A Promise Made: One of the secrets screenwriter Pamela Gray
revealed in her Filmmakers Sampler presentation last month, is that
Viggo Mortenson and Diane Lane didn’t use body doubles in the very
naked waterfall scene in “A Walk on the Moon.” That scene helped
Pamela’s film earn the number 9 spot on Entertainment Weekly’s “50
Sexiest Movies” list. There is very little dialogue in that scene,
so since we were studying screenwriting, I promised the audience
that I would show it in February along with clips from twenty other
films with famous scenes of sexually charged romance, at my
pre-Valentine’s Day Sampler entitled “The Art of Seduction.”
Lingerie and a Bowler Hat
Making suggestions for Valentine’s Day movies has been a staple
in my Screenings columns for almost fifteen years. But it is one
thing to write a suggestion to a reading public, and quite another
to share those scenes with a live audience. The presentation has to
be artfully and tastefully choreographed and the scenes need to be
sensual instead of pornographic. For example, in Vivien Hillgrove’s
Filmmakers Sampler last summer, the Oscar-winning editor talked
about the relative ease of editing the famous “mirror and bowler
hat” scene (above, left) in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” (#
34 on EW’s list). Vivien said: “[Director] Philip Kaufman laid out
in advance exactly what he wanted Sven [Nyquist] to shoot…which
angles to use…which close-ups to take…Philip makes great [editing]
notes and the scene was a delight to edit.” Rated R, there is no
nudity per se in this sequence, but the cinematic eroticism is
heightened precisely because Lena Olin wears lingerie with her
grandfather’s bowler hat.
From Here to Eternity Was Heavily Censored
Another scene I will share is Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr
kissing on a Hawaiian beach (above, right) as the waves engulf them
in “From Here to Eternity.” It’s famously erotic, but it almost
wasn’t made. Producer Harry Cohen resisted casting Deborah Kerr
saying: “She’s not sexy enough.” Even more important, the MPAA was
so concerned with the profanity, whorehouses, gay soldiers, and
negative portrayal of the US Army in the novel, they assigned a
full time censor to the film. When they were getting ready to film
the beach scene, the censor demanded a skirt be added to Kerr’s
swimsuit so it wouldn’t be “too sexually provocative.” Filmed on
location at the Halona Cove on Oahu, the scene includes many
successful improvisations. It was screenwriter Daniel Taradash who
moved it from the hotel suite in the book to the romantic beach,
but in Taradash’s script, the lovers were supposed to be standing
up. Former circus acrobat Burt Lancaster thought he could play it
better lying horizontally on the sand, and then director Fred
Zinneman moved the actors and cameras down to the edge of the surf.
But it was Lancaster and Kerr who made the scene work. As the IMDB
website notes: “during filming, the two were romantically
involved.”
Wise Counsel
In preparation for the Saturday, February 13th presentation “The
Art of Seduction” Filmmakers Sampler at the Sebastopol Center for
the Arts (SCA), I pulled almost fifty films off my shelves—movies
with romantic, sensual, and erotic scenes and revisited these films
from an SCA audience’s perspective. Then I showed my two dozen
final selections to my wife and followed her savvy advice on when
to start or stop a particular film clip. “Less is more,” she
reminded me. “You want to leave people with fun ideas for films to
rent… to tease them a little bit—watching movies in the SCA
screening room with strangers sitting next to you is different than
watching at home with your Valentine sweetie.”
To make things even sweeter, California sparkling wine, fruit
juices, imported chocolates and popcorn will be available Saturday
night, February 13 at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, 6780
Depot Street. Tickets: 829-4797.
Comments? Email: gi*********@co*****.net.
