November 29, 2004

I was reading Richard Corliss' wild rambler about sex in the movies and Closer and I started thinking… what the hell is he talking about?

I've read his piece three times and I have to say, I am still scratching my head. Does he really mean to say that the cinema should spend more time talking about sexual combustibility rather than dramatizing it? Does he really think that the fact that we can identify the characters in a film is enough to fulfill us as a moviegoing audience?

Really, I'm not all that interested in battling over Closer. I admire the work of the actors and Mike Nichols. I just think the core material, the play, adds up to nothing but a lot of dissatisfied chatter. And mostly, I would argue that the film is so steeped in the nature of theater… a medium in which words dominate way, way, way ahead of the visual (with the exception of big musicals) and should… that the respect for the play makes a quality film nearly impossible.

Corliss sets the stage by pointing out that Nichols changed almost none of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. He also brings up The Graduate and Carnal Knowledge. But what all of these had going for them, which Closer does not, is that the world was in the midst of major change when those films were made.

I think that Corliss misses the boat entirely when he looks at Closer in the context of Howard Stern and unrated versions of American Pie. Much like his hypothesis late in the piece, Corliss is yearning for the thrill of the hunt… he's talking about sex, but it fits his interest in movies. The idea that sexual undercurrent in the movies of the late 60s and early 70s have any business being compared head-on to the undercurrent in movies of today is just wrongheaded.

It is much like the comparison of Iraq to Vietnam… way too simplistic. Disliking the war in Iraq and how we got there does not make it a direct correlative to the disliked war in Vietnam. The U.S. was not taking sides in what was essentially a civil war… our military objectives were never as clear or as successfully executed - regardless of all the screw-ups - as they've been in Iraq… and the geopolitical significance of this war could not be any more different than the Cold War era Vietnam experience.

None of that means that one has to be any less angry or unhappy with Iraq than they were with Vietnam. But they are not the same.

In the late 60s, the "Howard Stern of the time" was Mad Magazine and Harvard Lampoon and then National Lampoon. As we went into the 70s, humor became more political as the air was loaded with national tension. But by the early 80s, humor started to soften and become less weighted down with critical world issues.

Howard Stern and American Pie are, enjoy them or not, silly childish comedy. Stern "jumped the shark" when he got divorced and all of a sudden his sexual fantasies were ugly realities that could be met by this now single, wealthy big talker. American Pie jumped the shark as soon as the characters aged out of being so excited about seeing a foreign exchange student naked. No one wanted to actually see Michelle masturbate with her flute… the absurdity of the idea was what was funny, not the reality. Of course, some people would want to see that and for a strong, cult-like group, the idea of Howard Stern finally getting to have sex with all the women he was so overt with over the years is exciting. But not the majority.

The most significant sexual film of the last decade in defining our culture is the one we each have in our head of Monica Lewinsky taking a knee in the room behind the Oval Office and the aftermath of how we reacted to it. It has become the tradition to say that such things don't matter and that we should all be more sophisticated than to discuss it, but they do matter and we aren't anywhere close to that sophisticated. If we were, movie stars wouldn't have to remain in the closet to remain movie stars and the sexuality of others would not be a subject for public referendums. We all know that The Casting Couch exists, in some situations, but how often is it written about? (Answer: never.)

The thing is, it's not so shocking that people are indulging. What is shocking is having it put in your face. Ask any parent of a sexually active teen. For most, most of the time, it is easier not to be thinking about some guy swapping bodily fluids with your bouncy baby girl. The behavior is to be expected… thinking about it is a nightmare.

70s sex films were in a time before Herpes as a major issue, much less AIDS. Cocaine was still considered relatively harmless. Pornography was limited to anxiously attended downtown theaters. And the idea of Mrs. Robinson was shocking indeed… a woman asserting her sexual carnality was every bit as shocking as the idea of her seducing a younger man.

Closer is not shocking. Julia Roberts gently describing the flavor of her partner's genetic output is not shocking in any context other than the star system. I believe Ms Portman made an appearance in The Vagina Monologues, which was far more graphic than anything in Closer... and also a failure when transfered to film.

The failure of Closer is not that its characters do not have sex, but rather that the sexual element, which seems to be driving the engine of change, is so meaningless that it does not call for real discussion in its own right.

There have been shocking and powerful sexual moments on film in recent years. As banal as the lesbian scenes in Mulholland Drive were, David Lynch has charted the dark side of sexuality with intensity. If Blue Velvet is too much for you, take perhaps the most graphically sexual moment in memory, between Wilem Dafoe and Laura Dern in Wild At Heart in which he gets her to ask for sex, his hand in her groin from the start, and when she finally submits fully, he rejects her utterly. Sex as power… horrible, dramatized and real.

The closest to anything that emotional in Closer is a little smile Ms. Roberts gives her ex-husband after a tryst, finally allowing the ice to thaw before pushing the divorce paper in his face... given the tone of the rest of the film, the smile was probably a mistake.

Similarly, the sexual violence of Demme's Something Wild, even though sex subsides as the level of pure violence rises, is relentless.

But closer to right now…

Ray… in which our hero cheats on his wife and still remains our hero.

Sideways' great moment when one character gets caught lying and for all his sincerity has no comeback for the argument that he waited to be truthful until after he got her into bed.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which almost never deals directly with sex, but in which the sexual connectivity of the two lead characters is never in doubt… an utter necessity in order to make sense of the connection.

It is one of my greatest criticisms of The Aviator that the story of a man who is deathly afraid of germs seems to have a very busy sex life. How does he do it? Sex is not neat.

Birth has the nude scene in the tub, but doesn't have the courage to ask the question it sets up… is sex with a 10-year-old you think you are connected to in a cosmic way okay?

Even in Spider-Man 2... Mary Jane is clearly a size queen of sorts. Her two options are the muscle-head jerk and the man in the mask who can swing through the canyons of the city. She is just waiting to be overpowered, isn't she? Kinky.

But what does Closer tell us? People are vain and shallow and disregard the love of others to pursue their own whims. These people are freakin' pushovers. The angular perfection of the house of mirrors that Patrick Marber built for the stage is good theater on its face. But, as a film, it is old boring news, in great part because it is a movie of results and not the process… a movie that talks about sex but is not sexy in any way… a movie that is all conceit and no heart.

The movie is, stunningly enough, Jude Law as a movie star. Law is a great character actor… one of our best. But as beautiful as he is, he somehow is missing that magical ingredient that makes a movie star.

"Jonathan: Talk about the pot and the kettle. When I caught wind of your checkered past, I felt like a celibate.
Bobbie: You made me tell you.
Jonathan: Sure. I twisted your arm.
Bobbie: It got you hot!
Jonathan: Something has to."

My God! Where is this kind of insightful dialogue, from Carnal Knowledge, in Closer?

"Jonathan: Women today are better-hung than the men."

Even the commercials for the film concede that what is missing is the emotional conflict of confrontations that never happen in the film. The entire movie is a post-mortem. Boring!

"Bobbie: I need a life.
Jonathan: Get a job!
Bobbie: I don't want a job. I want you.
Jonathan: I'm taken, by me."

Closer is Carnal Knowledge without Jonathan, the Jack Nicholson character. But without the Nicholson character, beautiful Bobbie is with a man who really wants her and she doesn't have to suffer… no one has sex with their best friend's girl… everyone can get it up…

When Corliss asks whether film has matured sexually in the current era, he blames everyone but the real culprit… movies like Closer that could not be farther from The Graduate or Midnight Cowboy. There are no real stakes for these players and as such, nothing matters.

There was another great movie about sex in the last year or so… Lost in Translation, in which there is no sex between the main characters. Not having sex can be as powerful as having it… even more so. But there has to be a reason for restraint just as in drama, there needs to be a reason for action.

Perhaps it is just that the mystery of sex has vanished in this era and there is not enough drama in sex itself to make for a work of great power. It seems to me that the great work about sexuality in this period will be about the lack of passionate partnering, not a overload of partners. (see: Alfie) It will not pretend to be Bohemian (see Closer's photographer and stripper combo). It will be about a world of Jonathans who think they are Bobbys.

Or something like that.

"Why don't you leave me?... For God's sake, I'd almost marry you if you'd leave me."

Conflict.

Drama.

In any era.

READER OF THE DAY: THE FRIZZ writes: "I am always amazed at how positive reviews can pour in for a film and yet one or two people can completely contradict those reviews. Today, as I am reading Oscarwatch.com two more raves came in for Closer, a film I am, of course rooting for, and I remembered your take on Closer and felt a little uneasy. What concerns me is not that you didn't like the film, you are entitled to your opinion and your reasons, but that you seems to show a disrespect for those who do. And Mr Poland, there seems to be many that do. And it seems that every day more and more seem to rave about this film. And to be frank with you, I figured the reviews would be split. But with the exception of your article and one from the Hollywood reporter (albeit, a second reviewer from the Hollywood reporter came forward raving about the film) it has been widely embraced. And I am sure you will go into your vault and pull out all of the negative reviews that you have read of the film to try and prove your point, but it really is unnecessary, I have read to many raves for the film already.

Films like Closer open our eyes and minds and allow us to look at who we truly are. This is a comfort to people like me who are sick of escapist bullshit all of the time. Even though those films are much needed at times. So, no Mr. Poland if movies like Closer are made, it will not destroy the film industry. Just like romantic comedies, adventure movies, horrors and science fiction can all be embraced by movie goers, films like Closer will find their place as well. Because, it is really about what we are in the mood for and where we are in our lives that certain films have the power to change our perspective and allow us to look closely at things we might not choose to otherwise."

And THE LAWYER writes: "I tried to watch this Trio show about Blockbusters and how they suck, but lasted all of three minutes. The reason being; it seemed to be another of a long line of things that I have to endure telling me Hollywood blockbusters suck. Yippee. I get it; it's no longer cool to find something with big grosses and meaning during the Summer. So I erased it from the DVR, because I do not play that. I will always say there is more REAL emotion in say, New Yorkers defending Spidey in Spidey 2, than the entirity of Garden State. Not that Garden State sucks or anything, but for a movie dealing with emotion or lack there of. It sure feels kind of flacid. Except for Portman, who plays cutesy better than any actress on earth.

Which leads us to Closer. A film, with a trailer, that screams "THIS FILM WITH GET CRITICS HOT! OH YEAH BABY! HOT HOT HOT!" People and critics with taste such as Corliss live for movies like Closer. It sums up what the movie going experience should be about; adults, struggling with love or the pitfalls of some other avarice that just makes that one hour and half to two hours or more much more enriching or gives some sort of explanation to their own lives. Since the movie supports something in them that makes them get so aroused by films like Closer.

I think you pointed out a while ago that; if critics ran Hollywood. Hollywood would shut down rather quickly. Thus leaving me always confused when people like Corliss or that tool for Variety (How did he get on the Matrix DVDs complaining about the films, but you are no where to be found? The powers that be should have had at least one critics to defend or explain the movies on those DVDs. ) review Summer fare since they make it abundantly clear that they do not exactly like it but tolerate it's funding of their much more ballyhooed Fall and Winter fare.

It's oh too confusing, but films like Closer will probably do nothing for me (even if the film plays well as a film) since they exist as films about real emotional moments in a person's life that seem forced or in better films, contrived. Contrivances I can deal with, but these fuckers lately have been way too dependent on forcing this or that to confront the audience with the DIRE ADULT CIRCUMSTANCES happening on the screen."

E-ME: As a rule, I don't rely on the opinions of others to justify my opinion. If I did, it would cease to be an opinon and become just a survey. But it does make for interesting conversation.

Anyway... is sex a subject that can be covered in the kind of social blanket that movies like Carnal Knowledge once did? Or has the fabric become to complex?

And if you missed the annual, but very tardy Thanksgiving column, it's here.