This is something of a book-end to Captured Beauty, my last thematic screenshot post. Try as I might with that post to focus on the beautiful in the female form as something transcendent and lofty, the root of lust and its baser impulses inevitably aided in the selection process. So here all rhetoric is lifted. This is sex and the longing for it. Excluding porn and trying (at least for this round) to limit to clothed expressions of Lust, several of us at Row Three put together this series of screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
Oh and I would like a full report of the depictions we missed.
1. Closer
2. The Swimming Pool
3. And God Created Woman
3. Eyes Wide Shut
4. 25th Hour
5. Unfaithful
6. Basic Instinct
7. Twilight
8. Into The Wild
9-14. Atonement
15. The Unbearable Lightness of Being
16. Battlestar Galactica Season 3 – Unfinished Business
Completely agree with the long-term strategy point. Now that J.J. has left the building and I hope all his...
I really wanted a quality screenshot of Rosario Dawson in Alexander, but not owning the film and finding no such on Google, I leave unfulfilled
The infamous Boxing Episode might have been the show that made me start to really dislike BattleStar Galactica. HamFisted!
Dawson.
mmmmmmmmm
If this is supposed to make me want to have sex with Keira Knightly, Natalie Portman, Diane Lane, Rosario Dawson and Lena Olin even more than I already do, mission accomplished.
I only ever watched the extended cut of Unfinished Business, but I think you are dead wrong Kurt, they needed way more episodes like that. I did notice in grabbing this image that the unextended version has them hugging and thats it whereas the one I watched they kiss and fall over.
I found it Blunt. Very Blunt.
My biases are showing because I liked the film far more for its socio-political posturing than I did for the characters/actors/overall-plot.
That being said, Mary McDonnell and E.J. Olmos were awesome in the show, far elevated in terms of acting quality/nuance above the rest of the cast.
Ooh, fun topic! Seriously low on the testosterone here, allow me to help out:
-Jake Gyllenhaal, lying shirtless in the tent in Brokeback Mountain (even Heath Ledger couldn’t resist!)
-Viggo Mortensen in anything, but especially the waterfall scene in A Walk on the Moon, the stairs in A History of Violence, or the final scene of The Passion of Darkly Noon
-Hugh Jackman in anything, but especially Australia
-Ewan McGregor in the tango scene from Moulin Rouge
To follow on Ashley’s heels…
Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise
shit, History of Violence of course! keep the ideas coming, there will be more of these in the future.
Mmmm. Maria Bello in the cheerleader outfit… hot.
Are we taking the image out of context or leaving it within context. certainly the second sex scene is in AHoV is more ‘lust’ than the playful aw-shucks initial sex scene. Of course the whole family dynamic has changed within the film at that point, which is why AHoV’s main thrust (pun intended) can be seen purely in to contrast of the two sex scenes in the film.
Alright. I think Ashley’s onto something. Hugh Jackman in AUSTRALIA…hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
midway through doing this I was thinking what was meant by depictions of lust, is it that the image itself separate from the film, separate from even the characters are incredibly oozing sex, and I thought that would be an uninteresting approach, it would come down to tabloid photos… the key is getting the moments that are within the film indicative of lust.
The next batch will be more explicit I think, but at the same time it can’t just be sex in all its awkward dimensions it has to be quivering sex. maybe string them narratively, flirting, first touch, fucking and orgasm.
Desire and lust are nearly interchangeable words. When there’s someone or something on screen placed there simply for the audience or another character to ogle I believe is lust. Of course sometimes you have a couple on screen going after each other like animals or simply looking at one another and drooling.
But often, like the Brad Pitt in Thelma/Louise example, he is there simply to be lusted after. I suppose eye-candy might be the word as well, but in that case, he is part of their story – he’s not just there for us to look at. Yet if I remember correctly (been ages since I saw the film) there is no sexual activity. Just pure lust and desire.
Yeah but there is something to the way the film is looking at its subject (and lord knows feminist analysis can tell you a lot about that). A chick in Meatballs will be leered at within the confines of the film, but someone you find particularly attractive, like say Zooey Deschanel, in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, because that gets you hard, don’t make it a depiction of lust, at least not the way I am thinking of it.
I would agree Brad Pitt in Thelma and Louise is a deliberate baiting for the female audience… as is the shirtless Hugh Jackman in Australia.
The one that I find perplexing is the opening shot of Lost in Translation, you open on Scarlett’s ass, but its so out of context, the film doesn’t seem to be leering or aroused, its just here is someone’s ass, ok onto the film…
The library scene in Atonement is a notoriously great example of lust in cinema. Youtube won’t allow me to embed the video, so you can see the full scene over there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xCUmQA8pv0
Rewatched the film recently, undeservingly maligned and really holds up well. Joe Wright needs to stop making things like the Soloist and get back to this kind of virtuoso filmmaking.
“Rewatched the film recently, undeservingly maligned and really holds up well.”
Finally. Welcome to the club though Andrew and I were on board from the beginning.
oh I was there since the beginning too. I saw it at TIFF.
I enjoyed Atonement a great deal.
I’m undecided on whether to see THE SOLOIST or simply pretend it never happened and that Wright’s record is still unblemished.
I’m such a huge P&P fangirl. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen that film. Actually, there’s a fair bit of lust in that movie too.
OH dear. Now my heart’s a pitter patter. What a lush.
THE SOLOIST never happened.
still waiting for Pride and Prejudice to come on blu-ray.
Atonement was maligned? Huh, I thought I was the only person who wasn’t floored by it – everyone I’ve ever talked to (besides myself) loved it.
I did love Wright’s P&P, though. Just thought that aside from the well-done typewriter-like effects in the score and the long take in the war section that it had that air of being overly faithful to the book, and yet not as transcendent as the book. I always wonder if I would’ve felt differently if I hadn’t read the book first…I’m not a book purist, but the book tore me apart and the movie didn’t, and I think it may have been partially that it was my first experience of the story. (Also, too much soft focus, which is a personal distaste of mine.)
Atonement was the most over the top annoying melodrama that I can remember. I was just mildly bored and didn’t care till the beach scene. At that point I was ready to turn it off. I can stand some melodrama but it just took it too far. If you want a better war movie watch Black Book it has the right amount of melodrama. It doesn’t feel like you are being hit in the head with a hammer.
Black Book is great. But I don’t look at Atonement as a war movie. Not at all. Atonement is a love story… a magically shot and told love story. The final five minutes hurt like hell (in a good way)… seriously.
I knew I hadn’t imagined the ATONEMENT hate
Andrew, had you read the book first? As interested in adaptation as I am, Atonement is actually a really fascinating case for me. The last five (or ten) pages of the book hurt like hell for me (in a good way), but not the movie – I can’t help but wonder if it’s just because I already knew the ending.
Maybe after a few years, when the book has had time to wear out of my memory, I’ll try rewatching the movie and see if I get the same visceral reaction from it that I did from the book the first time.
Absolutely! If you already knew the ending it would not have nearly the same affect. I had no idea that was coming. I’m sure which ever medium you perceive first is going to be the better of the two. If nothing else though you have to appreciate the uncut beach scene and the other amazing shots and cinematography on display here.
The beach scene was amazing. The costumes were great. Ronan was fantastic. I still don’t care for the soft focus he used, but I’ll admit that as a personal preference. The war scenes in general though (aside from the beach shot) didn’t impress me as much as I wanted them to – they didn’t feel as lived in or desperate as the book. Again, there I go. Usually I can separate a film from its source and treat them as individual works without comparing them too much, but I just inhabited the book so strongly in this case that I can’t. So I’ll just have to stop passing any sort of judgment on the film. It’s not fair to it.
On the Creative Screenwriting podcast there is an interview with the screenwriter of Atonement, and he admits that Joe Wright had a lot to do with how the story was told in the film… and as far as I could tell from what he said, the script was not faithful to how the book works.
I’m vague on the details because it was awhile ago I listened to it.
Even on a second or third viewing I find the ending devastating and its because of how it is conveyed cinematically, not so much the a ha moment of it.
“Even on a second or third viewing I find the ending devastating and its because of how it is conveyed cinematically, not so much the a ha moment of it.”
This is right, exactly.
Unbeknownst to Kurt (until now) I have a draft in my gmail of an ever growing list of contemporary movies for him to see that he’ll love, he just doesn’t know it yet. Initially this was for a podcast idea we had that never came to fruition; so the list has grown over the past few months.
Although it is clearly the riskiest of choices, I’ve added Atonement to that list.
Oh the hate is still there, I am sure Kurt’s nose is still turned up at the thought of it.
Not hate, just indifference.
Count me out as an Atonement fan. I liked it when I first saw it, but in memory it’s not as good as when I first saw it. Watching the clip of the library scene posted above, I wasn’t nearly as impressed, but perhaps that’s because it was taken out of context, or perhaps I feel pretty indifferent to Knightley and McAvoy as actors. As far as pure lust goes, I don’t find either of them overly attractive.
But I did think of another scene that must be added to this list: Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz in the bathtub scene from The Fountain!
Hell yes. I gave Atonement a well deserved 5 stars. That movie punches you… hard.