Sex in Cinema 1995

Screen sex in 1995 has often shaped up as more romantic than raunchy. The phenomenal Batman Forever made money partly through its subliminal sexuality. But real adult lust simmered in The Bridges of Madison County, with Meryl Streep and Clint Eastwood making illicit middle-aged passion look inviting, and Rob Roy, a steamy Scottish history that had Jessica Lange putting a tilt in Liam Neeson's kilt. Both Sean Connery, in First Knight, and Paul Newman, an Oscar nomine e for Nobody's Fool, shored up their reputations as cinema's sexiest senior citizens. In Don Juan DeMarco, 50ish Faye Dunaway and an astonishingly portly Marlon Brando relish fun and games in the marriage bed--after rediscovering romance with a lot of help from Johnny Depp. (text concluded on page 136)

For the most part, however, filmmakers seemed to be asking their audiences to be satisfied with a look and a leer. In an age where carefree sex is problematic, voyeurism is clearly the way to go. The controversial Showgirls, which reunites the Basic Instinct team of director Paul Verhoeven and writer Joe Eszterhas, is a kind of updated All About Eve that spotlights two nude dancers in Las Vegas. The filmmakers clearly expected their NC-17 rating, which they vowed they wouldn't fight. The lower-budget Exotica features Mia Kirshner, whose schoolgirl strip act gets the movie going. Dancing in the buff will also be an issue in the forthcoming Striptease, starring Demi Moore as a single mom strapped for cash (though actress Moore is collecting a $12.5 million fee for strutting her stuff). And strippers serve as a kind of animated set decoration in Kiss of Death and The Crossing Guard.

Phone sex is yet another method of creating big-screen heat. Spike Lee's Girl Six presents Theresa Randle as an operator who gets really hooked on her work. The three-part Erotique includes director Lizzie Borden's take on a phone sexpot who raises hell when she gets a male client's home number. And the Dutch-made 1-900 details call-ins between a couple who tease, titillate and mutually masturbate over the phone.

Don't think for a moment that moviemakers mean to ignore eroticism. It's just more implicit than explicit, especially in such young-at-heart films as Before Sunrise (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy play a mating game in Vienna), The Brothers McMullen (three Irish Catholic siblings struggle with carnal images on Long Island) and Clerks and Kids (both are group portraits of amoral teens whose blunt behavior--more dirty talk than on-screen couplings--makes grown-ups wonder what the world is coming to).

Irresponsible sex can still add up to dire consequences, however. Nicole Kidman, fresh from her chaste stint as the official love interest in Batman Forever--in which some critics detected subtly homoerotic vibes between Val Kilmer's Batman and Chris O'Donnell's Robin--comes back as an ambitious small-town bitch in To Die For, where she sleeps with a teenage hood so he'll murder her husband (Matt Dillon). Linda Fiorentino, the sultry bad girl of last fall's Last Seduction, has another sexy thriller on tap in Jade, opposite David Caruso. In Mad Love, Drew Barrymore decamps from high school for a sexual spree with Chris O'Donnell, but most of the runaway couple's raciest scenes are said to have been trimmed in transit. The bizarre Bulletproof Heart lands hit man Anthony La-Paglia in bed with Mimi Rogers, who plays the woman he is initially hired to kill.

Elaborate costume dramas, both foreign and domestic, clothe their basic instincts in period finery (though Patsy Kensit manages to appear nude regularly in the provocative Angels and Insects, in which she plays a proper Victorian Englishwoman with a dark secret life). Farinelli is a colorful saga about an 18th century Italian castrato who heats up his female admirers and then lets his virile brother complete the act. The French-made Queen Margot, with Isabelle Adjani, imbues sex with 16th century political angles (climaxing in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre), while England's The Madness of King George depicts a disease-crazed monarch on the make. Demi Moore sports the big A for adultery in The Scarlet Letter, which has been touted as a strongly sexualized new version of Hawthorne's classic. But there's little vintage hanky-panky between Richard Gere's Lancelot and Julia Ormond's Queen Guinevere in First Knight. At this writing, it remained to be seen what will be unbuttoned in Restoration, set in the court of Charles II. Robert Downey Jr., Meg Ryan and Sam Neill are said to get into plenty of ribaldry.

Perhaps the past was simply sexier. The future offered few positive images for viewers to contemplate this year. In Species, a seductive female alien (Natasha Henstridge) is sent to earth to breed destruction and destroy her mates post-coitus. As for Tank Girl and Johnny Mnemonic--they deserve each other.

Incestuous lesbianism is the subject of Sister My Sister, which co-stars Joely Richardson and Jodhi May as murderous siblings with a creepy attachment to each other. The gay-lesbian world is presented with a mite more sophistication and compassion in France's Wild Reeds, Canada's Love and Human Remains and, from the U.S., The Incredible True Adventure of Two Girls in Love as well as Paul Rudnick's Jeffrey.

Most controversial of all was British director Antonia Bird's Priest, which offended Catholic authorities with its striking, realistic picture of a homosexual cleric (Linus Roache).

While major moviemakers play footsie with sex, the real McCoy--or at least a reasonable facsimile--thrives in erotic thrillers that find their longest lives at video stores. Mainstream superstar Sharon Stone may downplay nudity while dallying with Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in the big-screen Casino, but such actresses as Shannon Whirry, Julie Strain, Joan Severance and Shannon Tweed let it all hang out in such video thrillers as Illicit Dreams, Victim of Desire, Dangerous Indiscretion, Private Obsession and Play Time. Their male partners appear to be equally uninhibited. In fact, Tweed and her frequent director and co-star Andrew Stevens--Playboy family members of a sort, she having been 1982's Playmate of the Year, he being the son of Miss January 1960, Stella Stevens--are turning into the Hepburn and Tracy of erotic video.

At this rate, fun-seeking filmgoers who prefer sex to violence may decide to just curl up at home with a few hot numbers and a cold beer.