Carnal Knowledge

Gregg Araki works in a different arena from these mainstream filmmakers. He's an openly gay director who makes his movies on a shoestring. But Araki's The Living End, which cost $23,000 to produce, had by the end of September grossed almost $700,000--a pretty impressive return on a tiny investment. It has been far more profitable than other gay-themed movies of the last year, and it isn't hard to understand why. Araki's variation on Thelma & Louise, about two HIV-positive guys on the lam, highlights a number of sexy interludes, including a nude shower scene. "My films are becoming increasingly preoccupied with sex and violence," Araki concedes.

His own favorites begin with Law of Desire, which he calls "Almodovar's best movie. All the love scenes with Antonio Banderas are great. He is one hot potato. I also was amazed when I saw Genet's Un Chant d'Amour. That was incredibly sexy and graphic for the time it was made."

Araki's next film, which he has already shot and is now editing, is about gay and lesbian teenagers. "They do all the teenage things--sex and drugs," Araki says with a laugh. "Hollywood films have an incredibly juvenile attitude toward sex. They use it as a metaphor for evil things. But my movies don't always please gay audiences either. Some people felt the treatment of AIDS in The Living End was politically incorrect. Sometimes hipper straight audiences like my movies better than conservative gay audiences."

Roman Polanski has not, despite his scandalous reputation, been a major trailblazer in cinematic sex. But a few striking moments in his films suggest that he does have an understanding of erotic secrets. The scene in Repulsion in which Catherine Deneuve listens to the sounds of lovemaking coming from her sister's room next door was a milestone in its time, and Polanski was among the first directors to include nudity in an American film when he bared the breasts of Mia Farrow (or her body double) in Rosemary's Baby. But with his new movie, Bitter Moon, a graphic study of a kinky romance. Polanski's on-screen depictions may catch up with his offscreen notoriety. Nevertheless, Polanski insists. "I don't enjoy watching sex on-screen beyond a certain point. Humping can be very funny in a comedy, but I don't know how you present it in a serious vein. The problem with sex on-screen is you never believe they are really doing it. Even if they are doing it for real in a porno film, you don't believe they are really having fun."

In terms of his own favorite moments, Polanski cites the early scene in Barry Lyndon, which begins with Barry's (Ryan O'Neal) cousin standing before him; he removes a ribbon she has hidden to the front of her dress, and then she begins to kiss him. "They were both fully clothed in the scene," Polanski observes, ''and yet that kiss was as arousing--maybe even more arousing--than the crudest scene from Last Tango."

His motivation in doing Bitter Moon, he says, was to explore the nature of an all-consuming passion. "Often in relationships," Polanski observes, "sexual attraction wanes with time but love amplifies. That's the paradox I wanted to explore. It was difficult directing my wife. I actually directed her less than the other actors. She'd go to her dressing room, work on the scenes with her coach or by herself, and when she was ready, we'd shoot. It's easier working on sex scenes with someone you don't know."

Neil Jordan was less concerned with clinical details than with creating an atmosphere of sensuality when he filmed the sexual encounters between an Irishman and a black woman in The Crying Game. "I wanted to make the whole fabric erotic," Jordan says. "That meant choosing the right clothing and hairstyle, even the drapes around the bed in her flat." Jordan says he would like one day to make an all-out erotic movie. "But I don't see how you can do that without showing an erect penis." Jordan declares. "I wish there were a genre of sex movies along with other genres like Westerns and gangster films. There should be a whole tradition similar to what the nude represents in painting."

Jordan's own favorite scenes are suggestive rather than explicit: "The scene in The Last Emperor where the two women are under the sheets is visually beautiful and erotic. And then the dress that Marilyn Monroe wore in Some Like It Hot is one of the most erotic things I've ever seen."

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5