Over at Amazon, Daniel Rapheal gave a really really nice review to Ashley and Kisha:

A Tender and Candid Romance

This is a DVD that I wish everyone would see. Even the most repressed and biased people would derive some benefit from seeing this. The sweetness between these two young women is right there to see–and the fact that this is presented with their sexual feelings for each other, makes this a very constructive and hopeful presentation. The story of how they met and fell for each other is so similar to so many other stories–regardless of sexual orientation–that it is easy to relate to. It helps that, while they look nice, neither of these women is a stereotype of beauty. The greater part of their appeal is the emotional intelligence and genuineness of their mutual affection and attraction. It’s a good sign that a real-life story like this is widely available, because that in itself means there is reason to expect that ignorance and intolerance will be accordingly diminished.

There’s a special sort of poignancy reading this review today, because today I also read Ms. Naughty’s reaction to her first viewing of 9 Songs. There’’s not much I can add to Ms. Naughty’s reaction. 9 Songs got an X-rating from the OFLC (no public screenings, no festival screenings, highly restricted DVD sales) and through an expensive appeals process was able to get that reduced to an R-rating (the Australian equivelent of the MPAA’s NC-17 rating.) Apparently one of the reasons the OFLC saw fit to reduce the rating for 9 Songs from X to R was that they thought the people who were likely to see 9 Songs would be intellectually equipped to understand Winterbottom’s use of sexually explicit imagery.

A few years later Ashley and Kisha was banned from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival on the grounds that if it were to be classified by the OFLC it would likely receive an X-rating. How did the OFLC make this determination? By looking at the X-ratings it gave to my previous films Marie and Jack, Xana and Dax, and most notoriously Damon and Hunter, which was chased out of the queerDOC, the Sydney International Gay and Lesbian Documentary Film Festival with threats of fines and imprisonment made at the festival director.

Had Ashley and Kisha been submitted by a different festival (the Australian Center for the Moving Image) or by a different director (Michael Winterbottom or John Cameron Mitchell, or perhaps even Shine Louise Houston)  or if I had a better class of friends in Australia (Margaret Pomerance or Alison Croggon for example) the result might have been different.

Of perhaps if I had used the usual ploys – “It’s educational don’t you know, and besides, it’s not porn, it wasn’t made with the intent do arouse. Nobody got an erection…” – well anyway too late for that. I was silly enough to think my films would speak for themselves. Now I know better.

I am exploring the whys and where-fors of all of this at TheIntentToArouse.Com and will be giving a lecture of the same name at NYU in about two month’s time.

None the less, I am extremely grateful to Daniel Rapheal and the hundreds of other people who have told me how much they have enjoyed our film, and to the thousand and thousands of people who have bought our DVDs. 

Reviews like Daniel’s let me know that while I might have been stupid to go about marketing my films the way I did, I wasn’t crazy in making them the way I did. There’s more than a little comfort in knowing that.

It’s four in the morning here and I just finished a long chat with a representative of the OFLC.

“Ashley and Kisha” has not been classified, which meant that the OFLC could have given it a festival exemption to play at MUFF.

But OFLC refused to give it a festival exemption on the basis that my previous three films were classified X.

I asked why Destricted, which features work by Larry Clark, who’s previous film was refused classification, was given a festival exemption to play the same night as Ashley and Kisha, across town at ACMI, a and they could not answer.

I asked why Destricted, which features brutally mercenary depictions of the most loveless anal sex, was given a festival exemption and they could not answer.

Their suggestion was that we submit “Ashley and Kisha” for rush classification, in the hopes that we would receive a R classification.

But…

When I asked why 9 Songs, which feature actors performing cunelingus, felatio, ejaculation, and penetration was given an R, while our films which depict actual lovers are given an X, they could not answer.

When I asked why Shortbus, which features, among other things, an actor masturbating and then ejaculating on his face was given an R, while our film, which explore sexual pleasure inside the context of committed real-life loving relationships, they could not answer.

When I asked why numerous videos from the Sinclair Institute, which feature various sex acts performed by paid models, and presented under the guise of education are given R , while our film, which are held in the libraries of The Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana, Planned Parenthood, The Gay Mens Health Crisis, The San Francisco Sex Information Hotline and many other health and education organizations are given an X, they could not answer.

They have told me the process is subjective and imperfect; yet this process has a “perfect” track record of marginalizing our films.

Now they would ask that we once again submit our work to this subjective and imperfect process, pay $1,000 for the privilege of doing so, against the hope that the fifth time’s the charm.

I may be a fool, but I’m not that kind of fool.

Writing about “Ashley and Kisha” Megan Spencer said, “The sweetest thing - Kisha & Ashley is one of the sweetest love stories you’re ever likely to see committed to film. The Comstocks once again put their perfect documentary formula to good use - true love and real sex - on screen; what’s not to like?!”

True love and real sex, what’s not to like indeed?

Obviously the OFLC has no problem with real sex. It has granted its R classification to 9 Songs, Shortbus, and many other videos containing real sex. It has granted a festival exemption to Destricted, which contains real sex.

One can only conclude that the problem the OFLC has is with true love, and what a pity that is; for this film, for the people who wanted to see it, and for Australia.

About a month ago I sent a letter to Dan Glickman, Chairman of the MPAA, asking what, if any plans the MPAA had to rehabilitate the NC-17 rating. Yesterday I called Mr. Glickman’s office in Washington D.C. and was told that my letter had been forwarded to the Los Angeles Office, to Joan Graves, Chairwoman of CARA, the MPAA’s ratings body.

Today I spent about an hour on the phone today with Ms. Graves. We talked about a lot of things; but my ultimate aim was to find out what future plans the MPAA had for the promotion of their NC-17 rating. I learned a couple of interesting things.

One of the first things she said was, “Have you talked to the theater owners about this?” Then she went on to tell me about her recent conversation with John Fithian, President of the National Association of Theatre Owners. It seems Mr. Fithian is upset about what he perceives as misinformation about his membership’s policies regarding NC-17 movies. Joan says John says (yes, I realize that makes it here-say) that overwhelmingly NATO members support the NC-17 rating, have no policies against showing NC-17 movies, and that he has been actively working to correct the myths and rumors that swirl around the rating in the minds of the press and the public. Ms. Graves gave me contact information for Mr. Fithian and said I should mention her name when I call or write.

Interesting.

Also interesting, last week Ang Lee’s LUST AND CAUTION received an NC-17 rating, and the film’s producers accepted the rating. (That means that like we have to do with MARIE AND JACK the producers of LUST AND CAUTION will have to submit their advertising to the MPAA for approval.)

When I asked her what she thought the reason that the producers of LUST, CAUTION embraced the NC-17 rating, while producers of films like SHORTBUS or 9 SONGS eschewed the rating, her guess was that it had to do with how widely the producers expected to release the film. 9 SONGS and SHORTBUS had very limited theatrical runs, mostly playing art-house theaters that often play unrated films. The producers of LUST, CAUTION are going for a much wider release, and expect to play in many theaters that do not play unrated movies.

This pricked up my ears. The “conventional wisdom” is that NC-17 is the kiss of death for distribution, with movie-makers famously throwing fits and crying censorship when their films receive (the dreaded) NC-17 ratings. Yet here’s the follow up to BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN choosing to take the rating and all the advertising hassles and headaches because they think having the NC-17 will help them get into more theaters.

Hmmmm. Interesting…

We also chatted about a dozen other things, including mistake that the MPAA made in not trademarking the X-rating, the collapse of a legitimate space for grown-up movie making, the misadventures that my films have had with other countries’ ratings systems, and other territory that should be familiar to this blog’s readership

What it all means for our movies, well that I’m not so sure. But it’s more information to add to the pile. Maybe at some point the pile will hit critical mass. In the mean time, after the critical and box office failures of SHOWGIRLS and THE DREAMERS, I’m going to cross my fingers that working in the unrestricted space afforded by the NC-17 rating, Ang Lee has been able to produce something that turns out to be artistically exciting and financially successful!

If you’re not a registered user with your super-secret “adult titles” search enabled, you can’t.

You can find 9 SONGS, a film about a fictional pair of rock-show going, coke-snorting lovers, that famously features explicit footage of felatio, cunnilingus, coitus, and even a pop-shot.

You can find PLAGUES AND PLEASURES ON THE SALTON SEA, the film that shared the Best Documentary prize with DAMON AND HUNTER at the 2006 Melbourne Underground Film Festival.

You can even find MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, our first erotic documentary title.

But you can’t find DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER.

Says IMDB:

“The IMDb contains over 400,000 different movie titles. The aim of the database is to cover as many titles and genres as possible. As a result, some of these titles contain words or expressions that some of our users may find inappropriate and some movies themselves may also fall into this category. To provide some level of control for those of a sensitive nature some adult titles have been made searchable only by users who are registered with the IMDb and have requested access to this material.”

“Inappropriate.” Apparently an intimate film about two young men in love, and loving one another is “inappropriate.”

Caligola,, Bob Guccione’s notorious bait and switch production isn’t “inappropriate.”

Neither is Love Camp 7, the infamous Nazi exploitation flick. (From the IMDB listing, “The film contains numerous scenes of women prisoners being abused, tortured and humiliated by their Nazi captors. Indeed the whole purpose of the work is to invite male viewers to relish the spectacle of naked women being humiliated for their titillation. LOVE CAMP 7 contains both eroticised depictions of sexual violence and repeated association of sex with restraint, pain, and humiliation.”)

Apparently Pink Flamingos, which (among other things) features an actor eating dog shit, isn’t “inappropriate” either.

But according to IMDB, DAMON AND HUNTER, an award-winning documentary film featuring a consentual love-scene between committed lovers is “inappropriate,” and viewers with more delicate sensiblities must be protected from the pain they might feel should they accidentally stumble across DAMON AND HUNTER in the course of browsing through IMDB.

We’ve been here before.

Last Summer, the Australian OFLC “protected” the good people of Sydney from accidently stumbling into the queerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and being exposed to DAMON & HUNTER.

Last Fall, a printer in North Carolina refused to print the above poster for DAMON & HUNTER, lest anyone in their plant be exposed to the image of two men about to kiss.

IMDB’s been here before too. Last January, IMDB hid John Cameron Mitchell’s SHORTBUS in the section for “inappropriate” films. (An uproar ensued across the indie film world prompting IMDB to move SHORTBUS from the “inappropriate” section to the “appropriate” section” by the end of the day.)

Of course compared to us SHORTBUS and ThinkFilm are a marketing juggernaut. John Cameron Mitchell’s been quoted in a hundred places pronouncing that SHORTBUS isn’t arrousing and isn’t porn, where I’m quite proud of the fact that (at least for some people) DAMON AND HUNTER is quite arousing, and I’m ambivalent about the p-word. (Short version, it tells you more about the person saying it than it does about the film they’re applying it to.)

I’m also ambivelent about trying to get IMDB to change the listing. Not because I’m happy to have DAMON & HUNTER hidden away, but because I know that trying to get IMDB to change it will take a lot of time and effort. Comstock Films is me and my wife Peggy, there’s only so much of us to go around. And after financing, producing, editing, and marketing these films, there’s not always that much left over for fighting battles with people like the OFLC or IMDB. Sometimes I feel a little ground down,

What I am not ambivalent about is that Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together is not “inappropriate” film, and if “sensitive” IMDB users don’t need to be protected from stumbling across listings for CALIGOLA, LOVE CAMP 7, or PINK FLAMINGOS, they most certainly don’t need to be “protected” from accidentally seeing the listing for DAMON & HUNTER.

UPDATE

You can also find HONEY AND BUNNY, which played along side DAMON & HUNTER at the New York CineKink Film Festival, and features close-up shot of a half-eaten peach lodged in a woman’s vagina, as well as FILTHY FOOD, which also played with D&H at the CineKink Film Festival, and features close-up footage of a woman performing “oral sex” on a variety of foods in the place of penises, vulvas, and breasts.

The story work on Ashley and Kisha’s interview is done. It’s smooth, it flows it has pace and panache. Right now I’m working the rhythm between the two shot and the close-up, using the camera choice to emphasis passages or highlight reactions. It’s one of my very favorite parts of making these films.

I am also monitoring the reshuffle of our Google site index and the the slow return of ComstockFilms.com (hopefully) back from page 15 obscurity to a relatively high ranking on the search term [real sex]. And that’s how I discovered that Sienna Miller didn’t have real sex in a recent love scene.

A week ago I didn’t know who Sienna Miller was, and mostly I still don’t. What I do know that she looks very nice bumping and grinding and humping with her co-star (I found a link to the clip on The Hater.) Warm glowing light, a roaring fire, and (what’s this now?) jump-cuts.

In a love-scene, jump-cuts are a hipper version of cross-dissolves, and they solve two editing problems that come up when cutting love-making.

Like a cross-dissolve, a well executed jump-cut can be understood as passage of time. The couple is going at it mish jump-cut now she’s on top, and we, the modern movie-going public understand that it’s not a magic act, it’s a symbolic passage of time.

The other problem they solve is you don’t need the sort of shot coverage that a match-cut would require. You can move people through time and space with jump-cuts, showing all the different ways the couple humped and bumped, without going to the time and trouble of actually moving the couple through time and space. The mismatch between shots stands in for all the missing action and time.

Comtemporary filmmakers like jump-cuts in love-making scenes because the old standby, the cross-dissolve has become associate with Hallmark movie of the week montages, and late-night cable softcore. 9 SONGS has jump cut in the love-scenes, INTAMCY has a few, Erika Lust uses them in THE GOOD GIRL too.

So far, I haven’t used jump-cuts or cross-dissolves in my love-making scenes.

I know it’s old fashioned, but I like cross-dissolves as a way to symbolize the passage of time and/or create a dreamy atmosphere. But you can’t throw them around willy nilly. Every time I try to use them in these films, they’ve ended up feeling jarring and discordant, so I’ve taken them back out.

I haven’t used jump-cuts either, but that’s more philosophical.

As accepting of jump-cuts as modern audiences are, a jump-cut is still more noticable than a match cut or other techniques used to create flow or compress time. Jump-cuts feel more mannered and remind me I’m watching a confection. To me, traditionally editing feels less obtrusive, especially in a love-scene, and that make the love-making scene feel more more “real”, and “real sex”, the kind that people whe really care about each other have, is what I want my films to feel like.

At any rate, all props to Sienna Miller’s PR people. All the buzz of real sex on film without having real sex on film. Clever! I’m taking notes!

In a recent post to the Without A Box forums I said that dealing with the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification was something of a cross between Alice in Wonderland and Kafka’s The Castle.

But on Friday, after a nearly two hour long phone call where in we tried to get an explination as to why some sexually explicit films, such as 9 SONGS and NEW SEX POSITIONS, VOLUME 2 receive R-ratings, while DAMON AND HUNTER gets an X-rating, and can’t even get an exemption for a one-off screening at a Gay and Lesbian Documentary festival (”The OFLC is aware we’re discussing an award-winning documentary film, right?”), things took a turn for the truly bizzare.

Moments after hanging up the phone, we received, by post, a request from the OFLC to retain our film for use in their Classification Training Workshops.

No, I’m not kidding. The OFLC would like permission to lift 3-4 minute segments to be used on training members of the film, television and videogame industry about the classification process.

As you try to wrap your brain around this, please keep in mind that only two days before the OFLC informed us that if an Australian counterpart to The Institute for Gay Men’s Health or The San Francisco Sex Information Hotline were to use DAMON AND HUNTER with their clients, or merely kept the DVD on their library shelves, they would be subject to fine and jail time.

The mind reels.

Meanwhile, the butchered re-edited version of DAMON AND HUNTER, per the OFLC’s instructions has been submitted to the OFLC with the promise that we’ll have an answer within 48 hours as to whether or not they will allow queerDOC to screen the censored version. The entire 46 minutes, censored version can be viewed online here:

DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT FOR THE OFLC

Right now several dozen people are sitting together in the dark in a small theater in the Fitzroy district of Melbourne Australia. Along with the theater owners and the MUFF festival organizers they are about to become party to a crime. They are about to be party to the public exhibtion of Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together, a sexually explicit film that has been officially rated X by the Australian government. Because it is X-rated, it is illegal to present Damon and Hunter publicly, even to a theater full of adults who know exactly what they’ve come to see. Because it is X-rated, it’s even illegal to sell Damon and Hunter in many parts of Australia.

We could have challenged this rating (as 9 Songs did), but it’s rather costly (about $8,000) with no certainty of success – too much for a small studio like Comstock Films. So our lovely little film about love and sex goes into the world as a bit of a pariah, a scarlet letter X emblazened on its chest.

So as much as it is a celebration of sex and love, the public exhibtion and distribution of Damon and Hunter is a wilful act of defiance, a challenge to the status quo, a pointed question – why is the depiction of joyous, passionate, carnal love treated like a crime?

Meanwhile, in another part of the Common Wealth, The Tate Modern, one of Englands most prestigeous museums is preparing to show Destricted, a collection of sexually explicit shorts. Says the British newspaper The Telegraph:

“Destricted, an Anglo-American production, is a two-hour compilation of seven short films made by artists and independent film-makers who were commissioned to “explore the fine line where art and pornography intersect”.“It is supervised by Gaspar Noé, the French director whose 2002 film Irreversible featured a nine-minute rape scene. Critics who watched it at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals say it leaves little to the imagination.

A man rubbing his penis on the drive shaft of a 50 ton lorry? No, that doesn’t sound like it was intended to arouse, does it? But is it art? I suppose that depends on whether it’s presented in black and white or color.

But the gist of the Destrict ratings kerfluffle doesn’t seem seem to have anything to do with art or porn. It seems to have to do with whether or not the Tate Modern will be able to sell DVDs of Destricted in the museum gift shop. If Destrict is art (18-rated), they can. If Destricted is porn (R18-rated), they can’t. As is often the case, issues that are offered as questions of morality or aesthetics are actually questions of commerce.

My films are not about “the fine line where art and pornography intersect”, they are about the broad vista of love, sex, desire, and pleasure. I have said and will continue to say that my films are made with the absolute intention and hope that my audience finds them arousing. (Which is why it’s unlikely you’ll ever see rape, or lorries, or Death Valley in my films.)

It’s my sincerest hope that right now, in a darkened theater in Melbourne, people are getting turned on by Damon and Hunter. I hope jeans are getting stretched tight by hard cocks; I hope panties are being dampened by wet pussies. I hope people have smiles on their faces as they think about how wonderful it feels to love and be loved.

What do you suppose Sir Quintin would have to say about that? What would the Tate Modern say? What do you say?

“Western man, especially the Western critic, still finds it very hard to go into print and say: ‘I recommend you to go and see this because it gave me an erection.” — Kenneth Tynan

Yesterday’s post about DESTRICTED drew a post from Ms. Naughty which I’ve excerpted:

“I would say [DESTRICTED's] definition is fair enough…“If society was OK with porn’s place as a masturbatory tool, we wouldn’t have to talk about art being “disguised” as porn or vice versa.

Certainly attitudes toward sexuality and masturbation have their effect, but in the case of film it’s worth looking at this from a producer’s point of view.

When it comes to dollars and cents, the label “porn” is extremely marginalizing. Witness John Cameron Mitchell’s recent comments RE: SHORTBUS. “No one got a hard-on watching this film” says Mitchell. That’s a way of reinforcing the position that SHORTBUS isn’t porn. And with a budget of $2.5M — more than any porn film ever made — Mitchell and his backers can’t afford to have SHORTBUS shoved off into the porn ghetto, where returns are measured in thousands, not millions.

What I have noticed recently in reading reviews of films like THE DREAMERS, 9 SONGS, etc. is how venomously critics use the word “porn” - derision indeed. Whatever these movies’ failings, they look and feel nothing like any of the porn I’ve ever seen, and it makes me wonder just what sort of porn these critics have been watching that they feel a comparison is appropriate.

In fact it’s not, and in much the same way that “faggot” is used to dismiss a person’s sexuality as inappropriate and as the ultimate and overriding aspect of their humanity, these critics use the word “porn” to dismiss explicit sexuality as inappropriate subject matter and label the director’s interest in making such films questionable, and likely the product of a quirk or defect in the director’s psycho-sexuality.

In that respect, I would say that DESTRICTED’s and similar definitions of porn and erotica are anything but fair. At best it’s a useless construct that doesn’t really tell us anything about the work labeled “porn” or the work labeled “erotica”, save the economic ambitions of the person doing the labeling. (For some reason the phrase “straight looking/straight acting” pops to mind.)

More often such definitions are divisive, poisonous even; perpetuating a sort of Krafft-Ebing continuum for sexually explicit art, only instead of having poorly framed discussions about where the line between healthy and unhealthy sexuality lies, we have no less illuminating debates about where the line lies between porn and art. While this might lead to a lovely academic wank fest, it’s the wrong question, or at least a question I find utterly banal.

Let me lay my cards on the table about hanging the label “porn” on our work:

On one hand I have no qualms with being labeled “porn” because it lets people know in no uncertain terms that these films are absolutely frank in the way they depict sex and absolutely intended to arouse. If Mitchell proudly states that “all of the orgasms and all of the semen is real” but “no one got a hard-on watching SHORTBUS”, I am no less proud of the fact that my films also have real orgasms and real semen. Additionally, I am proud that my films have inspired countless happy erections, orgasms, and ejaculations. I’m please and happy that my films make people feel good about themselves and make them feel good about sex.

But along with the proclamation of sexual frankness, the word porn comes with a wagon-load of baggage and restrictions that I hope won’t be applied to my work. Like any artist, I want to have my work widely seen and widely respected. And like any business, we need to make money off the the work we do. The label porn is an obstacle to wider distribution of our films.

And just as I’m sure that directors who contributed to DESTRICTED don’t want to be lumped in with MEATHOLES, THROAT GAGGERS or CUM DUMPSTERS, I don’t want to be lumped in there, either. These are extreme examples, but by and large porn is cynical and poorly crafted; an insult to both sex and cinema. I am nothing if not sympathetic to filmmakers who do not want their work labeled as porn.

But what’s so very wrong about the the Porn vs. Art/Erotica vs. Porn question is that it supposes that whether or not SHORTBUS has crossed the line from art to porn (or whether our own DAMON AND HUNTER has crossed the line from porn to art.) is a relevant question.

It’s not; at least not if we’re evaluating the work without concern for its commercial potential.

Like Krafft-Ebing’s PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS, this porn/art nonsense supposes a continuum where there is none. It separates sex from the rest of life, porn from art, and then tries to draw a line, or at least define a grey area. (Lest we go too far!)

This, of course, is sillly.

Sex is not apart from the rest of our lives, and in this context “porn” is merely an inflammatory, and largely meanless descriptor. (So is “erotica” for that matter.)

Either SHORTBUS is or is not a worthwhile viewing experience; either you are comfortable or take issue with the methods JCM used to achieve his vision. Either you enjoy watching DAMON AND HUNTER and are comfortable with the way it was produced or you’re not. Whether or not you got wet or hard only matters in as much as it helped or harmed your enjoyment of the film.

The rest is marketing spin or sophistry, or both.

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:

“It’s terrific that a part-time moviemaker [Nichols] has directed so many films that cogently explore the language of sex. But it does suggest that the rest of Hollywood isn’t really trying. Seeing “Closer,” teetering from empathy to exasperation with each of its characters as one would with a real lover, a moviegoer has to wonder: Why can’t there be a dozen, a hundred films like this? Where’s the good and bad sex in movies? Why can’t directors locate where we live, how we love and lie to each other, and get closer to it?”

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?

Sunday I had the privilage and the pleasure of chatting with Christophe and Diana for an upcoming episode of Blowfish Radio

One the long bus ride into the city to meet them I watch Cinema Paradiso. On the long bus ride back out I ordered I Am Curious, Yellow, I Am Curious, Blue, Nine Songs, The Dreamers, and Intimacy. I guess I should have got Last Tango in Paris while I was at it.