In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Nude Scene, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, Kim Basinger is at the mercy of Mickey Rourke's whims in the erotic thriller 9½ Weeks!
Although her career was nearly a decade old by the time she signed on to play Elizabeth in 9½ Weeks,Kim Basingerwasn't much more than a glorified day player and supporting actress in most of her work until that point. Basinger had appeared on several television shows in the mid-to-late 70s like Charlie's Angels, Vega$, and The Six Million Dollar Man when she landed her first leading role in the series Cat and Dog, which lasted only seven episodes. In 1981, Kim landed her first feature film role in the Jan-Michael Vincent vehicle Hard Country, and two years later became a Bond girl in the non-canon Bond flick Never Say Never Again.
Despite all of that exposure, she wasn't really a well-known commodity when9½ Weeks came along in the mid-80s, but not long after the film's release, shebecame a world class sex symbol and go-to seductress for years to come. Loosely based on a true story, the film chronicles a torrid love affair between art dealer Elizabeth and sex maniac John (Mickey Rourke) that lasts the length of the title, during which time she is at his beck and call in all manner of sexual experimentation. In real life, the woman on whom Basinger's character is based was kept handcuffed and basically held prisoner during this time, ending up in the hospital at the end of the affair.
Based on the novel of the same name by Elizabeth McNeill, the film’s screenplay is credited to Patricia Knop, Sarah Kernochan, and future Red Shoe Diaries creator Zalman King, whoskirted these rather problematic issues in the film itself.Director AdrianLyne, hot off the smash success of Flashdance, was a director on fire coming into the project, giving him a lot more leeway to exert his authority over a relative newcomer like Basinger. In a profile on the actress in The New York Times released in conjunction with the film, Basinger and Lyne both dished on their experiences making the film.
It begins with a quote from Basinger about another actress with whom she drew heavy comparisons at the time of the film's release, Marilyn Monroe. Of the legendary bombshell's mix of vulnerability and sex appeal, Basinger said, "There was something else I always saw in Marilyn Monroe. Terror. She seemed terrified inside.'' This exact thing is what Lyne honed in on when directing the actress. It began with her taped audition with Rourke, which Basinger described as "an earthquake in my life,'' but upon returning home from the audition, she was greeted by two dozen roseswith a note of thanks from Rourke and Lyne. Against her better impulses as an actress, she agreed to take the role for one major reason...
'I knew if I got through this it would make me stronger - wiser,'' she said. ''I was going against my total grain. I felt disgust, humiliation, but when you go against your grain you just know that emotions you never knew you had will surface.''
Needless to say, things didn't necessarily improve from her audition and they, in fact, got a lot worse. Lyne rationalized his methods in keeping the actors apart prior to filming thusly...
''She needed to be scared of him... If they went out and had coffee together, we'd lose the edge.'' At the audition, the director noted, he perceived ''hostility and sexual energy between them. After that I didn't want them to meet again until they began work - I didn't want them to have any relationship that would exclude me. I wanted to have the 10 weeks of the shooting of the movie be like the 9 1/2 weeks of the relationship.''
Although neither of them get into the specifics of what sort of direction Lyne gave Basinger during this time, Basinger did hint that it pushed her to her limits as a human being. When questioned about this, Lyne replied that such a reaction is a natural part of the process...
''The limits,'' he said, ''are defined by your participants. If any of the participants can't cope, it will show on film. They would both be basket cases. They'd fall apart.'' What if the scene calls for them to fall apart? ''Then it's legitimate. You're doing it for the screen.''
One scene they do dive into specifics on was eventually cut from the film when test audiences revolted against Rourke's character John. In the scene, John coerces Elizabeth into a phony suicide pact, downing a bottle of pills before offering another bottle to join him in death. Unbeknownst to her, they're just sugar pills, but the manipulation proved too much for the test audience...
To make the scene realistic, Mr. Lyne engaged in one of his private asides to Mr. Rourke. He recalled it this way: ''We were shooting the suicide scene, and this woman was supposed to be totally devastated at this point. But Kim looked dewy and lovely. I stopped and called Mickey aside. I told him that the scene wasn't working, that Kim had to be broken down.'' He said that Mr. Rourke returned to the set and helped extract the effect the director wanted. He said Mr. Rourke grabbed Miss Basinger's arm and held it tightly, refusing to let go. Miss Basinger began to cry and then shouted and struck Mr. Rourke. He then slapped her in the face. She began to weep hysterically. Mr. Lyne then said, ''Now let's start the scene.'' At other moments, Mr. Lyne said, when he thought a particular scene required it, he would instruct the actor ''be kind to her now. Don't let her be so isolated.'' The alternation between harshness and kindness was supposed to give the relationship its particular sexual tension.
But enough about what's not in the film, let's talk about what is in the film. Just past the one hour mark, Elizabeth's character laments to John that she just wishes she could be "one of the boys," which gives John an idea for a little cosplay adventure. Elizabeth dresses like a man and meets him at a bar, where they are accosted by two men who think they are gay and use some pretty nasty epithets in reference to them. A fight ensues and John ends up stabbing one of the men, causing both of them to flee the scene, and getting Elizabeth and John so horned up that they have to have sex right then and there in a rainy stairwell...
It is an undeniably sexy scene and showing cunnilingus on screen was a relatively new concept in the 80s, but it's really only sexy when one divorces it from context. In fact, despite the film containing a number of all-time sexy scenes, none of them are particularly titillating in the context of the film, only when removed from that context and shown on their own here at Mr. Skin.
So do the ends justify the means? That's a tough call. We've discussed the notion of pain being temporary but art living forever before, and this is one more of those examples where it's difficult to make a judgment call without having been on set. In the NYT article, Lyne said that his machinationswere''not the result of a sadistic alliance between me and Mickey.'' He added: ''It was something she knew was helping her. It wasn't pleasant, but it was useful.''
Basinger herself seems to agree that, ultimately, it was beneficial. She has since called her part in the film her personal favorite of all of her roles, and even in that same NYT piece, she seemed to have already come to terms with the whole thing saying...
''I think if you are an artist of any kind, if you want to try to excel, there is pain. It would be hard to say if I'd do it again, but finally I would have to say yes. Not because I like pain, but because it brought me over a certain river, to a new point. I don't know if there was any other way to get some of these emotions in a conventional way. The movie we shot - I don't mean the movie that got released - was not a straight conventional movie. I didn't always agree with the way Adrian handled things. There were times I was ready to quit, when I wondered if he weren't a sick human being, if we weren't all sick to do this, but in the end I faced my own fear and came through it.''
Whether that makes any of what she experienced on set "okay" in the macro sense is almost irrelevant. Pain is, after all, temporary.
Catch up withsome other editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene/Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—How Halle Berry's Nude Debut Led Her toMonster's Ball
—HowMulholland Dr.'s Legendary Lesbian Scenes Deepen the Film's Mystery
—Showgirlsand the Dangers of High Camp
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age inThe Hot Spot
—Lisa Bonet's Bloody Nude Debut inAngel Heart
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—In a Wild MomentGets Lost in Translation asBlame it on Rio
—Two Highly Respected Actors Have Real Sex inIntimacy
—Youthis Wasted on Two Notoriously Horny Old Actors
—Meg Ryan Goes from America's Sweetheart to Pariah withIn the Cut
—Oscar Winner Ang Lee Goes Full NC-17 withLust, Caution
—Orson Welles Distracts Us with a Nude Oja Kodar inF for Fake
—No Amount of Plausible Deniability Can Excuse What's Going On inCaligula
—Straw DogsRaises That Pesky Issue of Consent
—Molly Ringwald Does Her Only Topless Scene in Malicious
**Click Here to Read All Past Editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene/Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy**
