Today I want to write about something that has been kickin' around in my brain and that is foreign films that broke boundaries before Hollywood did. Due to the rise of TV shows that explore the sex industry like The Deuce and Minx as well as the amazing podcastYou Must Remember This currently that focuses on the erotic film genre, I have been thinking a lot about film ratings and boundaries. We went from not being able to show a couple sleeping in the same bed to having real sex on camera. How did we get here? Well, partially thanks to non-Hollywood movies!
The notorious Hays Code put an end to sexually explicit films in Hollywood for nearly thee full decades. It was enacted in 1934, putting an end to the brief period in talkies where female sexuality was celebrated. There were black-and-white nude scenes and a bevy of sexual innuendos (thank you, Mae West) before Mr. Hays ruined all of our lives. I'm barely exaggerating!
When the Hays Code was in full effect, you couldn't do any of the following: sex, nudity, interracial relationships, childbirth, mention of venereal diseases, no perverted acts, and no praise of extramarital relationships. Oh, and bad guys could not seem cool. The anti-hero trope did not stand a chance during the Hays Code!
The 1960s saw a time of experimentation around the world. Before the hippies fully had a hold of the 1960s, there was change a-brewin' in a post-world war world in every part of the globe. That meant that as early as the 1960s we began seeing boundaries pushed on camera. While movies like Psycho and Peeping Tom, directors were getting bolder and more willing to pay fines in order to release their movies that dared to show - gasp! - toilet flushing.
The code technically ended in 1965 with the advent of the rating system, but '68 is usually considered the real end to the system with the first X-rated movies being released like Brian De Palma's Greetings which had us saying "greetings" to a lot of nudity.
Still, foreign movies did not have to adhere to the US's codes. These foreign films were leaking into cinemas around the world and they started to move the needle in ways that American films hadn't been able to. These movies made waves here and abroad and are still controversial. Here are some of those films:
I Am Curious (Yellow)
Vilgot Sjoman's two-art films I Am Curious (Yellow) and I Am Curious (Blue) were both briefly banned in America, but the Swedish film did enjoy some arthouse viewings. This drama was posed as a slice-of-life film that was a bit meta. It was part documentary about the movie and part movie. In that way, it was pretty boundary bending as a film itself and the nudity only further pushed the envelope.
Swedish hottie Lena Nyman shows off her naturally curvy body in both films and she even goes full-frontal multiple times. Lena seemed so free in all of her nude scenes which added to both the allure and the taboo.
Hour of the Wolf
Speaking of Sweden, one director was basically single-handedly pushing envelopes and experimenting with new ways to tell stories and that was Ingmar Bergman. Bergman delivered still-iconic imagery to film such a death playing chess which was first presented in The Seventh Seal. He also had a fair amount of nudity in his 60s cinema such as Hour of the Wolf which shows Ingrid Thulin's bare breasts.
Ms. Don Juan
French director Roger Vadim worked with sex kitten (and his ex-wife) Brigitte Bardot to make a female Don Juan. Leave it to the French to do things like that! As a result, Brigitte gets busy with Jane Birkin for multiple scenes that show lesbian sex between the two internationally famous blonde babes.
In the Realm of the Senses
By the 1970s, sex seemed to be everywhere in the movies...except that it really wasn't. Sure, there were plenty of porn films that had people flocking to literal porn theaters to see what Deep Throat was all about. According to Karina Longworth on You Must Remember This, X-rated movies were not making top blockbuster lists in the 70s like they managed to do when the rating system was initially introduced. It appeared that studios no longer believed that sex was selling which is why so many nudity-centric films in this decade come from overseas (or indie films!).
So usher in the Japanese film In the Realm of the Senses which had a lot of nudity. The shocking film is based on a true story about a man and his female servant who develop a sexual relationship that heavily experiments with BDSM. Things get VERY out-of-hand which delivers the movie's bloody climax, but before we get to that part we see A LOT of sex and nudity.
Eiko Matsuda has 8 nude scenes, including multiple real sex scenes. In one scene, Eiko even puts an egg in her vagina and then pushes it out. That's what I'm talking about, people! We weren't doing that stuff in the states.
Turkish Delight
1973's Turkish Delight was a look at what was to come from Dutch director Paul Verhoeven. You might recognize that name from horny movies like Showgirls and Benedetta. Yes, he was a dirty old man even as a young gun in the 70s and he showed the world that with the wildly naked Turkish Delight.
A passionate artist spends time with his muse, model Monique van de Ven, but they spend more time exploring each other's bodies than making art. Her body is the canvas in three nude scenes, including one where he puts a flower in her ass. Now that's art! The movie does have one particularly gross scene that involves vomit which is what also made it controversial and boundary-pushing. Just a decade ago that would have certainly been a problem!
The Night Porter
Liliana Cavani's 1974 flick walked so In the Realm of the Senses could run, so let's talk about this uncomfortable BDSM-centric flick. We recently discussed this movie in our Female Filmmakers series which you can read here. I won't repeat myself too much, but I do want to iterate just how uncomfortable this film was for audiences then AND now.
It explored the chaos of World War II and its lasting effects through the BDSM sex between a former Nazi officer and his sex slave, Charlotte Rampling, at a concentration camp whom he runs into when he is working at a hotel that she is staying at.
This film is all about roles and what better way to show role reversal than through BDSM? This film was incredibly controversial in ways that no American film would be for years to come. In fact, it is still a highly debated movie!
Don't Look Now
Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now is technically foreign despite starring American Donald Sutherland and being in English. British director Roeg took his cast and British production company to Italy to make this movie. It is worth mentioning because this mainstream film that was distributed by Paramount is still rumored to have had a real sex scene. Julie Christie having real sex?! Please say it's true!
This sex scene was simulated, but it does look real and that was new to viewing audiences in a mainstream film. If anything, this showed the influence that porn was having on movies in this decade. Now that the adult film industry was more readily available and widely talked about, snippets of sex were being shoved into our movies. And guess what? We loved it!
Salo
Finally, let's end on Salo. Pier Pasolini's very loose adaptation of The 120 Days of Sodom by the one and only Marquis da Sade takes those sexual adventures to Nazi-controlled Italy where four wealthy men round up a variety of young men and women to do all kinds of things. The movie is still talked about for how downright filthy it is.
Salo is also notable because of its interracial sex scene. American movies were still iffy about that. While Sidney Portier was kissing women on camera in the 60s, we were still not getting sex. The first interracial scene in Hollywood was technically in the 1969 film 100 Rifles, but it was clearly a post-coital scene. This scene in Salo shows the gorgeous Ines Pellegrini naked from head to toe as she shares her bed with a white man. This scene does not end well, but nothing in Salo does. At least we get good views of Ines' body.
