9 songs

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Movie
German title 9 songs
Original title 9 songs
Country of production UK
original language English
Publishing year 2004
length 69 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Michael Winterbottom
script Michael Winterbottom
production Michael Winterbottom, Andrew Eaton
music Michael Nyman et al. a.
camera Marcel Zyskind
cut Mat Whitecross
occupation

9 Songs is a film by Michael Winterbottom with very revealing close-ups and sex scenes. One of the declared motives of the director for the creation of the film was to depict the sex between the two main actors as realistically, un-erotic and permissive as possible and still take it past the cinema censors in order to sound out how far he can go with the representation, to make such a film accessible to the broadest possible audience. In Great Britain, 9 songs has earned the title of "the most explicit theatrical feature by a mainstream director " (sexually) , which was quite intentional.

action

Matt is on his way to work in the ice desert of Antarctica by plane . He remembers the past months: the time he spent with Lisa. Lisa, an exchange student who stayed in London for a year and then went back to America, he had met at a rock concert at London's Brixton Academy . Together they went to other concerts by well-known rock groups, once to a piano concerto by Michael Nyman , and once Matt had to go alone. The live recordings from these concerts are followed by detailed filmed sexual encounters. After having sex one last time, Lisa surprisingly returns to the United States. The film ends with the ninth concert recording, it shows the same band as when the couple first met.

dramaturgy

The recordings of the concerts are cut in music video style and alternate in rapid succession with the sexual encounters between the two actors. The sex scenes are realistic and increase from close-ups of the sexual organs of the two protagonists to a half-close and clearly filmed ejaculation and penetration. However, 9 Songs differs somewhat from conventional hardcore films, which are more geared towards the sexual arousal of the viewer, through the neutral depiction of realistic sex. Since there was no script, the dialogues in the film were improvised by the (amateur) actors during the shooting.

The "9 Songs"

Reviews

The lexicon of the international film sums up: “Strictly alternating between physical love act and concert recordings of current Brit pop bands, the plot is reduced to a discreet, indiscreet exploration of sexual practices and their visual implementation, without having to talk about the protagonists or their relationship would experience. "

The Berlin taz , on the other hand, is skeptical: “It's simple banging with pop music contrasts. The film cannot even be assumed to have solid pornographic qualities. "

The magazine specifically wrote in February 2005: “If the camera was in the audience before and took the music stage frontally, now there are sophisticated close-ups. A nipple, gently massaged by your thumb and index finger. A vagina, opened. What is preventing the camera from entering? An ejaculating penis. - Not a word is spoken. The assembly does not comment either. No decor, no what-does-the-author-say-with-it. But sex business in silent consent - everyday communication, freed from the need to apologize or at least have to explain. - That is the sensation of the 9 songs : there is no psychologizing exculpation, and there is no protective claim that reality is being documented. Result: with this film we are rid of all legitimizing nonsense. Thanks to director Michael Winterbottom. "

The German first broadcast on free TV was on 3sat on January 8, 2008 in the night program. The television magazine Tele summed up the program announcement with the pithy sentence: “For a successful porn, the position change is missing, for a successful feature film the storyline.” However, the station 3sat itself praised the film as a “courageous experiment”: “Michael Winterbottom's film leaves many readings to. Only moralists are allowed to discover pornography in it. ... You should definitely watch this film and see it as a courageous and cleverly filmed experiment by an uncompromising director. "

Awards

Others

The then amateur actress Margo Stilley , who comes from North Carolina and was raised in a strictly Christian way, met with a wave of rejection because of the close-ups of her sexual organs and the penetration that she had not expected at all. After she first defended the film for a while as an artistically valuable representation of the sexual side of a love relationship and had promised herself a boost for her acting career from participation, she later tried to withdraw her name from the film, which she did not succeed.

She denies that the director could have used her naivety and inexperience to persuade her to depict the sex scenes. After nine songs , the director worked with her film partner O'Brien on two more films: A Cock and Bull Story and The Road to Guantanamo . As one of the reasons for taking on the daring role, she also cited the director's promise to give her a role in one of his next films, which eventually happened in 2010 with the six-part British sitcom The Trip .

There have been many discussions as to whether this film should be understood as a porn film or a love story with some very revealing shots. In the interview with the main actor Kieran O'Brien , available on DVD, he says that he learned about the film directly from director Winterbottom when he expressed his desire to make a real porn movie and to have it in theaters because he I found it frustrating that, on the one hand, sex is portrayed in an unrealistic manner in most movies, and on the other hand direct recordings of genital organs are taboo. Actor O'Brien said at the film premiere in Cannes in 2004 about the comments about the content and the alleged statements of the film interpreted by some critics: "It's just fucking!"

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Interview with Winterbottom on DVD
  2. ↑ a b Harald Peters: Winterbottom asks to bed. taz online Jan. 20, 2005
  3. ↑ Kerstin Achenbach: Michael Winterbottom dissects physical love. 3sat cinema for 9 songs from January 20, 2005
  4. ^ The Guardian, May 20, 2004
  5. ^ Conversation by Andrew Anthony with Margo Stilley, The Observer, February 20, 2005