piece amended ACF 220909 – comments prior to this relevant to earlier piece
(France 1983 102m) DVD1/2
Aka. To Our Loves
I don’t want to always hurt people
p Micheline Pialat d Maurice Pialat w Arlette Langmann, Maurice Pialat ph Jacques Loiseleux ed Yann Dedet art Jean-Paul Camail, Arlette Langmann
Sandrine Bonnaire (Suzanne), Dominique Besnehard (Robert), Evelyne Ker (mother), Maurice Pialat (father), Anne-Sophie Maillé (Anne), Christophe Odent (Michel), Cyr Boitard (Luc), Cyril Collard (Jean-Pierre), Maite Maillé (Martine),
David Thomson never wrote a truer word than when he declared “has any actress made a debut of such force – and youth – as Sandrine Bonnaire managed in À Nos Amours, made when she was fifteen?…excited, afraid, daring, sensual, and innocent. Everything was there, without coyness or boasting.” Yet that very unique quality has proved a double-edged sword. American distributors were not used to such naturalism from one so young, but rather teen stars who were ex-film moppets slowly growing up before our eyes. They were not fresh, startling, precocious lookers, who mix fragility with a truth that takes root not in the fantasy of the movies, but in the harsh light of reality. Furthermore, Bonnaire was not afraid of the sexuality of the part, she owned that character of Suzanne. Such maturity from young actresses is hardly uncommon in French, or indeed European, cinema. Such modern stars as Delpy, Gainsbourg, Sagnier, Ledoyen and Morton all bared their souls at a period when American actresses are stuck in formulaic teen movies.
All of which brings us back to Bonnaire. One of the three great Bs of the French cinema in the eighties and nineties – along with Béart and Binoche – hers is the career that has drifted along with the least momentum. Could it be that Pialat captured something in the puppy faced teenager than would soon be gone? Certainly it was not talent, as anyone who saw her transcendental performance as Rivette’s Jeanne la Pucelle will testify, but perhaps a touch of danger. In Amours, and Agnes Varda’s later Vagabonde, Bonnaire seemed to encapsulate aimless teenage disenchantment for an entire generation. It only takes one or two iconic films to do so – just think of James Dean or Malcolm McDowell for proof – and hers came before she was legally an adult.
Suzanne herself is a definite enigma, as she drifts from one casual meaningless sexual encounter to another, all the while rejecting the one boy who has genuine affection for her. She is a force of nature, a free spirit, yet still trapped by an unfortunate remorseless fate that she cannot control. Like many teens, she doesn’t believe her parents were ever young, declaring that she “can’t imagine them having had lives of their own.” This is a real girl, and the detail Bonnaire gives to the character, much of it surely spontaneous and out of herself, is what makes the character; the resting one arm on the other as she sips her drink at a soirée, the checking for hickies in the mirror, nervously chewing her nails, or simply reduced to giggling laughter following sex with another person she cares little for. In Pialat’s tender care, she grows up in front of our eyes, yet she is still but fifteen. She is still the girl who, after having had sex with an American who thanks her, merely replies “you’re welcome. It’s free.” By the end of the film, we can only look back on its beginning, and the first words spoken by Suzanne, “don’t you think one could die of love?” That’s a moot point, but for us Bonnaire remains dangerously alive, that figure of cine-legend, white dress blowing around her waist on the prow of the boat as she looks wistfully out to sea. A film worthy of comparison with Bresson’s Mouchette and any of the Dardenne brothers films that followed, it’s not only one of the great adolescent films, it’s Pialat’s greatest film in a career of generally unappreciated, delicate observation of characters so real you feel you could reach through the screen and touch them. None more so in her scenes with Pialat as her father, which have not only a sense of truth, almost improvised, but capture also Suzanne’s naivety, and her innocence sadly prematurely lost.
…uh, yeah. Shame on us Americans for keeping our 15 year old girls clothed on film. How closed-minded and conservative of us. Obviously, we should be encouraging them to get naked for sexually adventurous roles so they can grow up and mature in front of the camera for all of us to see. Because hey, nobody’s going to use such occasions to get closer to our underage stars, or take advantage of their powerful positions, either on-set or behind the scenes. I mean, it’s not like there’s any well-worn tradition of directors and producers seducing, propositioning or just plain forcing actresses to give into their sexual demands during or after the casting of a film, specifically on some sort of domestic recreational furniture, like a sofa, chez lounge, or couch. Why, imagine how terrible it would be, if there were the possibility a respected filmmaker were willing to invite a young girl for a film-shoot or photo-session, only to intoxicate her with alcohol and qualludes and physically force her to engage in sexual intercouse in or around a hot tub, and subsequently escape prosecution for statutory rape (we’d have to call it statutory rape not because it was easier to prosecute, but only because the very notion of being morally outraged by a grown man having sex with a girl of, hypothetically, 13 years, is just too strict and forbidding to give more than a moment’s notice) by fleeing to a country with no extradition. I’ve never even heard of such a thing. Perish the thought.
There’s absolutely no logical reason why we shouldn’t just strike down all our nonsense age-of-consent laws right now, and allow our high school girls to disrobe in everything from musicals to television shows. Sure, perhaps there might be a problem if their parents were willing to compromise their childrens’ safety and comfort for the sake of monetary success, but that could never possibly happen. And maybe there could be cause for alarm if there were some sort of widespread, prevalent segment of the mass-media that thrived upon the exposure of photographs and videos depicting Hollywood starlets in various states of undress and intimite behavior, composed of photographers and journalists with little qualms in the privacy of others and a tendency to take snapshots in risky circumstances, such as from moving, high-speed vehicles in underground tunnels. What was the name of that guy in “La Dolce Vita”? Oh, never mind. Fellini must’ve been showing us another one of his surreal dream characters in that movie, because nobody like that could EVER exist in real life.
Thank you, Mr. Fish. Thank you for showing us Americans just how sad and uncivilized we all are for our cultural, moral and legal unwillingness to allow filmmakers to show young women under the age of 18 as the sexual creatures we should all encourage them to be. After all, it’s not compromising their images, their safety, their future or least of all their bodies if they expose themselves to millions of filmgoers at a tender, young age– not if it’s done in the name of art, or commerce. Seeing that so many women in Hollywood are already showing off their naked bodies on screen all the time (it isn’t as though anyone’s ever done something as flagrantly dishonest as to hire some other, unknown woman to double for them in provacative shots– Heaven forbid the possibility of such a terrible world!) why should we deny our cute little moppets the opportunity to do the same? Exactly how long are we going to have to wait to see Dakota Fanning get her kit off? After all, she’s not going to be a child forever, you know! Won’t somebody please think of the children?
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go better myself by catching up on a little light reading, like “The Lover”, or perhaps some “Lolita”– I’d go watch one of the films instead, but as I’ve shown, we Americans can’t be trusted to give the heartwarming story of a 37 year old man fucking a 12 year old girl the treatment it deserves.
(By the way, lest anyone can’t tell, the above is an example of SARCASM. Just in case my statements here are mistaken for sincere beliefs, as sometimes happens with irony on the Internet.)
The Lover is sort of a bad example – it was actually a memoir and written by the underage girl when grown up i.e. Marguerite Duras.
Though clothes stay on in American cinema and in spite of whatever laws may be there the actual lives of teenage actresses, in particular Disney ones, do seem to spiral out of control in a way they do not in Europe (Spears, Lohan et al).
No, we got it, Clark, you may be many things, but a Bible-belt right wing, neo-fascist moral-majority, head-in-the-sands-to-the-state-of-the-real-world guardian is not one of them.
Sadly, there are people out there who would read that and accuse me of being a nonce. The sort of people who have made the world a place where a primary school teacher cannot put their arm around a crying child without fear of being accused of being a sexual predator. And they say fascism is dead. Who are they kidding?
Fish and Clark (with Polanski) should get on that boat and head for Pattaya Beach in Thailand and see what happens to 12yo girls who are fucked by GIs on R&R. You closet wankers make me sick to my stomach.
Tony, apparently you didn’t get the sarcasm. Even with the above notice. Or what, did you take that to mean the sarcasm was sarcastic?
Whatever. Suffice to say I’m on your side on this matter. This is one of those movies I really have no interest in seeing, just like I couldn’t stomach Duras’ book. I’m sickened by Polanski too, Tony, and what you’re talking about doesn’t make me feel any better. It’s a sick world…
Sorry Bob, I responded emotionally. I have been there and was propositioned by 13-15 yo girls in a bar as the woman serving looked at all the men in that bar and me with unmitigated hatred. Out on the streets you see gray-haired sun-tanned men with so-young girls on their arms…
Also, Bob, re: Polanski, I don’t think he’s just a statutory rapist, but probably a rapist full-stop, as his victim has alleged that she resisted and he forced her to have sex with him. As many of you know, I tend not to conflate aesthetics with morality, and I have no problem saying Polanski fully deserved the Oscar for Best Director in 2002. I also have no problem saying he should have been arrested if he set foot in the auditorium.
But does anyone else find it obnoxious that when Elia Kazan won the honorary Oscar, there was such a brouhaha and many audience members sat on their hands, while there was no such fuss over Polanski? Granted, I’m not a big fan of ratting on your friends and ruining their careers but that just isn’t in the same category as raping a 13-year-old. Says something about Hollywood, I suppose.
Tony– I’ve been thinking the EXACT same thing lately. Polanski was charged with statutory rape instead of the full-on, unmitigated violent rape that it was simply because it was easier to prosecute for some reason (he may have been willing to cop a plea bargain or something to the lesser charge, I forget– it’s been a while since I was willing to look at all that stuff). Polanski’s a good filmmaker, but I can never bring myself to call him a great one. I still don’t know how I feel about “Death and the Maiden”– sometimes I feel it’s his mea culpa, other times a gesture of his defiance. “The Pianist” was okay, but I preferred “Gangs of New York”. I do admit that I enjoy “The Ninth Gate”.
And yeah, it is terribly hypocritical that Oscar attendees were unwilling to applaud Kazan, thanks for his “naming names”, but had no qualms about standing up for Polanski. Disgusting. Kazan actually graduated from my high school, and it was only in the last several years that they put a plaque of him up on our “wall of fame”. I can understand why it takes so long to forgive a controversial figure like him, but in the case of Polanski, they seem to have forgotten his offense entirely.
Bob: That was me, actually, not Tony.
Looks like this thread heated up while I was away. I’ll scroll down to see what I missed.
Ah, yes. You’re right, Man. Good points, in that case, which I obviously agree with.
To Tony– I’ll belatedly accept your apology. Thought I was responding to you before. No harm.
Tony, I completely get where you’re coming from. However, I don’t think it’s fair to conflate cinematic permissiveness with real-world pervertedness – even if you think one may lead to the other (arguable, but understandable) it’s not fair to accuse the proponent of the former of being a “closet wanker”.
I GUARANTEE you that some of the gray-haired pieces of shit were “upstanding” citizens in the public life, quick to condemn sexual immorality. And that the great majority who feel that nudity is overly subject to prudity have no interest in underage girls.
And while we’re at it, a pox on Allan’s house too: the idea that only “Bible-belt right wing, neo-fascist moral-majority, head-in-the-sands-to-the-state-of-the-real-world guardian” are opposed to adolescent nudity onscreen is beyond laughable. First of all, there’s the feminists who could hardly be called Bible-belt right-wingers, and there’s a lot of other die-hard liberal folk, or moderate, or apolitical who find such things reprehensible. They may be wrong, they may even be prudish, but they are not members of the Religious Right.
I agree, Tony, the world is a sick place, but there’s a difference between that and assuming the sick and perverted which is what the right wing extremists would have us do. It’s fascism, pure and simple. Teachers not able to comfort upset children, people fearful if a child comes up and asks for help in the street of being accused of a crime. It’s a society catering for the depraved. Better that the innocent are punished than the guilty are let free. Sound familiar?
“Or what, did you take that to mean the sarcasm was sarcastic?”
It looks like Allan did, so I’ll be interested to see his response later, though I kind of hope he doesn’t play ball, as this thread could get atomic real fast.
“A nos amours” is actually a great pick, one of the best of the 80s. Bonnaire is excellent, but what really confirms its greatness to me is Pialet’s style which is startlingly eliptic and feels spontaneous. Turns out many of the scenes are out-and-out-improvisations, including the one in which he (who plays the father) storms in on a dinner after he’s left the family. He did not tell the cast members what he was going to do and their expressions of shock are genuine. What unfolds was not planned, and few sequences in cinema have the same raw power of a shimmering, unpredictable reality (or some sort of reality) unfolding.
By the way, unless I’m mistaken, there’s not a sex scene in the whole film. It’s all night before/morning after, which somehow only heightens the melancholy sense of innocence lost (Bonnaire’s character is not only sleeping around, her entire family is dissolving around her, and she’s forced out into the working world prematurely.)
Your last paragraph is what I mean, Movieman, when I say there’s nothing offensive in the film whatsoever, but even so, that film made in the US, the actress would become the subject of infamy, and that is a condemnation of the right wing extremists who run American media as potent as any that could be offered.
I don’t know, Allan. As I say above to characterize the attitude as merely “right-wing” misses the point; there is just as strong of a liberal constituency opposed to this sort of thing in the U.S., with a strong base in the feminist camp.
Besides, you miss another unfortunate aspect of the American character, albeit one which is certainly connected to the prudishness, a leering quality to sexuality. I wouldn’t trust the U.S. media to properly handle an underage starlet who disrobed onscreen; they might play up the notoreity, but they’d be exploiting it to the hilt too.
Also, there’s a flip-side to everything. France may be more low-key, and perhaps sensible in terms of sexuality and nudity, but there was also an active movement in the 70s, originating on the radical Left with many more fellow-travelling liberals going along for the ride, which sought to decriminalize sex with minors, and even pedophilia. Mainstream leftists like Sarte signed petitions in favor of such causes, though it’s been alleged that they would just sign any petition which crossed their desks in the spirit of the times. A lot of thinkers danced on the line of whether or not kids were “desiring machines” like the rest of us, and flirted with pedophilia as revolutionary and subversive.
I don’t think A Nos Amours belongs to the movement, though it comes out of that time and may in part be a response to it: at any rate, it can hardly be seen as characterizing sexual awakening as a wholly positive or even liberating event: it coincides with Sandra’s fall from innocence, and movement away from a naive belief in love.
Pialat could also be seen to critique his own role as authority figure in the young actress’ coming out, since the character’s relationship to her father is ambiguous and he is ultimately responsible for her downfall (the family breakup is the real cause of her loss of innocence, the bed-hopping merely a symptom).
Yes, I agree entirely on the 2nd paragraph, it’s a pretty sickening state of affairs, and what you say in para 3 is unfortunate, to say the least, but there’s a point where the protection of children had lead to adults being victimised. Parents are not even allowed to hit their children, for fear of repurcussions. Many of the ideas for which come from matronly feminists who have often never had kids of their own and are approaching it from a ludicrously distanced theoretical approach. The last thing I would recommend any friend of mine working in is teaching or anything to do with children, not because children don’t need protection, they do, but that adults deserve from protectionf rom malicious children who know the cards are stacked entirely in their favour so they can lie and get away with it. Lillian Hellman’s then senastional play is now common practice and there are dozens of Mary Tilfords out there getting away with murder.
As for the religious point, I agree it is a sweeping generalisation, but the fact is that media are rules by conservative Middle America, where much of the wealth is.
What Pialat does, and what European films do in general, is approach the topic unsensatioinally and realistically, in a way that the average American film never could. It’s the same on TV where the slightest offensive nip slip or cuss word becomes the subject of outrage. It’s downright hypocrisy, let alone fascism.
The ‘average’ American film never could but then Pialat is hardly the ‘average’ French director! This gets me back to an old hobby horse. We keep comparing (unconsciously or otherwise) all of American cinema with just the best that is available from other countries.
Excellent comment Movieman..
For me the issue is simply that a 15 yo girl is a child. It is not about political correctness or public hysteria over pedophiles. Intellectual and artistic pretensions about sexuality and children are the issue. It is about men exploiting children and justifying it in the name of art.
Last year here we had a 50yo photographer stage an exhibition of nude photos of 13 yo old girl – all very ‘tasteful and artistic’ with no pubic hair on show, but rightly ordinary decent people were shocked and there was an outcry. Of course the intelligentsia reacted with cries of artistic freedom and so forth. The artist’s defense was that he had the parents’ consent. But we are guardians of children, and as their protectors we must let them live as children free from male fantasies – artistic or otherwise. Saying this does NOT make me a bible-bashing neo-fascist.
And what I said doesn’t make me a ‘wanker’ Tony. I’m saying that such subjects need approaching in an adult manner. And all the best films about adolescent sexuality are not American. And there’s a difference bteween the pictures you mention where for me the cries of artistic freedom are just wrong, and a film telling a story with a fundamental message and with no exploitation whatsoever. Sure, there’s the odd sick person who doule get off on it, but there’s the odd sick person who would get off on Shirley Temple singing of the Good Ship Lollipop. To completely protect children, we should cocoon them completely. The photos you describe or those ghastly child beauty pageants, that’s exploitation, they’re the fuel for deviants. And who invented them? The same middle America that would cry out at A Nos Amours and did cry out at The Tin Drum. Hypocrisy, thy name is religion.
True, the whole Jon Bennet-circuit is frightening beyond belief. But it’s naive to think that a 15 year old girl is really mature enough to fully appreciate the consequences of disrobing for the camera. There’s a level of exploitation there no matter how carefully it’s done.
No, because you’re assuming she’s immature. Some 15 year olds are more mature than some 21 year olds. And besides, you haven’t even seen the film, Bob, so perhaps you should before passing judgement on films that have actresses doing things before they should. This is not merely a question of nudity, but maturity on screen. Loretta Young played a romantic lead aged 14 in Laugh, Clown Laugh in 1928, Conchita Montenegro was full-frontal nude way back in 1928 in La Femme et le Pantin when she was likewise only 15. Nudity in itself is not an issue, and people in the US make far too much of it. Emily Lloyd was 16 in Wish You Were Here, Julie Delpy 15 when she first appeared nude, Charlotte Gainsbourg 16, Samantha Morton 16, Sophia Loren 16, Vanessa Paradis 16, Brigitte Bardot 17, Stefania Sandrelli 16, Françoise Arnoul 17, Sophie Marceau 15, Ornella Muti 16…and then on the male side, there’s the various small boys in Shimizu’s Children of the Wind, Robert Lynen in Poil de Carotte, the showering pubescant boys in Shoeshine, Edwige Feullière’s son in Sans Lendemain, the kids in 1900, etc, etc.
There’s nothing remotely indecent about any of those examples, far from it. I was just saying that the situation is healthier – though there must be monitoring, of course, parental presence on set in this day and age, for example.
To say there’s a level of exploitation there is too easy. Every actor or actress is being exploited for their emotions as part of their job. Any actor or actress of any age, be they 16 or 60, are being exploited for appearing in a state of undress, if you want to take it to those ridiculous limits. Dear old Kate Winslet could strip off again in her next film and to a small degree it’s exploitative. Frankly, the 15 year olds of today and the last generation know more about the world and its vices than most married women with two kids a half a century ago. Prurient though it may be in places, there are many places which make Larry Clark’s Kids or Ken Park look like Sesame Street.
As for doing all this when you haven’t even seen the film, well it reminds me of those idiotic British censors who banned The Seashell and the Clergyman because, though they couldn’t find a meaning, whatever meaning it must have must be objectionable.
Suffice to say I find the notion of emotional, intellectual or psychological maturity in a teenager, male or female, laughable at best. And the long roster of European actresses who bared all before Americans of the same age would be able to drive, vote or drink doesn’t impress me, either. And frankly, I don’t see the same type of exploitation when an older actor or actress goes nude on-screen. As an adult, they’re capable of making an informed decision on their own. If you have to get permission from your parents first, it isn’t exactly a sign of maturity.
This started futile and has continued to be even more futile. Frankly, I’m bored and see only utter pointlessness in continuing this. I could say that I’m glad i don’t have yout attitude to stuff, Clark, but I was over the moon about that long before today.
Yeah, Fish. That’s very mature.
By the way, Fish– what’s the deal with going back and revising your comments after you’ve posted them? It wouldn’t bother me so much if everyone here had an edit function, but it’s frustrating to have written a response to one comment, only to see it follow something completely different.
I think it’s a shame that this movie should get sidetracked into so much talk about pedophilia, which is largely irrelevant to what the movie is actually about. It’s about growing up, about discovering sexuality and not really knowing what to do about it, about being young and confused but trying to maintain this facade of icy cool detachment. It’s a fantastic film, anchored by Bonnaire’s startling, naturalistic performance — a sensual performance, even at times a sexual one, but never in a way that feels exploitative or merely aimed at titillation, the way so many films about this type of subject would try to do. Letting Pialat’s masterpiece get mired in a debate about right-wing prudishness versus exploitation of minors is a shame; this back-and-forth totally misses the supple beauty and grace of this film, and its shocking, angry realism. I still remember that terrifying scene where Pialat himself, playing the father, bursts into a dinner party to tear everything apart with his raw performance.
Mr Fish started the debate with his predictable waffle about liberal Europeans vs. Bible-bashing American red-necks. I am not American and far from an apologist for the US, but Fish’s commentary was fair game.
PS: Neither Bob Clark nor I brought pedophilia into the discussion. Again it was Mr Fish, who like you can’t seem to understand the issues…
I’m sorry, Tony, but that is rubbish. Where in my original post am I advocating paedophilia. Bob made a sarcastic humorous response to it as a reactionary, then you went ape shit. No-one else…YOU…You then apologised to Bob after calling us closet wankers.
My statement in response to Bob’s sarcasm was, to a degree, though not the same degree, sarcastic in turns, though it hardly seems relevant any more. It’s over. I have nothing more to say on this post.
Where did I say anywhere that you were “advocating paedophilia”? I have made it abundantly clear what I was talking about. Btw, I apologised only to Bob.
Oh I know, Tony, you’d only ever apologise to me for mistakenly being nice. I know I could expect no better of a creature like you than to be called a paedophile. Being as you are the moral majority and guiding light of decency on the site (that’s the site you left and said you’d never come back – so why are you here exactly?) – and blower of all things out of generalised proportions. Well, if light could be blacker than a black cat in a coal hole during a total eclipse of the sun that is.
Fuck you Fish. I retired as a contributor, as you well know.
Oh diddums. Never did I see someone throw so many rocks and cry wolf at a handful of gravel tossed back. Who was the last person to be pleased to see you that wasn’t related? Your shrink?
Keep it up… Have I ever insulted you personally? I may attack your opinions, your ethical and moral sloth, your arrogance, your misanthropy, your ingratitude, your pompous snobbishness, your hateful defensiveness, and your paranoia…
Have you ever insulted me personally? Erm, A WORLD OF YES. You have called me a piece of shit, accused me of being a paedophile and basically acted like a human cumstain for the last month or so simply because you went on one of your habitaul “whose life shall I try and torture today” bents and got as much back as you dished it, then you ran home crying to your other personality. Itr’s a shame, because I have stuck up for you a hell of a lot, to Sam and others, when you had previously acted like a complete jerk, but I have frankly lost all respect for you. I have my problems, you have yours, but as you have no regard for mine, as is your prerogative, why should i have any for yours. My friends who knows me know my loyalty and so does this site’s procurator, but though he may wish to play silent when wars flare up – as in this case is probably thye wise thing to do – don’t think people’s opinion of you aren’t changing rapidly in the fashion of a plummetting lemming. I wish you no harm, and you have decent qualities (but you increasinngly need a magnetometer to reach them) but no longer do I wish you any good, for you have earned none. Just let us say nothing to each other ever again. I blocked your email weeks ago not in spite but because I wanted no confrontation, believe it or not at the time for both our health’s sake, but you have continually sought it in the last few weeks, coming over here only to stir up trouble and incite wars. I may have played a part, too, granted, but I never went out of my way to start a war.
Well you needn’t have bothered blocking emails from me as there weren’t any. The last email was from you apologizing for all the shit you heaped on me under the Scarface thread and saying that I was really a “great guy”…
But then again, I suspect that email was sen t after prompting by Sam.
Er, no…I had genuine concern for you at the time. Sam actually wished I hadn’t at the time as he wanted to let it sit.
“I think it’s a shame that this movie should get sidetracked into so much talk about pedophilia, which is largely irrelevant to what the movie is actually about.”
My feelings exactly.
The pedophilia issue raises an interesting conundrum. The legal definition is hardly exhaustive in a culture sense. ‘Sex with minors’ was in fact perfectly acceptable in the most institutional sense for what is still the largest part of ‘Western’ history. I don’t think we would wish to dismiss the entire Western experience on these grounds. But whether sexual relations with a minor (and obviously one has to stay within somewhat reasonable limits) are always ‘coercion’ is to my mind questionable. The even greater question here revolves around the issue of sexual agency on the part of the minor (post-Freud we can hopefully all agree that there is such a thing!). Isn’t it a kind of ‘other Victorian’ (to quote Foucault) attitude to insist that sexual relations with a minor always involve exploitation? To be clear I have definite views about all of this shaped of course by my own cultural bearings so that I do have a great deal of discomfort with this idea. I am however hesitant to issue pronouncements that simply assume universal truths to be behind legalistic definitions. Is there an asymmetry of power when it comes to relations between a major and a minor? Yes. Absolutely! But isn’t there a difference between being involved with a minor who’s 16 and one who’s 6? But is the precise dividing line? I think it would be disingenuous to suggest anyone has the answer. If one’s only recourse is the law that is not a very sound standard. What if the law one day decided that everyone under 25 was a minor and made pedophilia and statutory rape and so on applicable in the very same way for anyone under this age? Many of us will then have been guilty of these ‘crimes’ at some point or the other in life!
Again Kaleem with that “disengenuous line”. Where is the blame in holding a moral position and defending it? Jump off that fence!
Alright what’s your moral position? Just following the law of the land?
Alright what’s your moral position? Just following the law of the land?
How does that follow from what I said? I have already stated my “moral position”.
Very briefly, because I’ve said I want to refocus the conversation on the film and I do, we must always assume sexual relations between an adult and a child are coercion because it isn’t possible to know otherwise. End of story.
Adolesence is admittedly trickier. Few actively frown upon underage sex in a legal context – as long as both partners are underage. But people mature differently and we want to have some sort of societal guidelines in place to protect those in the in-between phase. But this is really getting off-topic, isn’t it?
I would be careful of quoting Foucault on the matter. He’s one of those intellectuals who danced on the line of condoning pedophilia in the 70s, and his moralistic hatred of anything which smacked of bourgeois values (a highly personal antipathy) and virtual agnosticism on anything arising to challenge said values (he was even cautiously approving of the Islamic Revolution in Iran) strikes me as exhibiting some of the worst hypocrisies of the modern Left. I find him a fascinating thinker, and have only begun to scratch the surface of his work, but there’s always that rather arrogant moralistic amorality to contend with.
As far as nudity, since that’s the subject at hand, I am not really bothered by sexualized nudity for a 17-year-old on the cusp of legalized maturity. A 15-year-old is more problematic, if it’s in a sexual context but not overtly sexualized – as I recall being the case in A Nos Amours – I can accept it. A 13-year-old, I think, is too much. Possibly in a completely unsexualized context (as Fish mentions with the boys showering in Shoe Shine) though it should be thoroughly so – and the case is always more ambiguous when the director and the subject are “in line” (i.e. heterosexual male director with young female, or homosexual male director with young male, or the same with female director, though that usually doesn’t raise so many eyebrows – I for one found the older woman caressing little boys in Sweet Movie overstepped the line, though it involved neither nudity nor an “in-line” director…).
It’s murky, MM, admittedly, and it is discomforting with girls as young as 13 (scenes in Beau Pere, The Ice Palace, Crows, etc, whatever their merits made me uncomfortable), but even then, to a degree at least, it depends on the context. And I suppose it depends on the cultures of the countries in question, which are too easily – not wrongly, but perhaps naively – judged by our own ultra-conservative standards. Nothing wrong with protecting children, but as with political correctness it’s gone too far. I mean, this same conservative society has allowed children to legally divorce their parents. Now I know what I find more offensive and damaging.
And as I have said, if I saw a little girl/boy crying in the street and no-one near by, what makes me sick is that I’d have to walk by for fear of someone coming up to you and accusing you of making advances when all you want to do is do what any decent human being would do and wipe their tears. And Tony was right about one thing, the whole Thailand (and not just Thailand) underage sex rackets, the people involved in that sort of thing make me sick.
Good points, Man. For me, it’s not even necessarily an issue of presenting children/adolescants nude or in sexual situations onscreen (though that’s a very, very dicey situation). Rather, I can’t help but worry about the circumstances that surround the filming, itself. With film, you don’t have the same excuses that people make with literature, or even drawings, where you can portray all sorts of questionable things without involving any live human participants– I may not enjoy what Nabokov writes about in “Lolita”, but at least he wasn’t actively exploiting any actual girls.
When you involve a real actress, there’s a whole bevy of moral conundrums you have to tackle– Is she old enough to make this decision on her own? Are her parents allowing her to make this decision for the right reasons? Does everyone involved really understand the consequences of exposing this girl’s naked body and simulated sexual activity to a wide filmgoing audience? Finally, is the girl effectively being chaperoned in order to make sure nobody tries to take advantage of her, forcibly or otherwise, during production? This is the stuff I ask myself when considering movies that showcase this type of stuff. It’s impossible for me to look at the fictional character onscreen and forget the real actress before the camera, and find myself concerned, even if such concerns are unmerited, on her behalf.
There is of course a difference between children and adolescents but law paints with broad strokes on this matter.
On Foucault (and I am actually not the greatest Foucault fan) I think his views on the Islamic revolution should be approached with some care. I am generalizing a bit here but he sensed here a ‘genuine’ revolution in an age where increasingly the very notion of revolution seemed to be improbable. There were others on the left also attracted to this idea. I am not necessarily taking this position but I think the position might be theoretically sound. If the idea is ‘who defends this right wing religious revolution’? the answer is probably no one. One is only defending the revolutionary kernel here, the fact that this was even possible. There are many thinkers who argue for such a moment of ‘decision’ in politics. It often yields unfortunate results both on the right and left, even positively bloody ones, but it’s a question of what one is willing to risk for the new to emerge. If one however wants to keep playing the late capitalist/democratic game exemplified by the US one must also be willing to live with just incremental changes at every point. My own preferred French thinker Derrida privileges such an approach but clearly this is too much ‘compromise’ for many on the traditional left.
Great response, as always, Kaleem. Here’s how I see it: Foucault, like many others on the Left of his time (and since), conflates aesthetics and ethics. To me, politics should always be an ethical pursuit (and I’ve also shared my thoughts about ethics being kept out of aesthetics). The attraction to revolution may have its source in an ethical desire – the desire to remake society – but I think it becomes an aesthetic principle in Foucault & others, the desire to see those buffonish bourgeois pigs turned on their heads and to taste that exhilirating flavor of change and transformation and possibility in the air. Only as an aesthetic can an Islamic revolution be appreciated by a leftist.
What bothers me, then, about Foucault’s aesthetic desire for revolution and transgression is that it becomes cloaked in the traditionally moralistic terms of the left – even, nay especially, when his very aim is a deconstruction of traditional morality. It’s the hypocrisy I can’t abide – the talk of “justice” and so forth, when really he was following an aesthetic preference for the underdog and against the conventional, not an ethical one (someone once challenged one of his assertions, and he responded with something to the effect of “Then we don’t live in the same universe”.) Of course, the interesting thing about Foucault is that his own system of thought was indeed a critique of this very idea of authority which privileged one thought-system as “inherent”. That’s all I can say on the matter, as I haven’t read enough on or by the man to really delve deeply.
This is what scares me about baby-boomer intellectuals (and they strangely are almost always French). Not the conflation of ethics with aesthetics, but the subjugation of the ethical. (Joel and I have had this discussion before re Malle’s Murmur of the Heart.) These are cold-hearted men in revolutionary armchairs, who would gladly sit out the revolution while the streets were strewn with blood. They are not so very different from Bin Laden hiding away in his mountain cocoon. Revolution is about justice not aesthetics.
Tony, on this we tend to agree. I find the New Left fascinating and love to read about them and their various conflations of aesthetics & ethics but I can’t approve of it at all. And since the 60s this particular brand of revolution has lost whatever charm it has, so that it has neither aesthetic NOR ethical appeal – it’s just embarrassing, and frankly, self-defeating.
We’ve had our political disagreements in the past, but I respect the left which arises from a compassionate instinct and a humanistic impulse (tendencies which tend to be written off as merely “liberal” by the more academic lefties). I don’t respect the other left, ensconced mainly in universities it seems, which wants to have its cake and eat it too – maintaining all of their privileges and snobbery while out-PCing each other; flirting with the anything-goes blobbery of postmodernism while maintaining the hardest of old-line Party Lines against anything that they can label “reactionary.”
To get technical, Foucault was not a baby-boomer but he does seem to have an inordinate influence on baby-boomer academics/intellectuals/leftists, which may have been what you were getting at.
I will agree with Bob here if this is indeed what has occurred. Minor grammatical revisions are one thing but important editing after a comment has been introduced is a bit unfair.
The privilege of an administrator, Hasan, and if Clark didn’t lurk around here 24/7 like, ooh, I don’t know, a paedophile outside a primary school, he wouldn’t have been so quick off the mark, would he? It’s got to the point where I dread seeing his name turn up at the site like seeing a bill plop onto my doormat. I think I’ll just ignore Clark’s comments from here on in, there’s something about each and every one that makes me want to slit my wrists.
“I think I’ll just ignore Clark’s comments from here on in, there’s something about each and every one that makes me want to slit my wrists.”
Don’t get my hopes up, Fish. On both counts.
That’s it, Clark, make yourself welcome on someone else’s site. Our resident cancer in situ.
Look, the site is open to Bob and anyone else who wants to come here.
Yes, even when they openly wish someone else dead. Cheers, my good friend.
As you’ve said before yourself, Fish, this isn’t your site. And don’t complain about the insensitivity of my comment when you go around comparing my participation here to sexual perversion, especially when you’re the one waxing poetic about underage nudity in film. Need I remind us all of “Valerie and her Week of Wonders”?
So anybody who loves Valerie is a paedophile? In your own words, REAL MATURE, CLARK.
I know Allan but if one is changing a post or a comment for content in response to something else that’s not really fair (if this is what happened) because then we don’t have the original contexts anymore.
otherwise if you’re just amplifying your original text, adding stuff or something that’s a different matter.
Incidentally Sam, Allan you should add an RSS to the comments here also on top of the blog just like you have posts. This way people can subscribe to both.
Kaleem, a link to the Comments RSS has been at the top RH corner of the page since the make-over – just click on it to get to the RSS page and then add the URL to the blog-list.
The blithe response “privilege of an administrator” is not acceptable. What about the ethical responsibilities? Apart from the correction of typos, such changes are countenanced only if an alleged fact needs to be corrected, and then only if the amendment is transparent by using strikethrough to indicate the words deleted. Any other changes are unethical and are to be soundly condemned.
Unethical? When it was actually to tone it down and done within 30 seconds? I have to go back in to edit comments to change the name from wondersinthedark on my comments again. Jesus!
You have to do that for EVERY post because you haven’t set-up an account for Allan Fish… doh!
It’s unethical because oftentimes somebody will reply to your first, more characteristically caustic comment. You might only keep a comment up like that for 30 seconds, but unless you’re constantly clicking to refresh the page, it’s easy to go for an hour or more without noticing that something has changed. Censoring yourself after you’ve already said your peace, therefore, carries an edge of revisionism that shouldn’t go unignored. Just because you can delete a comment doesn’t mean you can take it back.
OK, then I apologise, I will not water down any acid from now on. I have committed a most heinous crime and not read the gospel according to Tony. I have however read the less caustic texts of the Apocrypha.
I’ve changed comments before, though I don’t think ever in the heat of the argument. It depends what was edited. Was important content deleted, particulary was content which was responded to deleted, or was it fixing typos? Was it deleting insults? What changed, Bob? After establishing that, let’s move on.
I agree with Ed, only more so since his comment was posted. The back-and-forth can be humorous at times, even entertaining in a way, but sometimes it goes too far. While I think Tony went too far in pretty much alleging perversion here, this movie – and this review – were bound to elicit some controversy. I stand firmly with Allan (and Ed) on the film’s worth (and hope this conversation can maneuver back towards that, as the side issues are interesting but toxc) but Allan, I do think you’re being a bit too sensitive here.
I understand Bob’s comments can be challenging, but as the author of the post you have 3 choices: 1) Ignore the emotional aspect and just respond to the points he’s making – in other words, ignore the sarcasm, firmly state your own point of view, and if you reach a conversational dead-end, move on. 2) Fight fire with fire – which is what you’ve been doing, but this tends to devolve the threads into petty flame-wars (and to be fair, it’s Allan’s adversaries who have gone to the furthest extremes, cracking jokes on sore subjects, whether they know it or not, or flat-out telling him they don’t like him). 3) Stick to your original resolve, and not respond to his or perhaps even anyone’s comments – indeed not to look at them at all after the posts go up. Purely for your own sake, I don’t think that’s a bad idea though I’ll miss the liveliness that occurs when you do step in. The site will lose some flavor, but perhaps you’ll gain a little peace of mind, which isn’t such a bad thing.
On the bright side, I don’t think Bob has brought up Lucas yet.
Valid points, MovieMan, and as Sam will never censure even the most heinous individuals (and d’Ambra, I don’t mean Bob there), and because he will doubtless respond with a love all, let’s have peace, I love everyone diatribe that fools no-one, I’ll take option 3 and just not comment.
Indeed, when I consider the times I have stuck up for Mr d’Ambra on the site in the past and in conversations and emails, it does gall you.
That’s your decision to make, Allan. Only you know to what extent these conversations get under your skin and ruin your day, etc. If it’s that bad perhaps it’s best to – at least – take a break. If you can discipline yourself, maybe just check out the posts that are relatively uncontroversial. Blade Runner might have seen some back-and-forth but I don’t think there were any really contentious moments there. But when you put up an A Nos Amours or even a Scarface – especially when, to be fair, your own review of such has some provocative material (and you did invite criticism by focusing on the young actress’ nudity, and particularly your attack on American attitudes towards such) maybe you should just let the piece speak for itself and “walk away”, never reading a single comment. Because do you really expect yourself to see Bob’s name, let alone his comment, and not feel an urge to “strike back”?
If it’s too hard to resist, perhaps the best thing to do is just submit the pieces to Sam and not visit the posts themselves.
Again, your personal input to the site will be missed but I’ve been in Internet situations that got out of hand and I still remember the brusing and powerless feelings of frustration and humiliation that went with it. If that’s what your experiencing (though I do think you should keep in mind that Wonders is a more balanced, and much more accountable, environment than some – there’s much worse out there, believe me), then take whatever action is necessary for yourself. If it’s just a case of momentary irritation, then brush it off and keep ’em comin’. But I do advise you not to let comments get under your skin (and I’d advise Bob to take a less needling tack, and Tony to leave personal insults out of it) and to try and keep the discourse on a higher – and, key point, un-personal – level.
Ok, my last words on the subject.
I’ll take leave to a large degree, MM. I know there are worse sites out there for vitriol, far worse, but you have to judge what matters most. This isn’t what I started writing pieces for. It’s made me rewrite the first half of the A Nos Amours essay for my own personal master, if people can get so easily incensed by misconstruing a point then what I wrote has to be rubbish and need rewriting to get the point over better, or just concentrate on another point.
Enough for now anyway, it’s midnight and I’m tired in more ways than one and there’s still 9 more to come, so god only knows what hate is going to surface there.
Man, Fish’s comment here:
“This started futile and has continued to be even more futile. Frankly, I’m bored and see only utter pointlessness in continuing this. I could say that I’m glad i don’t have yout attitude to stuff, Clark, but I was over the moon about that long before today.”
Was originally a little more like this:
“This started futile and has continued to be even more futile. I’LL ALLOW/RESPECT YOUR RIGHT TO BE WRONG, BOB.” (Caps mine)
Granted, this is pretty low on Fish’s scale of toxic remarks, but still pretty damn backhanded, and it isn’t as though my response was all that rude (“Yeah, Fish. That’s very mature”). Still, changing the preceding comment also changes the context in which any and all responses are made. From now on, the smartest thing to do is make sure you copy-and-paste the words you’re responding to, just in case they’re altered by the time everybody reads them.
As for fighting-fire-with-fire– I don’t start fights, but I don’t let somebody else finish them for me. Perhaps it’s the sin of pride, but when it comes to insults I don’t keep my mouth shut. Let somebody else cast the first stones, if they want, but don’t expect me to turn the other cheek.
To be honest, Clark, I have no real beef with anything you have put on this thread. I toned down the comment simply because it would have been counterprtoductive and did genuinely change it very quickly as I am in edit straight after posting to change the name from witd to Allan Fish (when logged in as administrator, you come up as witd unless you are the owner – ie. Sam).
Oh, and I won’t even go in to edit comments to change the name from wondersinthedark and I’ll even leave in any typos, just so as not to soil the good names of Messieurs Clark and d’Ambra.
Ed, if you’re still around, I loved that scene too and I recall watching the Criterion special features and finding out the scene was improvised – Pialat’s character was supposed to be dead or something, so none of the other actors expected to see him there. Was this sort of tactic normal for him? Is A Nos Amours more unhinged than his other works? I ask because this remains the only one I’ve seen.
OK, very strongly advised: Tony & Allan, take this to e-mail. It does not have a place as public discourse on the website. Do it for Sam’s sake, if not your own.
Movie Man:
If Tony and Allan desire it I can remove the series of hard-hitting comments. I won’t act unless I am advised to, as my tradition here has always been to let everything stand in the interest of an open forum.
I am not in the business of re-writing history. For the record, I would ask Sam to at least have the guts to confirm here that I have not in any way in my emails to him or Allan ever remotely said or done anything that would give credence to Allan’s wild accusations against me under this or any other threads.
What Tony says here is true. Never in any e mail correspondance between the three of us (from Tony to Allan, or Tony to me) has he ever said disparaging remarks. Of this there can be no question.
Of course I am deeply saddened at what happened here today as these are both very good friends. I’m the kind of person who after a day or two can say “let’s let bygones be bygones.’ But I know I can’t be that hopeful.
My apologies Sam, the tone and framing of my request was unfair and mean-spirited.
Tony, thank you, but I didn’t take it that way at all.
I know tempers flared here, but I remain optimistic that all will be well here. Tomorrow is another day.
Not in emails, Tony, I’m talking about on the site. Where you have continually made disparaging remarks.
If you do so, please remove my above as well (as well as this one too obviously). Still haven’t heard though, Sam: what do you think of the movie?
MovieMan, yes the scene where Pialat bursts into the room was improvised and a total shock to the rest of the cast, who were not at all prepared for it. I have only seen 5-6 Pialat films myself, so I can’t say for sure, but while he was always interested in improvisation, surprise and spontaneity like that, I cannot think of anything else in his work quite as destabilizing for both the audience and the actors. All of his films, however, possess that loose, naturalistic quality that makes A nos amours so great. This one is my favorite of the ones I’ve seen thus far, but I can also heartily recommend Police and the harrowing The Mouth Agape. The UK label Masters of Cinema is doing a great service by getting all these films out there.
Actually, lest I give the impression I only recommend those 3 films, I should add that I like everything I’ve seen by Pialat quite a lot.
Movieman, your most recent response on Foucault is characteristically illuminating. Hard to disagree with much if anything. On the ethics/aesthetics split regarding politics I must say I am fairly persuaded by the argument that the positing (and imagining) of nation-states has a strong aesthetic dimension to it.
Tony, thanks for the shoutout on the RSS matter..
On the rest Tony I am actually not sure what your position is. You think a 15 year old is a child. Is a 16 year old one as well? 17 year old? But what of periods when 15 year olds were considered children? Were all those men pervs? also if they’re all children how does one make a distinction between the 15 year old and the 8 year old? I’m not sitting on the fence. I just don’t believe the answers are as obvious as one might imagine once one gets outside the framework of law.
I will be withdrawing from commenting on the site to a large degree. The connotations with which I was effectively accused have left a severe distatse for me, sickening really. And I nedd to take leave from it.
I also announce that I will ba amending the essay tonight to something less easily misconstrued when I have chance, so I announce it here in advance.