On Sex on Screen
A panel discussion at Sundance London gets me reconsidering if, how and why I choose write sex scenes for screen.
I have to admit, I don’t like sex scenes on screen.
I don’t like watching them. I don’t like writing them.
As a viewer, they almost always take me out of the story.
I’m thinking about the actors who are doing the pretending. How much pretending are they having to do? If a woman is in a bra, or tits out, I’m thinking about how well or badly her agent negotiated her contract. When actors are grinding away, I’m wondering about the artful disguise of their on-set modesty patches.
The only time I’m not thinking about the actors during a sex scene is when I’m seeing actors for the first time - then, and only sometimes then, I can ‘get lost’ in the considerations of character. That happened to me with Normal People. Even then, the main thing that impressed me was how well they performed/presented the sex, versus everything else I’d ever seen.
As a writer, I feel icky writing kissing or sex scenes (I actually think My Eyes are Up Here contains my first scripted kiss! And that was a late addition, proposed by others and initially opposed by me).
It helps that I write a lot of solo stuff, I guess…
I feel icky because I worry that scripting is an act of power that forces the actors to do something. There’s me thinking of the actors again.
Simultaneously I almost always want to depict or describe or convey sexuality, intimacy or repulsion. I’ve just felt that suggestion creates a more powerful effect on the audience than simulation.
My opinion will change today. In terms of screen, at least.
Sundance has a panel on The Modern Gaze of Sex on Screen.
It’s a great title. I’m here with My Eyes are Up Here co-writer Aminder Virdee because this is a question we dealt with and continue to deal with apropos the depiction of the sex life of a character with visible disabilities.
It’s important to Aminder that we depict the character as sex positive. But also, we know that the audience is insatiable and salacious. So how much do we show them? How much do they need to see to get our point?
It’s a great discussion, but it also reveals a major limitation of screen as an art form.
The panel is made up of 2 directors, an actor and an intimacy co-ordinator. They speak well, and/but they are only able to reflect on the subject from their point of view.
Which is basically a ‘behind the scenes’ point of view of 2 directors and actor and an intimacy coach. They don’t speak of the whys of the sausage an audience receives, because they’re all about the making of the sausage. Still… useful insights pitter patter for a full hour.
One director finds shooting sex scenes unsexy.
The actor had a pleasant and unexpected experience of losing themself in the role
The other director doesn’t like the idea of intimacy coaches because he fears they tread on his turf
The intimacy coordinator is concerned with working with the actors to define the possibilities and boundaries of both actor and character.
So far, so heady, but it’s missing the point for me:
What are we trying to show when we show sex on screen?
What are we presenting for the viewer’s… pleasure?
There are little snatches of expected insights, casual approaches to the question of sex on screen. The panelists want the scenes to come across as sexy, contribute to the story etc.
Then intimacy coordinator busts it wide open for me.
Film is a visual medium, she says, the actor’s primary mode of expression is their body. Even the voice is from the body. The way a character has sex is one of the limited number of ways their character can be conveyed.
This cracks open so much for me. About my approach to writing for film, and why it has to change.
I’m more of a literature guy. Honestly, I prefer literature for getting to understand a character - because a writer can crack the character’s head open and simply express what they’re feeling in words.
On screen, the job of words is to lie or obfuscate. They express. Just not… literally. What expresses truth and meaning on screen is the body of the actor. That look they give, the twitch in the corner of their mouth, and yes, they way they are seen to fuck.
The intimacy coordinator comes from a dance background. Makes so much sense.
I’ve just realised that great screen actors are more like dancers too. Their locus of control includes the tiniest movements and muscles of the face and body.
As a writer, the actor’s body is all I’ve got to work with, and it’s all they’ve got to give. If I don’t give them things to do with that body, they can’t convey the fullness of character. Talking is an infinitesimal fraction of that potential body movement.
I read another article recently that revolved around a similar idea. It points out how many scenes of torture there are in film and TV. Because physical torture is one of the most immediate ways to show a character coping with pressure on screen.
We need sex scenes like we need fight scenes and chase scenes and torture scenes and dance scenes (totally underutilised in US/UK films, but a mainstay of every French film I’ve ever seen - the characters always dance at some stage) because the body in action is the primary way film talks.
So my prudish aversion to sex scenes on screen has to change. By avoiding them I’m denying the actors a major weapon of their creative arsenal.
For my writing to get better, it’s not about stringing words together more effectively. It’s about describing moments in ways actors can embody.