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----- Forwarded message from spklein52@hotmail.com -----
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 22:41:14 -0500
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
- Message requiring your approval (81 lines)
------------------ [1]
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/Entertainment/2004/11/04/699860.html[2]
The Lolita complex
European films quite often explore the sexuality of children and
young teenagers. North American films rarely do unless it's in an
American Pie-style sex farce. More...
... [3]
ENTERTAINMENT Thu, November 4, 2004
THE LOLITA COMPLEX
LOUIS B. HOBSON[4], CALGARY SUN
[5]
European films quite often explore the sexuality of children and
young teenagers. North American films rarely do unless it's in an
American Pie-style sex farce.
Even when serious filmmakers tackle this sensitive subject matter,
as is the case with Nicole Kidman's supernatural thriller Birth, it
can cause quite a stir.
In Birth, Kidman plays a 37-year-old widow who believes a
10-year-old boy is the reincarnated spirit of her dead husband.
Canadian actor Cameron Bright was 10 when he filmed Birth.
In Birth's most controversial scene, Bright, discovering Kidman in
the bath, disrobes and joins her.
Kidman has made it clear in all her interviews that both she and
Bright were wearing bathing suits for that scene.
That's not the point. Audiences are asked to believe they are naked.
The bathtub scene was booed at the Venice Film Festival and very few
people took up the challenge of muddling through Birth's murky
metaphysics and questionable morality when it opened last weekend.
The $20-million US movie has grossed a weak $2 million in its first
five days of release.
This past summer in The Door in the Floor, Kim Basinger played an
emotionally distraught woman who seduces a 15-year-old boy played by
Jon Foster.
Foster was 18 when he filmed the explicit sex scenes with Basinger
but, once again, audiences were asked to believe his character was
15.
John Irving, who wrote the novel upon which The Door in the Floor is
based, says one of his inspirations was the 1971 wartime coming-of-age
drama Summer of '42.
In that film Jennifer O'Neill, 23, played a war widow who tries to
find solace in a shy, virginal 15-year-old boy.
Gary Grimes, who played her teen lover, was 15 when Summer of '42
was filmed.
Neither The Door in the Floor this year or Summer of '42 33 years
ago whipped up the kind of controversy Birth did.
Chartered psychologist Janet MacKenzie says it's the age of the
young person and not the sex that accounts for the lack of ire on the
part of audiences.
"A 15-year-old whether male or female is a teenager and we all
acknowledge that teens are pretty sexual, but a 10-year-old is a
child and to act on any impulse toward a child is crossing a line,"
says MacKenzie.
Still she cautions that what may be acceptable in a film such as The
Door in the Floor is not necessarily so in real life.
"The courts made it clear in the case of teacher Mary Kay Letourneau
that seducing a seventh-grade male student will not be tolerated."
In his controversial 1955 novel Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov told the
story of a middle-aged man who was smitten with a 12-year-old girl.
Stanley Kubrick was the first filmmaker to tackle Nabokov's novel in
1962.
When Sue Lyon made her film debut playing Lolita for Kubrick she was
15, so she wasn't allowed to attend Lolita's Los Angeles premier
because the film carried a restricted rating.
When Adrian Lyne filmed his version of Lolita in 1996 he introduced
16-year-old Dominique Swain in the title role, opposite Jeremy Irons.
In her interviews Swain insisted she "never felt exploited in any
way. Adrian was so kind and understanding and protective. He made it
very clear this was just a film we were making and that it was based
on a great classic, not some piece of trash."
Brooke Shields had just turned 13 when she filmed Louis Malle's
controversial drama Pretty Baby in which she played the 12-year-old
daughter of a New Orlean's prostitute (Susan Sarandon). The child's
virginity becomes the quest of the wealthiest customers at the
brothel.
Two years later Shields starred in The Blue Lagoon, the story of a
boy and girl abandoned as children on an uninhabited island who
explore their sexuality when they reach puberty.
"I had to have my hair glued to the front of my body to make certain
I would never be exposed to the cameras," said Shields of her
experience filming The Blue Lagoon.
"I also had a body double, who was 18, for several scenes."
In 1976's Taxi Driver, Jodie Foster played an underage prostitute.
Like her character, Foster was 14 when she filmed Taxi Driver.
She has since defended the experience, explaining that "nothing is
really taboo in literature or film if it is told with honesty,
integrity, understanding and compassion for the characters.
"That describes my experience working with Martin Scorsese in Taxi
Driver."
Foster received her first Oscar nomination for playing this tragic
young woman.
Directors insist they do not compromise the integrity of their young
actors, especially when a scene requires simulated nudity or
sexuality.
In the teen comedy Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan and her friends are on
a scavenger hunt which includes returning with a pair of boxer shorts
belonging to the school jock.
Lohan, who was 17 when she filmed Mean Girls, has a scene in which
she is hiding in a shower while Jonathan Bennett, 22, disrobes,
abandons his boxers and leaves wearing a towel.
"I wasn't even on the set the day Jonathan took off his clothes.
"They filmed me in the shower stall one day and Jonathan taking off
his clothes in the same set another day and spliced the footage
together."
Tell that to all the young girls who saw Mean Girls and tittered at
Lohan's expressions of surprise and excitement.
Links:
------
[1] http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/
[2]
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/Entertainment/2004/11/04/699860.html
[3] http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/
[4] MAILTO:LOUIS.HOBSON@CALGARYSUN.COM
[5]
http://ads5.canoe.ca/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=1241&AdID=2004&TargetID=439&Segments=2371,4176,5882,6031,6038,6084,6096,6140,6221,6273,6274,6486,6802&Targets=439&Values=25,31,43,51,60,72,78,84,92,100,110,150,155,213,255,283,332,334,342,343,344,345,363,379,380,392,490,493,860,1281,1314,1444,1467,1545,1570,1947,2292,2307,2410,2540,2553,2580,2584,2670,2686,2698,2700,2702,2789&RawValues=USERID%2Cc0a8dc28-1981-1099625777-3&Redirect=http://www2.canoe.com
----- End forwarded message -----
Date: Thu, 04 Nov 2004 22:41:14 -0500
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
- Message requiring your approval (81 lines)
------------------ [1]
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/Entertainment/2004/11/04/699860.html[2]
The Lolita complex
European films quite often explore the sexuality of children and
young teenagers. North American films rarely do unless it's in an
American Pie-style sex farce. More...
... [3]
ENTERTAINMENT Thu, November 4, 2004
THE LOLITA COMPLEX
LOUIS B. HOBSON[4], CALGARY SUN
[5]
European films quite often explore the sexuality of children and
young teenagers. North American films rarely do unless it's in an
American Pie-style sex farce.
Even when serious filmmakers tackle this sensitive subject matter,
as is the case with Nicole Kidman's supernatural thriller Birth, it
can cause quite a stir.
In Birth, Kidman plays a 37-year-old widow who believes a
10-year-old boy is the reincarnated spirit of her dead husband.
Canadian actor Cameron Bright was 10 when he filmed Birth.
In Birth's most controversial scene, Bright, discovering Kidman in
the bath, disrobes and joins her.
Kidman has made it clear in all her interviews that both she and
Bright were wearing bathing suits for that scene.
That's not the point. Audiences are asked to believe they are naked.
The bathtub scene was booed at the Venice Film Festival and very few
people took up the challenge of muddling through Birth's murky
metaphysics and questionable morality when it opened last weekend.
The $20-million US movie has grossed a weak $2 million in its first
five days of release.
This past summer in The Door in the Floor, Kim Basinger played an
emotionally distraught woman who seduces a 15-year-old boy played by
Jon Foster.
Foster was 18 when he filmed the explicit sex scenes with Basinger
but, once again, audiences were asked to believe his character was
15.
John Irving, who wrote the novel upon which The Door in the Floor is
based, says one of his inspirations was the 1971 wartime coming-of-age
drama Summer of '42.
In that film Jennifer O'Neill, 23, played a war widow who tries to
find solace in a shy, virginal 15-year-old boy.
Gary Grimes, who played her teen lover, was 15 when Summer of '42
was filmed.
Neither The Door in the Floor this year or Summer of '42 33 years
ago whipped up the kind of controversy Birth did.
Chartered psychologist Janet MacKenzie says it's the age of the
young person and not the sex that accounts for the lack of ire on the
part of audiences.
"A 15-year-old whether male or female is a teenager and we all
acknowledge that teens are pretty sexual, but a 10-year-old is a
child and to act on any impulse toward a child is crossing a line,"
says MacKenzie.
Still she cautions that what may be acceptable in a film such as The
Door in the Floor is not necessarily so in real life.
"The courts made it clear in the case of teacher Mary Kay Letourneau
that seducing a seventh-grade male student will not be tolerated."
In his controversial 1955 novel Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov told the
story of a middle-aged man who was smitten with a 12-year-old girl.
Stanley Kubrick was the first filmmaker to tackle Nabokov's novel in
1962.
When Sue Lyon made her film debut playing Lolita for Kubrick she was
15, so she wasn't allowed to attend Lolita's Los Angeles premier
because the film carried a restricted rating.
When Adrian Lyne filmed his version of Lolita in 1996 he introduced
16-year-old Dominique Swain in the title role, opposite Jeremy Irons.
In her interviews Swain insisted she "never felt exploited in any
way. Adrian was so kind and understanding and protective. He made it
very clear this was just a film we were making and that it was based
on a great classic, not some piece of trash."
Brooke Shields had just turned 13 when she filmed Louis Malle's
controversial drama Pretty Baby in which she played the 12-year-old
daughter of a New Orlean's prostitute (Susan Sarandon). The child's
virginity becomes the quest of the wealthiest customers at the
brothel.
Two years later Shields starred in The Blue Lagoon, the story of a
boy and girl abandoned as children on an uninhabited island who
explore their sexuality when they reach puberty.
"I had to have my hair glued to the front of my body to make certain
I would never be exposed to the cameras," said Shields of her
experience filming The Blue Lagoon.
"I also had a body double, who was 18, for several scenes."
In 1976's Taxi Driver, Jodie Foster played an underage prostitute.
Like her character, Foster was 14 when she filmed Taxi Driver.
She has since defended the experience, explaining that "nothing is
really taboo in literature or film if it is told with honesty,
integrity, understanding and compassion for the characters.
"That describes my experience working with Martin Scorsese in Taxi
Driver."
Foster received her first Oscar nomination for playing this tragic
young woman.
Directors insist they do not compromise the integrity of their young
actors, especially when a scene requires simulated nudity or
sexuality.
In the teen comedy Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan and her friends are on
a scavenger hunt which includes returning with a pair of boxer shorts
belonging to the school jock.
Lohan, who was 17 when she filmed Mean Girls, has a scene in which
she is hiding in a shower while Jonathan Bennett, 22, disrobes,
abandons his boxers and leaves wearing a towel.
"I wasn't even on the set the day Jonathan took off his clothes.
"They filmed me in the shower stall one day and Jonathan taking off
his clothes in the same set another day and spliced the footage
together."
Tell that to all the young girls who saw Mean Girls and tittered at
Lohan's expressions of surprise and excitement.
Links:
------
[1] http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/
[2]
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/Entertainment/2004/11/04/699860.html
[3] http://www.canoe.com/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/
[4] MAILTO:LOUIS.HOBSON@CALGARYSUN.COM
[5]
http://ads5.canoe.ca/event.ng/Type=click&FlightID=1241&AdID=2004&TargetID=439&Segments=2371,4176,5882,6031,6038,6084,6096,6140,6221,6273,6274,6486,6802&Targets=439&Values=25,31,43,51,60,72,78,84,92,100,110,150,155,213,255,283,332,334,342,343,344,345,363,379,380,392,490,493,860,1281,1314,1444,1467,1545,1570,1947,2292,2307,2410,2540,2553,2580,2584,2670,2686,2698,2700,2702,2789&RawValues=USERID%2Cc0a8dc28-1981-1099625777-3&Redirect=http://www2.canoe.com
----- End forwarded message -----