“Scopophilia” is a Greek term that is defined as “pleasure to be derived from watching.” Understandably, it’s a term that some academics have employed when discussing what it means to depict sex onscreen. There have been plenty of sex scenes in the history of cinema – some charged with erotic fantasy, some gritty and naturalistic, while others are outright embarrassing. There’s no getting around: sex is a powerful thing, it’s a part of all of our lives and to see it depicted in film is an often cathartic and sometimes liberating experience.
The first sex scene on record was depicted in a 1933 silent film called “Ecstasy.” By today’s standards, the scene is quite tame. It’s all sensual close-ups and suggestive sound work rather than full-on carnal contact. And yet the scene is all the more effective for underlying a key point about showing sex in cinema: what we don’t see is often just as affecting as what we do see. America has never been great about leaving sex to the imagination, but that doesn’t change the fact that as long as sex remains a part of our lives, it will also remain a part of the cinema we consume.
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Frame by Frame has just released a new essay titled “Filming Sex Scenes: How Hollywood Arouses an Audience” that traces the history of the modern sex scene, starting with “Ecstasy” and going into the present day. It’s interesting to look at the variety of examples that the essay chooses to showcase: considerable time is spent on Spike Lee’s breakout film “She’s Gotta Have It,” which dealt in a frank and often blunt manner with modern female sexuality, and there’s also teasing glimpses of “Eyes Wide Shut,” Kubrick’s magnificent ode to erotic paranoia and sexual jealousy. The narrator also spends some time dissecting the male gaze, divorcing it from its more recently-anointed political definition, and how it’s bled into the creative DNA of everything from Kubrick’s “Lolita” to the Jim Carrey farce “Liar, Liar.”
What’s your favorite movie sex scene of all time? Chime in via the comments section below, and check out the essay.