In TV and movies, sex scenes are getting explicit enough to the point where some are wondering if the actors are actually doing it or not. At least one critic is bandying about the phrase "hard-core art."
In the last few years, two American filmmakers, Vincent Gallo and John Cameron Mitchell, have depicted actual sex in their films — and have not been shy about admitting it. Recently, the Oscar-winning director Ang Lee earned an NC-17 rating for his “Lust, Caution.”
These films and “Tell Me” fall under “hard-core art,” said Linda Williams, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of books on both pornography and cinema. They escalate the explicitness, trying to step beyond the conventional but not veer into pornography.
“We’re stuck in this dichotomy of pornography’s un-nuanced pleasure and simulated sex, which does not allow certain kinds of representations,” she said. The new productions, she added, are redefining “just what might be an American adult film or television show.”
Cynthia Mort, the creator of “Tell Me,” said the point was not to make the depiction indistinguishable from real sex. “The goal is to make it moving and emotional and intimate and, yes, uncomfortable at times, because not everyone is comfortable with sex,” she said. “You’re trying to capture that.” ...
... While real sex in film dates back to the 1970s and is a mainstay of European directors like Catherine Breillat of France, Lisa Ades, a director of “Indie Sex,” a documentary series on sex in cinema shown last month on IFC, said American directors have only recently ventured into it, with Mr. Gallo’s 2003 movie “The Brown Bunny” and last year’s “Shortbus,” written and directed by Mr. Mitchell.
Mr. Gallo declined a request for an interview and Mr. Mitchell was in Europe and unavailable. But one of the leads in “Shortbus,” Paul Dawson, 37, compared his experience with the sex scenes to shedding tears.
“A crying scene and a sex scene are very intimate and require an actor to find something inside that makes him cry or makes him aroused,” he said. Mr. Dawson said he did “Shortbus” because he saw value in creating something that viewers might not have seen on screen but that many would identify with.