In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, 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, we examine the dubious claims of digital double trickery in one of the most infamous movies of the last decade, Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac!
Perennial enfant terrible Lars von Trier's 11th feature film Nymphomaniac wasannounced and shot as a sprawling, five and a half hour film that plumbed the depths of sexual depravity. Throughout the film's inception and production in 2012, the director promised a no-holds-barred epic featuring lots of unsimulated sex and a fair number of things audiences had never seen before in a film. The year prior, von Trier got himself banned from the Cannes Film Festival during the press junket for his film Melancholia. While explaining his background in which he was raised thinking he was Jewish, but later discovered that his lineage had ties to Nazi Germany, he made the comment that he understood Hitler and that he sympathized with him "a little bit." You can watch the full comments he made in the video below...
There is no way that they successfully composited LaBeouf's head onto a porn star's body in the year 2013. It's absolutely impossible to believe that's what we're looking at here. The claim becomes even more dubious in Volume II, when Stacy Martin has sex with some random guy in the hallway...
We can also see the dubiousness on display in this scene of Charlotte Gainsbourg getting double teamed by two well-endowed black guys who spend more time arguing about the logistics of double penetration than they do actually having sex with her...
Yes, it's possible to digitally manipulate footage like this so that it looks fairly seamless, but the addition handheld camera tilts and pans makes it an impossible pill for me to swallow. Maybe I'm just totally missing something here or perhaps I'm just not able to see the seams that are obvious to others, but I can't buy that this is what von Trier accomplished with this film. Of course, von Trier's Andy Kaufman-esque love of intentionally messing with people and blurring the lines between real and fake is ultimately at the heart of this argument.
It's obviously in his and his actors' best interest to claim that there's cgi-trickery at work here, because it helps them save face and feel like they didn't make a pornographic film. However, anyone who has seen Nymphomaniac can tell you that it is absolutely not pornography. Porn's main goal is to stimulate, to titillate, and to offer up sexual acts that arouse the viewer. There's nothing remotely arousing or sexy about the sex in Nymphomaniac. It is, if anything, anti-sexy, designed in such a way as to almost chastise the viewer for ever attaining pleasure from sex.
All of this being said, I can't imagine that Lars von Trier would demand any less of his audience than intense scrutiny of his every decision, and outright skepticism over what he tells us he's doing with the film. To do any less would be to not appreciate him as an artist.
Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—The "Real Sex" ofDon't Look Now
—Scarlett Johansson's Nude Debut inUnder the Skin
—The 2 Very Different Sex ScenesofBasic Instinct
—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
—Rosario Dawson Laid Bare for Danny Boyle'sTrance
—Katie Holmes MakesThe GiftWorth Remembering
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age inThe Hot Spot
—Lisa Bonet's Bloody Nude Debut inAngel Heart
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—Stanley Kubrick, The William Tell Overture, and A Clockwork Orange
—Wild ThingsPresents Every Man with His Dream Threesome
—Chloë Sevigny Goes Down in History forThe Brown Bunny
—Helen Hunt Does Her Best Nudity at 48 in The Sessions
—Anne Hathaway Wreaks Havoc on Her Disney Image
—Body HeatBrings Noir Into the 80s, Sexes Up the Genre
—The Master Gives Serious Drama its Horniest Protagonist Ever
—Analyzing the Dream Logic of Eyes Wide Shut
—Isabella Rossellini's Intentionally Unsexy Nude Debut in Blue Velvet
—Margot Robbie MakesThe Wolf of Wall Streeta Skinstant Classic
—Angie Dickinson Steams Up the Opening Credits ofDressed to Kill
—The Strange Sexual Dynamics of Dogtooth
—How the Remake of Oldboy Stacks Up Against the Original
—Bob Fosse's Dancers Take It Off inAll That Jazz
—Lindsay Lohan Finally Goes Topless inThe Canyons
—Noir Takes a Trip to the Isle of Lesbos in Bound
—Brian De Palma Gets Cheeky with the Opening Scene of Blow Out
—Julianne Moore Proves She's a Real Redhead inShort Cuts
—Madonna Touches On Her Basic Instincts in Body of Evidence
—Kelly Lynch Can Never Escape Her Road House Sex Scene Thanks to Bill Murray
—Jesus Gets Down Off the Cross to Get Down in The Last Temptation of Christ
—Milos Forman Removes and Later Reinserts Nudity into Amadeus
—Sissy Spacek's Dream Shower Becomes a Nightmare in Carrie
—Fantasy, Reality, and Horror All Collide in The Shining
—Barbara Crampton Gets Head From a Severed Head in Re-Animator
—Classic Horror Gets a Nudity Upgrade with Bram Stoker's Dracula
—Linnea Quigley Find New Use for Lipstick in Night of the Demons
—In a Wild Moment Gets Lost in Translation asBlame it on Rio
—Two Highly Respected Actors Have Real Sex in Intimacy
—Youth is Wasted on Two Notoriously Horny Old Actors
—Meg Ryan Goes from America's Sweetheart to Pariah with In the Cut
—Oscar Winner Ang Lee Goes Full NC-17 with Lust, Caution
—Get High on Katherine Waterston's Full Frontal Debut in Inherent Vice
—You, Your Mom, and Everyone Else Saw Kate Winslet's Boobs in Titanic
