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.
Back when I was in Classics at Brock University and I was president of the Archaeology Society we would have movie afternoons. We’d take over the lounge and show movies. The movies ranged from Conan the Barbarian, Caligula, Pink Floyd: The Wall (okay we missed that one because we ended up in the pub all afternoon) and Delicatessen. No one knew what they were getting into but everyone really enjoyed the movie. I’ve been a fan of Jeunet ever since then. You are right though, the most memorable part of Delicatessen is the sex scene, so interesting in fact that he creates a very similar scene in Amelie.
Good lord, I love this movie. I wish Dominique Pinon was in every single movie ever made.
This is one of the few Jeunet movies I didnt quite care for. Not horrible, would definitely give it another try. But as Kurt mentioned, this scene in particular stands in my head for sure.
When you look at the above, you see just how good Jeunet is at putting a scene together. He succeeds time and again, in this film, Amelie, A Very Long Engagement, etc. It’s a damn shame his only ‘American’ project thus far was Alien 4, also his worst (and I’m guessing it wasn’t all his fault how useless that movie was…Alien 4 had ‘studio project’ written all over it).
alien4 was some squandering of a lot of talent. Jeunet, Joss Whedon was one of the screenwriters, of course the pair of Jeunet stable actors, Dominic Pinon and Ron Perlman, as well as a host of other great character actors, dan hedaya, brad dourif and Leland Orser. It’s too bad that things just never came together. It was too much like a comic book, it lacked any sort of weight or gravitas that the other three directors brought to the table, making it just a bauble and a bauble that was spoiled by the ridiculousness of the ending.
You know how I feel about this. Alien 4 is my favorite in the franchise (not the BEST, just my favorite). I don’t hinkit’s a poor film at all and Jeunet’s art direction/cinematography department turned out one of the best looking of the Alien movies.
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.**
Andrew, wish I could agree, especially being a HUGE fan of Jeunet… but Alien: Resurrection was so bad!! I know we’ve talked about this before and I blame it on a) the Joss Whedon script and dialogue (I was nearly assassinated for this comment) and b) the studio mucking around with it. And the story itself was just stupid (much like the story of Alien 3).
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!!!!!
Funny how this subject keeps coming up. I think that Fincher’s is dark an existential. I think that Jeunet is light and bubblegum. The both look good. All the Alien movies have thrived in the art-direction/cinematography dept.