Love and sex scene
Related: erotica - love - sex - scene
Related: Don't Look Now (1973) - Nicolas Roeg
Love scene
A love scene is a convention in filmmaking. A staple feature of many a film genre, it is commonly associated with romantic movies and the thriller, and in particular with Hollywood films. Love scenes characteristically involve the copulation of the film's protagonist (usually male) with a secondary (female) character, although the term - in contradistinction to 'sex scene' - implies a relatively low degree of sexual explicitness.
The female character in a love scene, and indeed the scene as a whole, may be more or less integral to (or at least justified by) the plot (an example being the scene between Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair), or disposable and merely titillatory. This is often the case in mainstream filmmaking where a strong male lead is signified by a willing female bed-partner, or a succession of these (an example being the James Bond series). --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_scene [Nov 2005]
See also: scene
Nude scene
"Nude scene" is a slang term used in American popular culture to describe a scene in a mainstream (non-pornographic) film which one or more of the actors appears nude onscreen. Female nudity has been less controversial than male nudity in American film for a long time, although the female and male lower genitals are very rarely shown. One famous exception is the brief exposure of the female genitals in the Sharon Stone film Basic Instinct. When females are shown nude, their breasts are, by far, the most commonly exposed "private part", followed by the buttocks. When males are shown nude, the buttocks are shown or the man is shown nude, with his genitals or buttocks obscured by the pose, an inanimate object, or the man is simply shown from the lower back up. If male genitals are shown, it is only very briefly and the shot will usually will be cut from the film prior to release. A recent example can be found in the editing process of the film Alexander, where Colin Farrel's penis was deleted. The production company said test audiences were "distracted" or "uncomfortable" when viewing the penis. Recent films have begun to use imitation penises to surprise audiences without actually showing male genitals, or to prevent actors from being embarrassed by size concerns. Adding nudity to films can be seen as a way to increase audience interest. This is also known as fanservice. However, some critics consider the use of nudity to be "cheap" and "gratuitous", and often disapprove that some actresses do to nude scenes in order to be picked for a part or to increase their popularity.
As with nudity, female sexual activity, including female-female activity, is considered more appropriate in film by Americans whose popular culture is primarily biased by the taste of heterosexual men. Males are rarely presented as sex objects when nude in American film. Instead, male nudity is used for humor, shock value, or mild titillation (where the man is not presented fully nude or in a particularly sexual manner). The exception is gay cinema, which presents men in the same way women are often presented in mainstream film. Overall, America is considerably more offended by nudity, at least it pretends to be, than most European states, Japan, and other 1st-world nations. As with America, however, there is a strong bias toward the presentation of female nudity. America is unique in its high consumption of pornography and popularity of films devoted to nudity, like Strip Tease—coupled with TV shows about stripping where the contestants never remove all layers of clothing, and strong scandal caused by the exposure of so much as a nipple, as when Janet Jackson was exposed on MTV. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nude_scene [Nov 2005]
Don't Look Now (1973) - Nicolas Roeg
Don't Look Now has become somewhat well-known for possibly including a real sexual act, rather than the simulated sex typically found in mainstream (i.e. non-pornographic) movies. What is known for certain is that the scene (which appears approximately 30 minutes into the film) was included spontaneously and did not appear in the screenplay. Director Roeg used the scene of the main characters played by Christie and Sutherland making love to counterbalance the scenes of them arguing. The scene in question was severely trimmed in the original American theatrical release to receive an MPAA R rating. The scene is edited in an atypical fashion, with the footage of the act intercut with footage of the couple getting dressed to leave. Director Steven Soderbergh paid homage to the scene by including a tamer love scene shot in similar style in his 1998 Elmore Leonard adaption Out of Sight. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Look_Now [Jul 2005]
see also: 1973 - Nicolas Roeg
The Naughty Bits : The Steamiest and Most Scandalous Sex Scenes from the World's Great Books (2001) - Jack Murnighan
The Naughty Bits : The Steamiest and Most Scandalous Sex Scenes from the World's Great Books (2001) - Jack Murnighan [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Jack Murnighan, former editor-in-chief of sex-friendly Web site Nerve.com, gathers short erotic excerpts from works by more than 70 authors from the Marquis de Sade to Thomas Pynchon, Sappho to Jeanette Winterson, Ovid to J.G. Ballard. Culled from his popular weekly online column, The Naughty Bits (also Brit slang for genitalia) is billed as "the book that literary perverts have been waiting for." One of several recent Nerve.com tie-ins, it's a great idea and one needn't be especially literary or perverted to enjoy it. Murnighan's thoroughly good-natured, erudite introductions add to the bawdy fun. --Publishers Weekly, via amazon.com
Most people don't read a good book or have great sex nearly as often as they should; then again, most people don't know that the Great Works e.g., Joyce's Ulysses, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, and Plato's The Symposium are as rife with "naughty bits" as a frat house is with hormones. The general public has Murnighan, former editor-in-chief of the popular sex web-zine Nerve.com, to thank for gleaning the gamut of world literature for amorous interludes, from the painfully romantic to the to the puke-inducing. Murnighan first excerpted these findings in the web site's "Naughty Bits" column, of which the cr�me de la cr�me is collected here. Besides giants like Shakespeare, D.H. Lawrence, Dante, and Herman Melville, lesser-knowns, such as 1960s French teen novelist Catherine Breillant, medieval English autobiographer Margery Kempe, and lesbian playwright Holly Hughes, make appearances alongside contemporary cads Larry Flynt and Kenneth Starr. Almost more savory than the wildly varied extracts are Murnighan's learned prefaces. The fan of erotica, the student of literature, and the aspiring sex worker will all relate to his language, a strangely seamless mix of lit crit and potty talk. Highly recommended for erotica collections and larger world literature collections. Heather McCormack, "Library Journal" --From Library Journal via amazon.com
Fresh from the virtual pages of Nerve.com comes this collection of "naughty bits," an irreverent look into the steamy, scandalous side of literature past and present. With bite-sized salacious excerpts from the classics -- new and old -- each with a fresh, insightful introduction, The Naughty Bits presents the world's great books as you never thought you'd see them. --Book Description via amazon.com
Includes naughty bits by:
Dante D. H. Lawrence Philip Roth Goethe Toni Morrison Julio Cort�zar John Cheever William Shakespeare Thaddeus Rutkowski John Donne Thomas Malory G�nter Grass Herman Melville John Barth Ernest Hemingway Erica Jong Thomas Carew M. F. K. Fisher William Kennedy Jeanette Winterson Paul West Harry Mathews Catullus Clarice Lispector Giovanni Boccaccio James Baldwin Nicholson Baker Tom Wolfe John Wilmot Kevin Canty Plato James Joyce Lydia Davis Fran�ois Rabelais Kenneth Starr Henry Miller John Updike Geoffrey Chaucer Marquis de Sade Sir Philip Sidney Holly Hughes Martin Amis Andrew Marvell The Pearl Poet Thomas Pynchon Sappho William Gibson Mark Leyner Margery Kempe Jean Genet Edmund Spenser John Cleland Kurt Vonnegut Ana�s Nin Petronius Keith Banner Umberto Eco J.G. Ballard Mario Vargas Llosa Ovid Jean de Meun Catherine Breillant George Eliot Kenzaburo Oe Cormac McCarthy Larry Flynt Rupert Brooke The Old Testament