By now, after seeing the previous columns, your imagination may already be somewhere else – and with someone else – but this article must go on. However, while reading this article, keep at least one foot on the ground. In a special edition of the film column for this Valentine’s Day and Sex issue, we selected some memorable sex scenes from movies over the years.
In the beginning of cinema in the United States, feet were actually required to touch the ground whenever a couple was shown kissing in bed. The rule was a consequence of the 1934 Production Code, which sought to regulate what was deemed decent in movies. And yet, since we all know how much things changed, here is the list where feet – as well as other body parts – left the ground.
“The Las
t Tango in Paris” (1972)
This classic by Bernardo Bertolucci contains some of the classic sex scenes in film history. By 1972 standards – and even today’s – the movie shows more than some audience members are willing to see in public. All the sex, however, should not fool you.
Bertolucci constructs here two incredibly complex characters, each dealing with the emptiness in their lives, symbolized by the old and empty apartment where they meet. Sex here is an escape in the life of these two strangers who choose not to know each other’s names. For Paul (Marlon Brando), “pain begins with a name.” The film became famous for the sex scene where Paul uses butter as a lubricant. However, “Last Tango in Paris” is about pain and missing someone. The sex on screen is a representation of those feelings.
“Black Swan” (2010) (Arts & Living Editor’s Choice)
This movie definitely contains one of the more memorable sex scenes for movie-goers. Featuring two of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, this movie is all about expressing one’s true identity and letting go of fear. Perhaps that’s what makes the sex scene between these two all the more memorable, as Portman finally lets go of her inhibitions toward her antagonist, Kunis, and succumbs to her playful sexual advances.
This scene is especially important because it represents Portman freeing herself from her mother’s control while also detracting the heteronormative depictions of sexual intercourse in mainstream films. The storytelling technique used by director Darren Aronofsky is also commendable in this scene as it transitions from a perplexing aesthetic climax to an ambiguous next encounter between the two, leaving viewers wondering whether or not it was ever actually Kunis that Portman ended up in bed with.
“Match Point” (2005)
Woody Allen’s masterpiece includes an array of sins, all culminating in murder. It also includes a memorable sex scene between Nola (Scarlett Johansson) and Chris (Jonathan Meyers) in a hay field with a rainstorm falling over their heads. The soaked clothes pressed tight against their bodies adds to the sensuality of this scene.
The bursting passion defies logic as this man is potentially throwing away the chance of moving up from being a poor, former tennis player to marrying an enormously rich woman. He has planned all the aspects his future life, but it may all be for nothing when his burning desire for Nola leads him astray from his goals.
“A Clockwork Orange” (1971) (*The scene where sex is consensual*)
Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece shows the extreme levels of human violence. This powerful movie shows what can happen when evil goes beyond any imaginable limits. There are strong rape scenes during the film, which shouldn’t fit under a column about sex in films, but one about violence.
There is, however, one scene where sex is consensual, involving Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and two women. In one minute and using only one angle, Kubrick shows every imaginable sex position in a sequence of fast paced shots, accompanied by a synthesized version of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 Ode to Joy. It’s a futuristic film, but sex scenes don’t get much more realistic than this one. Of course, it looks somewhat exaggerated, but it fits the psychology Kubrick develops for Alex.
“Three Colors: White” (1994)
One of the directors Kubrick admired the most was Krzysztof Kieslowski. In the late 1980s and early 1990s this prolific filmmaker from Poland delivered an unusually large amount of movies. Amazingly, each new film quickly entered cinematic history, as Kieslowski kept a fantastic level of storytelling and technique throughout his career.
“White” is part of his colors trilogy based on the ideals of the French flag (blue for freedom, white for equality and red for fraternity). In the film, Dominique (Julie Delpy), a French woman, asks for divorce from Karol (Zbigniew Zamachowski), a poor Polish man. Her reason: Karol was never able to have an erection again after their wedding and thus, failed to consummate the marriage.
When Karol finally succeeds in setting a trap for his ex-wife, trying to achieve his sense of equality, he wants first to prove his powers in bed. As Dominique reaches the highest levels of her orgasms, Kieslowski combines her shrieks with quick white screens fading in and out, in a memorable sex scene.
Who said art films are boring?
