The Sex Film Project - Shortbus

[Ghostboy]

After some delay, my review of the film and interview with JCM (minus the sounds of him eating) are online.

[hedwig]

john cameron mitchell appeared as a "special guest expert" in dan savage's recent Savage Love column.

an excerpt: "While I knew he'd give good advice, I didn't expect that Mitchell, a gay man, would have firsthand—or first-face—experience with learning to love vag."

http://www.avclub.com/content/node/53943

[w/o horse]

Spoil.

He said:  "It's like the 60's, without the hope" and then later someone sang the Star Bangled Banner into another man's ass, and there was a woman trying to destroy her vibrating vagina egg with a fake plastic leg.

And things like that.  I don't know.  When I left the theater with my friend he said, "There was too much" and I think maybe he was right.  At times it was overwritten and overacted.  It focused on the idiosyncrasies more than it should have.  I found myself losing the characters and straying from the emotional core.

*edit
I kind of like Star Bangled Banner better, so I'll leave it.

[MacGuffin]

Interview: John Cameron Mitchell
The writer-director of Shortbus talks about tackling real sex on the silver screen.

John Cameron Mitchell may seem like the unlikeliest guy to make a mainstream movie, but he has done so already -- twice. His first film, Hedwig and the Angry Inch combined a tragically hilarious love story with some kick-ass rock and roll and offered audiences a surprisingly straightforward tale of love and redemption. His latest movie, the highly-anticipated Shortbus, features actual on screen intercourse, but manages only to make the audience uncomfortable when the characters are sharing their feelings.

Mitchell recently spoke to IGN about Shortbus, which is currently in limited release. In addition to talking about the process of getting actors to bare their souls (not to mention bodies), the filmmaker also explained how his films manage to overcome niche marketing and potentially off-putting material and find the emotional truth lurking beneath their sometimes twisted tales.

IGN Movies: It's a testament to your direction that the only uncomfortable moment in the movie comes not when there is graphic straight or gay sex but during a scene where two characters share false emotional intimacy. What was the process of putting this movie together so that it wasn't exploitative of the adult content?

John Cameron Mitchell: 'Exploitative' is in the eye of the person being exploited. You can go into an experience trying to exploit.

IGN: Or prurient maybe?

Mitchell: Well, prurient is more about perception. Exploitative is the people being exploited -- maybe an actor feeling exploited. Prurience is the viewer, us saying it's for pure titillation's sake. Of course, prurience has a negative connotation; in porn, the purpose of it is to be stimulated. In our case, it's not porn because that was not our priority. Anyone can be stimulated by a water bottle, but that's not my job. In this case I wanted to de-eroticize the sex and see what was left over, and there's a lot. You're panning for gold and you've got a lot left over. You've got a lot of emotion, there's even political ramifications, and you have a lot of humor. When the eroticism fades, it's pretty ridiculous positions you find yourselves in and I think a lot of films that have used real sex lately have shied away from [that], almost dehumorized sex -- which is one of the funniest things there is -- and only focused on the negative aspects of sex. Porn ignores all aspects except for the erotic, and a lot of art films only show the negative. So I thought, okay, there's more here -- there's a range of things that happens that are connected towards sex, that are connected towards childhood, connected to politics, connected to the question we have to ask ourselves of whether we're going to be alone or not alone. What does that mean? Does sex help us? Does sex help us get out of the house? Is sex just a ridiculous way of doing it, and everyone has to answer it in a different way.

In our case, all of the sex is necessary for exposition for the characters, to move plot along, to bring up theme. We have the National Anthem portrayed in a way that's not very common in films, but it's a patriotic film; for me, it opens with the Statue of Liberty and old-fashioned American values that I value like this is the land of the outcasts. This is where you went when they kicked your ass somewhere else and you wanted to find some place of your own. You can say Puritans set up camp in the Northeast too, but they were looking for their own world just as much as any of us, and we have the right here to find our own way as long as we're not hurting anybody. So in this case I want to like tweak American prudery, remind people that it's not easy to compartmentalize sex, and when you do it becomes dirty, it becomes bad, and you don't have as much respect for people in a sexual or sometimes amorous way when you hide it away.

Look at the whole Catholic church; it's all about crushing it and it can pop back in unusual forms when you try to crush it. They did a study recently and the countries that have the most proscriptions against sex are the ones with the highest rates of sexual violence, domestic violence, and even war. Think about the cultures that invade other cultures; they're usually not okay about sex. There's usually misogyny involved. There's usually some sort of hatred of the sexual -- female circumcision, whatever. There's all of these weird connections between violence and fear of sex, and in this case we want to clear the air, integrate sex back into story. It's not for everyone, but in our case it's for people who can handle sex in their own lives, too. Maybe it actually will help you if you can't handle it in your own lives, just to remind you that it's as much a part of life as anything else.

IGN: Was the political aspect of the film, including 9/11, the basis for this film, or was it something you synthesized to that core concept of getting underneath sex?

Mitchell: The idea of using sex as language, I thought about in the late '90s when I was working on Hedwig. Certainly 9/11 changes everyone's point of view - you know, should change everyone's point of view about a lot of things. I mean, it was not too long after 9/11 that Jerry Falwell blamed sexual minorities and illegal immigration on 9/11 as God's punishment. You know, who the hell knows? I do know that people equate things that they are equally afraid of as dangerous -- the terrorist, the illegal immigrant, the gay guy wanting to get married. They're all equally dangerous to a lot of people on the religious right, and it's stupid. It's really not respectful of diversity of life. I hope that with this film there's a dispelling of fear, or at least a facing of it. There's a lot of fear in the film; the characters feel a lot of fear. We see it through a comedic prism and then we go into darker places and come out hopefully in an optimistic way. But that's the exact feeling I felt in New York after 9/11 -- that there really was a connection among people there. New York became a community. It reached its apotheosis during the blackout, when at first we thought we're all dead and then it was just, no, we're just using too much electricity, we're using our cell phones too much. We're using all of this technology that's supposed to connect us, but it feels like it's separating us. We've blown the system, we've overloaded the system with this desire I believe to connect, and it was when everything failed is when people looked in each other's eyes again instead of on a computer screen. They walked around the streets that they couldn't tell were their own because it was dark, and you saw little parties on stoops with people and candles and people meeting each other in their own buildings that they had never met before, marching bands and bonfires. That was the spirit of this film.

IGN: What was the challenge in getting these actors to be comfortable not only in the sexual situations but also emotionally exposed at the same time?

Mitchell: The key to making this film was allowing the actors to be the co-creators, so we cast interesting people first. I wanted smart, funny charismatic people first, then we went into improvisational workshops and through all kinds of theater games we created the characters and elements of the story in workshop. Then I would go and write the screenplay, we'd rehearse back and forth for two and a half years before shooting -- two and a half years! I mean, I cast people who I liked as well as who were talented. I knew I was going to spend a lot of time with them, and it goes a long way; a lot of people don't think of friendliness as a criteria for casting and they have a miserable time. A lot of artists think that the more miserable the time is making the art, the better the art, but I never thought that. I've always thought that was bullsh*t, and abusing their actors to get the right emotion? Bullsh*t. You know, the experience is as important if not more than the result. So in this case we went through and processed a lot -- you know, there was a lot of nerves and boundaries and talking about stuff. I always told them I never want you to do anything you don't want to do, but I want you to challenge yourselves and challenge the audience -- and we're all really good friends. It's like we got through the tenseness of shooting sex because it wasn't easy, you know? It's awkward, but it wasn't easy doing the crying scenes either, you know? They had their own challenges.

IGN: Is there a secret to being able to render these stories in a way that elevates them above the designation of being a 'gay movie'? Because a lot of the films that center around that subject focus so intently on the idea of being gay that they fail to create a sort of emotional identification with the audience that is universal.

Mitchell: Well, in this case, I don't know if you would say that it centers on the gay experience, though I think it has a queer sensibility, which is something else, which I think you can have when you're straight. A queer sensibility I would define where you were an outsider, and you somehow saw your difference in terms of gender or sexuality whether you were straight or gay. I could say that all of my films have a certain queer prism that you look through, but none of them are particularly gay films. They just have elements, like for example there's a drag element that came into Hedwig but I married it to rock & roll, which is traditionally linked; Little Richard was kind of both. But Hedwig's wasn't a coming out story; being gay was the least of her problems. It's the same with Shortbus, you know? It's about all sexualities, but there is this sort of queer feeling of we're all in this together and we can laugh at it in a certain way. Justin Bond plays this androgynous Gertrude Stein figure, mistress of the salon, certainly has an ironic and queer point of view about life, but I've always felt I've never felt comfortable in a group of just gay men or just straight women or whatever. Diversity is always [essential] and the best part is it has everybody. Agewise, we didn't have as many older people as I'd liked for this cast because they didn't audition. I opened it to anybody who wanted to send in audition tapes, and I had fewer lesbians for example, fewer women; I think women are more nervous about sex in general in a film because guys can separate sex from everything more easily. Maybe it's a little bit less common for women to separate it from intimacy or an emotional dynamic, though ultimately the women were much more comfortable on the days that we were shooting than the men, because they had already processed it all out and the men were like, "I don't need to talk about it. Let's just do it," and then they freaked out at the last minute, which does happen and our friend Viagra was helpful. So yeah, to me it's like it's a big gay and straight world; I mean, it's whatever and I'm much more relaxed about -- once you know who you are, you can kind of be in any environment. I hope this film is a sophisticated film, sophisticated defined as adaptable, having been around, assuming that people are people and everyone's in the same boat.

IGN: We're sure you've been asked many times what was toughest to shoot, but what was the most fun?

Mitchell: Well, the big orgy scene turned out to be the easiest because I was just putting in pre-existing couples into a big room full of mattresses and put them in certain spots and just said, 'Go!' And put the cameras far away with zoom lenses and it was just great. I jumped in actually with someone I was dating at the time and at the last minute I certainly couldn't get aroused. I was way too self-conscious, because group sex is not my thing, but I'm fascinated by people who are comfortable in that environment. And I did perform oral sex on a woman for the first time in one shot because I felt like I had to; it was a gesture of solidarity. So that was actually easiest even though one character actually, I don't know if you remember -- Sofia looks in the sex room and sees a woman having an orgasm. They have a moment of connection, as if the woman knows what she's going through and that was fascinating to shoot because she was actually having sex and having this very emotional moment and she was a f*cking pro, you know? I was able to direct her while everyone was having sex with her, and we created an environment with the crew and the cast were all relaxed enough for that to happen, and it was a very powerful experience. It felt very healthy, the fact that it was mixed sexualities - because people do separate themselves by sexuality - and everyone really felt energized and excited after. It blew a few people's minds as we were working on it.

IGN: There were a number of movies that I was reminded of in terms of the approach and the look of the movie, including 9 Songs and Midnight Cowboy. At least the party scenes from that film. Were there specific influences that inspired you when shooting this movie?

Mitchell: Not a lot of films that I had seen that used real sex are really up my alley. Most of the most recent ones are very negative, even though they're great in and of themselves. Like Fat Girl I thought was fantastic. But they're all so bleak -- always despair is right around the corner, which seemed a little bit disingenuous or perhaps shows how unliberated a lot of these directors might actually be. Granted, they're only going there because they grew up in a repressive environment and they're trying to rid themselves of guilt -- as I am, growing up very Catholic. But to not admit that there's humor and hope in that kind of connection seems a little bit myopic. [But the film] that I thought had a really nice tone because it was sweet and funny too was a film called Taxi Zum Klo, which is a German film from 1980, which is a very autobiographical film about this kindergarten teacher who also had this double life as kind of like a leather queen, and it was very sweet and funny and very real. That was the most influential. I have a joke in the film that refers to In The Realm of the Senses, which is a Japanese film about sexual obsession and ends badly too, but there's one point where a woman puts a hard boiled egg up her and then lays it for the man. I have this vibrating egg which is called "In the Realm of the Senses," so it's like an homage to that humorless but compelling film. But not many [others]; I mean, for tone, Woody Allen was more of an antecedent, or Cassavetes, like Minnie & Moskowitz, which is like his romantic comedy but has this depth to it. Those were more examples of tone, or of a film whose tone I was interested in -- or Nashville. And there's a short film by Jean Genet called Un chant d'amour which was made in the '50s which is very sexually explicit in a prison, which is very poetic and was kind of more moving to me than, say, Warhol's kind of -- well, Warhol always felt a little bit thin to me, like formally interesting but not very emotionally deep and kind of distanced. So his films, even though I always thought they were interesting formally were all kind of like felt a little bit mean and kind of thin when it came to emotions and ideas.

IGN: You've now done these two movies that are very idiosyncratic in terms of what mainstream audiences might want to see. Do you have an action movie bursting to get out from inside you, or some kind of mainstream vehicle that everyone will automatically see?

Mitchell: Maybe. I like formally trying different things. Sex is for me a language, genre I love to work with. I love to mix genres. But I'm working on a children's film; I wrote it years ago and I'd love it to be one of the next things that I do and it very much uses the tropes of children's stories and there's a lot of animation and it's about a little boy who was never told a bedtime story. It's called Nigh, and it could be -- I don't know. I can't tell, and I don't think it's very healthy to decide what your audience wants to see, because you just start to forget what felt special about it for you. You're blinded to what moved you about it when you're worrying too much about what they want to see. As soon as someone is asking that question -- what do they want to see? -- it's a problem for me. Sometimes you can ask it and kind of play with that. Like they may want to see that, but you give them something else and then it's what they need to see rather than what they think they want to see. Those are the films that moved me. You know, it's like unexpected moments like, 'Wow. I didn't know I could relate to such a person because you're so different from me.' But it's in the very specificity of their difference that you find a universality. Going for the lowest common denominator doesn't last; it becomes a sugar burst and then it kind of disappears. It doesn't stay with you. So for me, I do like to play with genre and I certainly will make films that some will consider more commercial, but I have to think of them in their own terms rather than just commercial things.

[matt35mm]

There were parts of this movie that... did what cinema is supposed to sometimes be able to do, a certain ability to transcend.  It's always difficult to define, and that's fine because I never want to pin them down.  The whole film ranged from good to some of those moments.  I thought those New York exteriors were completely amazing.  I'm just really happy that this film got made, because all of what has been written about this film before and during the making of it just can't say what the film is able to say for itself.  I'm glad it got to.

There aren't really any bad moments, but some pedestrian ones.  But the good thing about forgettable parts is that you forget them and then you're just left with great memories.

[Xx]

...

[hedwig]

Additional Release Material
Audio Commentary Cast & Filmmaker Commentary
Production Interview Conversation With John Cameron
Trailer Gallery

March 13, 2007

lame cover but i'm glad they didn't use the poster image.

[matt35mm]

I think the poster you're referring to was a fake one (at least... I think it's fake) posted in this thread along with the trailer.

But I think this poster is pretty awesome:

[MacGuffin]

Plot Keywords for Shortbus (2006)

Leg Spreading
Male Frontal Nudity
Exhibitionism
Orgasm
Skyline
Fake Orgasm
Bathtub
Kama Sutra
Suicide Attempt
Independent Film
Loneliness
Ejaculation Scene
Sadomasochism
Male Nudity
Depression
Homosexuality
Couples Therapy
Masturbation Scene
Transvestite
Controversial
Male Prostitute
Female Nudity
Hustler
Explicit Sex
Gay Sex
Cum Shot
Dominatrix
Power Outage
Brooklyn
Lifeguard
Hardcore
Orgy
Three Some
National Anthem
Fellatio
Title Spoken By Character
Kinky
Rimming
Erection
Voyeur
Gay Love
Anal Sex
Bisexuality
New Yorker
Vaginal Sex
Gay Relationship
Sex
Lesbian
Monogamy
Sex Therapist
Gay Kiss
Drag Queen
Ex Prostitute
Star Spangled Banner
New York City
Urination Scene

[Xx]

...