sex are pretty difficult to find. I daresay one has to go far out of one’s way. So just don’t.
All I can say is that this post has opened my eyes on what defines pornography or not… & there’s some comments here that I didn’t expect to hear as well but… that aside, thanks everyone for your thoughts.
I’ll definitely be taking back a lot of what I said in my first post.
Oshima wasn’t making an obscene work with Senses (even-though I said that before). He was charged for crimes of obscenity two years after it was released but he deserved to win his case because porn exists in practically every nation of the world. The only action that he made new was releasing Senses mainstream in Japan. & I guess non-simulated sex in a mainstream movie isn’t as unethical as I thought, seeing that non-simulated sex in mainstream films is so commonplace now. My dilemma was whether it was necessary to prove Oshima’s point. I still don’t believe that actual sex was necessary, that Oshima could’ve just made it soft-porn (meaning simulated) & still deliver what the movie finally offered. But after reading that article by Donald Richie (thanks Ben), I noticed that it was also intended for mass market appeal especially in France. Maybe for Oshima’s audience, it was an added benefit?
Thanks again everyone. My new dilemma is: should I try and watch it again???
Maybe it was easier unsimulated. Like how Hong Sang-soo gets his actors to drink to act out drunk scenes.
That’s a really good idea you brought up. It clearly works when one actually does their own character’s actions to get into their personality. But I’m not sure if having actual sex would make it easier; I believe it’d make it more uneasy & difficult. Maybe they are just pretty damn good actors….
Nevertheless, your point is definitely valid. Akira Kurosawa always wanted his actors to wear their costumes (he made special notice for his actors during Seven Samurai) so that they embodied their characters; their personalities. It worked there, but maybe not here???
John
It’s great when you are mentally challenged by what you watch. After recently seeing Lust, Caution, I felt for the first time that I saw a piece of work that has appropriately used sex & eroticism to express sexual imprisonment & the bare essence of what it’s like to feel trapped, gilded in a cage where you’re treated as a thing instead of a human being. In Lust, Caution, Ang Lee may have placed too much emphasis on appearance/look but at least we now have a universal work that exposed eroticism to harsh depths.
Lust, Caution may have been an erotic journey but at least we know that it was simulated. Which comes to my dilemma: have directors lost their ethical framework when they actually force actors into non-simulated sex? Have they went too far in evoking eroticism when they could’ve made it simulated & still drive the point into our throats? It’s a dilemma I’ve been thinking of & still, I believe it comes down to our own ethics & what we’re willing to accept from a film. It’s obvious that many have seen pornography before but when an actor is willing to participate in non-simulated sex scenes as a means of expressing their acting skills, isn’t this going too far just to stress the aims of the director? I believe Nagisa Oshima went too far in In The Realm of the Senses, I believe the actors were either desperate for work or really didn’t mind to be part of prostitution (that’s how I view their participation) & I believe that while Oshima wasn’t participating on the basis of producing cheap porn, he may have went too far in illuminating his themes.
After seeing the real deal, I just had to stop viewing. It went against my ethical beliefs. This was the first time I saw actors really doing what they did & the fact that they were willing to sell what’s sacred to every human being just for a movie really tested the boundaries on what film should be & shouldn’t be. That’s my view.
So my question is, was the pornography in the movie necessary when it could’ve been simulated? And should pornography receive serious attention & be considered as art when it succeeds?