Daring director uses sex as language in 'Shortbus'
Prudes beware. Controversial filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell cuts to the chase within the first few minutes of his sexually explicit film Shortbus.
Scenes of unsimulated sado-masochism, acrobatic sex acts, and unsatisfying masturbation loom large on the big screen.
But despite the real-life, sweaty, exposed sex scenes, both heterosexual and homosexual, Mitchell refuses to pigeonhole the largely improvised arthouse flick as plain-old porn.
The wildly erotic film is meant to demystify sex, says the daring director, who turned heads with his 2001 drag hit Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
"I would define porn - and I think most people would -- as something that is made to arouse. That is its primary purpose and other things are unimportant," Mitchell said before its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival.
"In our case, sex is used as a language to find out more about our characters, their emotions, their background, to make thematic points," he said.
MuchMusic alumnus and current CBC radio host Sook-Yin Lee, who stars in the film and performs several scenes of unsimulated masturbation and intercourse, agrees.
"Porn is actually created to get people off, but in our movie, sex is used as a gateway to come to know the characters on a deeper level and look at the narrative, the drama that happens between the people," Lee said.
"After a while you get completely sucked into the story and forget about the sex," she said.
"Shortbus," the name of a salon where characters meet to give readings, perform, to have sex in public, and find redemption, is modelled on real-life venues in New York City.
The film, presented out of competition at Cannes in May, explores the lives of several vulnerable souls as they gather for highbrow talk and hardcore sex in post 9/11 Manhattan.
The story features Severin, a dominatrix who aches for a real-life relationship; Sofia, a sex therapist who has never had an orgasm; and James and Jamie, a gay couple who enter the crisis zone when James suggests experimenting with other partners.
Lee, who played the role of Sofia, said it took years of working with the other actors to reach the comfort level where they could be intimate on-screen.
"There was a lot of worrying beforehand about what it was going to be like, but then on the day, one of the things I did was I forced everybody in the room to have to take their clothes off too," she said.
"Because if I'm going to take my clothes off, you guys are going to have to take your clothes off too, so we're all equal here, and then they agreed. So then we turned on the music, we did some crazy dancing and that sort of deflated the awkwardness," she said.
If anything, it was the anticipation leading up to the sex scenes that made things more frightening, said Lee, who decided to audition for the project after appearing in Hedwig And The Angry Inch.
In early 2004, CBC threatened to fire Lee for her role in the film until a high-profile campaign by artists including Yoko Ono and Francis Ford Coppola provoked the broadcasting corporation to back down.
Mitchell developed the story with a cast selected through a casting call asking people to send in 10-minute videos describing a sexual experience that was important to them.
He received some 500 submissions, some of which were people having sex on their videos, a few of which were porn stars.
He wrote the script only after forming improvisational workshops where the selected cast developed characters and a storyline.
Although the first half of the film is filled with orgies and masturbation, the erotically charged plot is not meant to arouse the audience, Mitchell said.
Rather, sex is used as a language to provoke thought about human intimacy.
It is also used as a bald political statement about traditional American values, he said.
"It's not a mistake that the film opens with the Statue of Liberty. This country was founded on the idea of persecuted people coming and creating their own space. That value seems to have fallen by the wayside, at least in the U.S.," Mitchell said.
"Our government is certainly more interested in the values of autocratic, theocratic regimes where homogeneity and fear of sex, repression, freedom of speech, all of those things are more important than the original values," he said.
The film, which features a rendition of the American national anthem during a three-way gay sex scene, is Mitchell's own personal act of defiance against Bush.
"If you can't do elections you might as well do erections," he told journalists at the Cannes film festival earlier this year.
Mitchell points out that the movie, which is filmed in New York City, makes pointed references to the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.
Near the end of the film, the lights flicker as they did during the massive 2003 blackout that turned the lights out on northeastern United States and eastern Canada, prompting New Yorkers to fear a terrorist attack.
When their concerns are allayed, the community comes together in a harmony that is likened to orgasm.
"I think everything is a reaction to 9/11 lately, politically, economically, artistically. It's in the air when you're in New York... It's part of our recent history. In New York more than anywhere else, there is an acceptance of mortality, fear," Mitchell said.
"Because of that understanding of mortality, there is a sense of community that is not always spoken but comes out at times like the (2003) blackout. Everyone thought it was over, but it was just a blackout and it was a wonderful experience. People met their neighbours, had parties on their stoops, had bonfires in the park, people were handing out free food, it was just a beautiful experience and the spirit of that night suffuses the film," he said.
The North American premiere of Shortbus was on Sept. 10. The afterparty and concert with Sook-Yin Lee, Gentleman Reg, Kids On TV and other guests will be held that evening at the Phoenix Concert Theatre.
