Finite Focus: Synchronized Sex Scene (Delicatessen)
If you are going to bother to put a sex scene in your movie, be it a gratuitous one or not, it is easy (so says the non-filmmaker) to make it titillating, but hard to make memorable. One way is to do it innovative, as on previous Finite Focus entry Out of Sight (itself heavily influenced by a jarringly memorable sex scene from Don’t Look Now). Another is to make it so far over the top that it plays like slapstick (no pun intended). Fine examples of this are Kevin Kline and Jamie Lee Curtis getting athletic in A Fish Called Wanda (amusingly cross-cut to John Cleese trimming his toe nails), or the camp ridiculousness of Showgirls (Kyle MacLachlan in the pool. Oi.), Desparado (which is nonetheless rather steamy) and Body of Evidence (mmm…wax).
So how exactly do you make a sex scene stand out in a visually inventive post-apocalyptic black comedy about clowns and cannibalism? The answer is simple according to Jean-Pierre Jeunet & Marc Caro: Do it with rhythm. I’ll confess that having seen Delicatessen once in the theatres and three or more times on VHS, yet I can’t remember much of it beyond scattered images and an odd sense of dread intermixed with a lot of surreal yet hilarious visual treats. Completely worth seeing (if nothing else then for brilliant French character actor Dominique Pinon’s expressive face and interesting acting style) even if it is a wildly uneven film. The one thing you never forget about the film, however, is this sex scene. Ostensibly it is Dominique Pinon’s clown/handyman attempting to paint a ceiling, but Jeunet and Caro want to give you the proximity of the little apartment complex in ravaged Paris and all its eccentric tenants engaged in one activity or another (the bedsprings dominate however!) in perfect synchronization. The scene is a marvel, which Jeunet (now solo directing) would sort of re-invent as a simultaneous score of orgasms in Amélie, six years later.












Comment by John Allison — February 27, 2008 @ 2:31 pm
Comment by Jonathan — February 27, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
Comment by Andrew James — February 27, 2008 @ 10:37 pm
Comment by Dave Becker — March 1, 2008 @ 3:52 am
Comment by Kurt — March 1, 2008 @ 10:30 am
And I don’t think it’s a bad film despite all those character actors in there, it’s a good film partially because all those actors are in there. Love me that movie.
Now, Alien3 on the other hand…. **shiver.**
Comment by Andrew James — March 1, 2008 @ 12:19 pm
Visually, it’s probably the most stunning and interesting of all four of the movies though. I don’t blame Jeunet for the train wreck the movie was, much like I don’t blame Fincher for Alien 3. They could only work with what they had.
And that behind-the-back half-court basketball shot is just ridiculous!!!!!
Comment by Jonathan — March 1, 2008 @ 2:02 pm
Comment by Kurt — March 1, 2008 @ 2:03 pm