ALL IN A DAY'S WORK
Danish filmmaker, Lars Von Trier’s latest film,
Nymphomaniac (aptly titled as you will soon see) is demanding that the actors
involved go all the way in the sexual intimacy department. Having cast Shia
LaBeouf (like I need to see him naked) in one the roles, he has warned the
actors that everything is happening, and whatever is deemed illegal will be
shot in blurred images.
Maybe I'm missing something, but isn’t having real sex on film called porn? And
furthermore, isn’t. that, well…porn?
I get it; Lars Von Trier has never been one to walk
the linear line. A self confessed phobic of pretty much everything but
filmmaking, Von Trier has made pushing the boundaries look like demolition
work. His film company has not only produced some of the world’s most esoteric
and visionary films, but they are the first mainstream film company to produce
hardcore porn films [I bet porn stars everywhere are now having a field day demanding their creative interpretations be deemed art]. Hey, everybody has a dream; and I suppose that is the very
reason Shia calls Lars Von Trier ‘a very dangerous man.’ For some
reason that statement always makes me chuckle (especially after watching an interview with Von Trier...or Shia for that matter. I mean, Transformers to Von Trier?).
While I respect Von Trier as a director trying to think
outside the box, and outside of clothing altogether apparently, acting has
always meant to me - outside of the world of porn of course - that the
individuals involved are doing just that, acting.
It’s the simulation and pretense of real life and hopefully it’s done so well
that you can’t see the acting involved.
Actors pretend they’re in a high-speed car chase on
the Autobahn, but it’s really a freeway built somewhere in Fresno using stunt
doubles and heavy CGI. They pretend they’re snorting cocaine and not baby
powder. And they pretend they’re having sex and NOT actually doing
it. So now what, actors are going to really commit murder so as to appear
totally authentic? "I had to really kill her, it just felt like something the character would really do." Talk about method acting going one step too far.
I’ve always had my suspicions about the craft anyway,
and I know plenty of people who are actors and respect what they do. But if my
day job included making out with Johnny Depp, well that just doesn’t seem fair everyone else, now does it? Now actors get to go to the set and have sex
with other highly fit and often beautiful colleagues and call it work? Or one
nauseatingly better, call it art. PUHlease. Even the King can see through that
one. Why not just all go to work in the porn industry? I'm sure they'd love to have Shia in their latest reinterpretation of 'Cyrano DA Bone her Rack.' (Yes, that is my attempt at a salacious porn title. I'll stick to the day job!)