Winterbottom’s “9 Songs”
Peggy and I watched 9 Songs last night, and whatever it is or isn’t as a movie, let me start off by saying 9 Songs is the most credible and craftsmenly cinematic depiction of sex I’ve yet to see. It was lovely and illuminating to see sex depicted by a filmmaker, and it left me envious and inspired.
It’s not a perfect movie by any stretch. The production, while rich compared to a Comstock film, is as paper thin as its characters. There’s barely a plot, and what little plot there is is not very interesting. In fact, at the risk of sounding like I think too much of myself, 9 Songs is confined by very much the same things that impose limits on what I can aspire to with my work.
There’s precious little precedence for how to show people having sex in a movie. You can pick up a clue here and there from porn, but it’s mostly a lesson in what not to do. Creatively, Winterbottom is in terra incognita.
More limiting, there isn’t much of a market for explicit films. By making the decision to show sex, Winterbottom caps the potential returns on 9 Songs from the start, and thereby restricts himself to what can be done on a tiny budget. (Reported as USD $160,000 with deferrals.)
This is the reality of making a sex film, and as a result, neither 9 Songs, nor our own “hardcore love stories” are really full-blown productions. They’re more like etudes, concise cinematic studies of what sex looks like on film, and how sex can be rendered and contextualized within the limits of the business and the medium, and how that can be shaped into a satisfying experience for our respective audiences.
To my mind this differs from both Bertolucci’s The Dreamers, a fully realized film that includes a lot of nudity and implied sex, and a typical porn film which is simply for-hire sexual encounters recorded on video tape. The Dreamers or porn are what they are, and invite judgment by that alone.
By contrast, 9 Songs and our own work invite the viewer to appraise the films not only by what ends up on the screen (still the most important aspect), but also as musings on filmmaking and for our (earnest) intentions. The hope is that by capturing the audience’s sympathy, the rough patches in the production might get the benefit of the doubt. It’s not an uncommon gambit for the low-budget filmmaker, and sometimes works.
Of course etudes can be wonderful in their own right. I don’t know if there’s a classical guitarist that hasn’t recorded Fernando Sor’s lovely Etude #5, and you don’t have to be a guitar student, or even a devotee of classical music to enjoy it.
But an etude isn’t a symphony, or even a concerto. For the enthusiast, an interesting, but unlovely etude can be just as charming as Sor’s #5. An unlovely symphony, as interesting as it might be, is grueling for all but the most devoted audience to sit through (and often for the musicians to play as well!)
I didn’t particularly enjoy 9 Songs, at least not in the same way or with the same depth that I enjoy a movie like Cinema Paradiso. I felt like a barely knew the characters, let alone liking them, so beyond how pretty they looked (which was very nice), I didn’t really care about seeing them have sex. But I did think 9 Songs was an interesting and worthwhile etude; far, far more ambitious than anything I’ve had the nerve to attempt. I expect to learn a lot from it on repeated viewings, and wish it wasn’t singular in the cinematic landscape.
That wish calls to mind something that film critic Richard Corliss wrote while praising Mike Nichols’ Closer, and lamenting the demise of the very adult cinema of the late 60s and early 70s, and wishing more of today’s filmmakers would tackle the subject of sex in a truly adult manner. Said Corliss:
If the rest of Hollywood isn’t trying, perhaps it’s because there’s no money for the doing and little praise for trying. Indeed 9 Songs must be evidence of some sort of minor sexual pathology in Winterbottom’s psyche. Why else would an accomplished filmmaker subject himself to the trials of trying to make a movie on a low six figure budget, with the likely reward being the sort of snarky condescension that Winterbottom’s received for giving it a go?
I wish there were a dozen, a hundred more movies like 9 Songs. Not because Winterbottom seems to be getting closer to where I live or how I love, but because with 9 Songs Winterbottom is exploring the questions about sex and cinema that interest me, only with the benefit of more money and more talent. Will there be a 9 More Songs Mr. Winterbottom? Please?
May 9th, 2006 at 7:04 am
Tony:
I’ve always been kind of interested in how to show the real human sexual experience in a film, without tipping over into theworld of “porn” (as if that’s a bad thing). I believe, as I think you do, that the problem with porn isn’t that it shows people having sex, but that more often than not it tends to debase the sexual experience instead of celebrate it. My personal experience with sex is that it usually is a damn good time, I’ve even been known to smile and laugh at various points during the experience. While I’m no porn expert, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a smut movie where it seemed the performers were actually having a good time.
After seeing your review of 9 Songs, I went to check it out on IMDB and saw that there is a very lively discussion on the Boards regarding the place of sex in a “legitimate” film. I find most of the comments tend to be beside the point. I don’t feel the issue is to show it or not to show it. I think what’s more important is how to show it, and make it meaningful.
All of this is a long lead in to my question for you. How do you think “In the Realm of the Senses” fits into the argument? I believe this is a movie which treats sex in a real, adult, explicit manner. It is also successful as a film telling a great story. I’m interested in your thoughts.
As an aside, I saw this movie the first time as a young man before I had any concept of porn beyond Playboy and Penthouse. The scene where Eiko Matsuda fellates Tatsuya Fuji, was a real eye-opener.
May 10th, 2006 at 5:33 am
Hello Cody! I’m a yankee doodle dandy too!
I haven’t seen “In the Realm of the Senses”, so I guess I’m back to Amazon for another purchase. We’ll talk more about it once I’ve actually seen it.
As to the making sex meaningful, we’ll that’s the $160,000 question, isn’t it?
Our documentary-style approach is our best guess as to how to create character and context on budgets that are not too far away from what it cost to produce 9 Songs. It works, but as I said in my The Dreamers write up, it’s terribly limited, and hard to imagine it would hold the attention of a director like Bertolucci for very long (or Winterbottom for that matter).
The approach in 9 Songs is also very contrained, and while I think it’s more ambitious than what we do, I find it less entertaining, and certainly less arousing.
Whether or not 9 Songs is intended to titalate or arrouse I don’t know. Apparently in the BTS footage the female lead asserts that no one will leave the theater turned on, and I can’t help but feel like she thinks that this somehow justifies, excuses or renders more respectable what she’s done for the sake of Winterbottom’s little etude. This is a common theme in movie sex, it’s okay to show/see sex — just as long as it doesn’t make you want to fuck. I guess I’ll have to watch the BTS now and hear what she has to say for myself.
Our films are absolutely intended to make people feel sexy, and to make them feel good about feeling sexy. That’s no small ambition, and I’m pleased with what success we’ve had so far!