Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix

From my QUANTUM CINEMA column in Mr. & Ms. Magazine, Supermonthly of the Body, Mind and Spirit, Sept. 2007:

After a very disappointing Goblet of Fire, English Director

David Yates brought Magic back in Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix, the 5^th installment of the Harry Potter series based on the phenomenal novels of J.K. Rowling, Not only is the film intelligible even to non-Potter fans, it is also faithful to the book (thanks to the screenplay of Michael Goldenberg), has great cinematography, fantastic set design, superb “magical” fighting choreography, good serious acting, nice “horror movie” scoring, and great over-all directing.

The familiar faces of the Dursleys and Mr. and Mrs. Weasley are back. Mike Newell, who directed the Goblet of fire, excised the Dursleys and the Weasley couple from the film version. Unfortunately, some things from the book have to be left out in a 2 hour or so film. For the first time, this Harry Potter episode lacks the wizards’ premier sport called quidditch.

HARRY’S FIRST KISS

J.K. Rowling’s novel spent quite some time building up to Harry’ first kiss yet stopped short of describing the kissing act itself until after the fact when Harry described it to his friends Hermione and Ron. Yates, on the other hand, dropped all the build-up and went straight for the kiss under the mistletoe. Indeed, Harry has come of age.

But after the kissing scene, Harry and Cho Chang seemed to have soon parted ways without any explanation. Cho apologized to Harry for something, insinuating that Cho squealed on Harry’s secret group. But in the novel, the squealer was Marietta, Cho’s friend. So she could be apologizing for the act of her friend. At any rate, his infatuation with Cho - which started in the Goblet novel but almost ignored in the Goblet film - just vanished abruptly.

ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

The Order of the Phoenix is a secret society founded by Dumbledore to fight the evil Lord Voldemort. The original members included Harry’s, Ron’s and Neville’s parents as well as most of the Hogwarts’ faculty. The Order has been reactivated by Dumbledore because of the return of Lord Voldemort.

The book’s and the film’s plot is the Magic Ministry’s attempt to take over Hogwarts. But the main subplot – the fight of the Order of the Phoenix, together with Harry and his friends against Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters - is even more important because the over-all plot of the series is Harry Potter’s fight against Voldemort.

Basically, the problem of the filmmakers of the series, especially from Harry Potter 3 onwards, is which plot to emphasize, and consequently, which of the many interesting subplots.

Like the Goblet of Fire, the Order of the Phoenix novel could have been made in to two films. The first part would be focused on the Hogwarts vs. Ministry fight while the second would be based on the subplot. This would make for a more faithful rendering of the book and would include the many subplots and characters as well as include the game of quidditch which now included Ron and Harry’s present and future love interests Cho Chang and Ginny. This would also give more flesh to the two-dimensional characterization of Ron, Hermione and others as well as to the members of the Order and Voldemort and his Death Eaters.

ACTING and ACTORS

Daniel Radcliffe’s acting is very intense. Unfortunately, his two young co-stars did not have enough opportunity to showcase any acting talent.

A new young talent, Evanna Lynch, played Luna Lovegood while a new star joined the cast. Helena Bonham Carter appeared as Bellatrix Lestrange, Voldemort’s follower who put a curse of Neville’s parents that made them lose their minds. Carter tried to give as much spunk to her character in her two minute or so screen time. In the next episode, Lestrange has a meatier role.

The newcomer to the series that almost stole the show is Imelda Staunton who played Dolores Umbridge, the Ministry Undersecretary who took over Hogwarts.

Alan Rickman, one of the good actors wasted in the Potter series, managed to squeeze in some good acting in so short a screen time.

Gary Oldman as Sirius Black bowed out in this episode. His death scene was very well done, even better than in the novel.

But again, the worst was Michael Gambon. As I mentioned in my previous articles on Harry Potter, Gambon simply does not have the stature or the star presence of a Richard Harris to play a Magnificent Wizard like Dumbledore. Peter O’Toole would be an ideal Dumbledore.

In this episode, Dumbledore has a very small role. But he has dramatic entrances and exits and is expected to display spectacular brilliance in specific scenes like his defense of Harry in the Magic Ministry Tribunal, in the fight scenes against Ministry officials in Hogwarts and in the duel with Lord Voldemort. Gambon was simply not up to the task.

Perhaps it is his wardrobe. He wears what looks like a dirty nightdress and a bed robe. He only has one set of clothes. And worse, his beard is pony-tailed.

The role of Dumbledore is crucial in the next episode, The Half-Blood Prince. He is the real star of the novel and it could be his farewell appearance. If the producers don’t want to change Gambon, they should dress him up in magnificent attire worthy of a great Magus. Film critic Roger Ebert described Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore as “looking as shabby as a homeless headmaster.”

JULIE WALTERS

With regards to actors, I am curious about Julie Walters’ billing. She plays Ron Weasley’s mom. She is billed ridiculously low, not even together with the other supporting stars like Maggie Smith, Emma Thompson or Robbie Coltrane.

She’s a multi-awarded actress – winning Best Actress at British Film Awards (BAFTA) in 1983 and 2001, the Golden Globe in 1983 and the Laurence Olivier Award in 2001. She was twice nominated at the Oscars (1983 and 2001) and once at the Screen Actors Guild (2001).

She was awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1999. Last year, she was voted by the British Public as the 4^th in ITV’s (British Independent Television) 50 Greatest Stars, way ahead of Robbie Coltrane, American Idol’s Simon Cowell and this year’s Oscar Best Actress winner Helen Mirren.

To top it all, last year, Walters starred in Driving Lessons with Rupert Grint (who plays her son Ron in Harry Potter) and Laura Linney. And Walters got top billing. British actors, especially theatrical actors, are usually not concern with billing. Consequently, they usually get so-so billing in Hollywood films. But Walters’ case in Harry Potter is quite extreme.

I did a bit of research and it appeared that Hollywood was angry at her when she refused so many offers after Educating Rita. But instead of doing films in Hollywood, she went back to England to act on TV, theater and films. I suppose Hollywood has not forgiven her yet.

SET DESIGN

The Order’s set design is awesome; the atrium of the Ministry of Magic is magnificent. It is much grander that what I imagined it to be. The Hall of Prophecies was also well done with all those crystal balls just waiting to fall on you.

The trial was done in a much larger setting than in Goblet. It appropriately projected the majesty of the Court and the seeming smallness of Harry, who is accused of breaking Ministry rules.

And the deadly archway was well conceived. Instead of a veil separating what is on the other side, the designers put in computer graphics that could be construed as protoplasmic energies.

DIRECTOR AS AUTEUR

Throughout film industry’s history, there has always been debate on who is the author or auteur of a film. In the 1930s, cinema was script-led. In Germany, script writers were considered “autorenfilm” or the film’s authors. By the 1950s, as a reaction to script-led “cinema du papa”, Andre Bazin and the Cahiers du Cinema group championed the “auteur theory” which called for directors to be the real authors of the films. By the 1970s, structuralists claim that cinema is a system of structures and codes and has nothing to do with authors. Those enamored with political economy say that films are products of the industry and are just as dependent on producers and other factors as on writers or directors.

For the Harry Potter film series, the first four episodes were based on the books written by one novelist (JK Rowling) and the screenplay was done by the same writer, Steve Kloves. The producers and the main cast remained the same. But there were three different directors. Chris Columbus’s Harry Potter 1 and 2 are so different from Alfonso Cuaron’s Harry Potter 3 and Mike Newell’s Harry Potter 4.

Harry Potter 1 and 2 are fantasy adventure movies, something like Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew in a magical setting. Harry Potter 3 is a gothic fantasy film. Harry Potter 4 is a horror-suspense thriller.

Yates continued the dark, eerie theme started by Cuaron. Yates chose to focus on the plot and main subplot and forget the rest like the annual quidditch tournament. His choices of what to include and what not to include made the big difference. While there are no spectacular special effects like fire-breathing dragons, his set designs and fight sequences appeared more magical and awe-inspiring.

But the best thing about Order of the Phoenix is that its storyline is tight and intelligible. One does not have to go back to previous Potter films or books to understand the film. This must be credited to the scriptwriter, unless he was just following the director’s ideas.

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See related post:

Harry Potter: From Books to Films

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ASTROLOGY and HEALTH

“A physician without knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician”

– Hippocrates (born ca. 400 BC)

Astrology was studied and respected in the ancient Egyptian civilization, in the Greek and Roman civilizations, in the old Islamic civilization, and in the Renaissance. In 1125, the chair of Astrology was founded at the University of Bologna. The prestigious Cambridge University taught astrology since 1250. Until the 18^th century, astrology was part of university students’, including medical students’, training.

While claiming great astrologers of the past like Copernicus (proponent of sun-centered solar system), Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler (discovered the laws of planetary motions) for their side, Establishment astronomers renounced astrology after the twin discoveries of Uranus in 1781 and Neptune in 1846. Astronomy separated from Astrology and the latter lost its academic status. While astrology embraced all aspects of life, astronomy was concerned only with celestial mechanics. As a result, university students and faculty, including the medical faculty in Europe, America and the colonies, were deprived of a great deal of astrological knowledge accumulated through the millennia.

Before the 20^th century, the non-astrologer physicians’ primary medicine for curing people was leeches – to bleed the patients in order to remove impurities in their blood. In movies, old books and magazines, one can still see the advertisements of various “elixirs” peddled by physicians and pharmacologists.

Today, astrology is back in business, proven by academic research such as the comprehensive study done by Michel and Françoise Gauquelin, French statisticians and psychologists who gathered hundreds of thousands of birth charts for their data.

Medical Astrology

Astrologers still incorporate health aspects in their work. When a person gets sick, the astrologer draws up the astrological chart at the time of the first symptom. Each Zodiac sign rules some parts of the body. For example, Aries rules the head area, Taurus the neck area and Libra the kidneys. The mentioned astrological chart is then judged in relation to the person’s natal or birth chart, i.e., the astrological positions at the time of birth.

Persons born under a Sign usually suffers from the part of the body ruled by that sign. Thus, Arians suffer from headaches, Taureans from colds, chills and tonsillitis, and Leos suffer from heart, spine and back ailments.

The diagnosis is also based on the polarity of the signs. For example, Aries’s polarity (opposite) is Libra. If an Arian complains of headaches (the head being ruled by Aries), the probability that the headaches are caused by the kidneys (ruled by Libra) should be investigated.

Each Sign is “ruled” by a Planet (the Sun and the Moon are considered “planets”). Together, the Sign and its ruling Planet is said “to rule” or greatly influence certain parts of the body. For example, Leo and its ruler, the Sun, control the heart, back and spine including the thymus gland and the body’s immunization system. Cancer and the Moon control the breasts and the alimentary (food) system – esophagus, stomach, gall bladder, etc. Sagittarius and Jupiter control the hips, thighs and the body’s largest gland, the liver and the pituitary gland, the body’s “master gland”.

By reading the positions and relationships of the Signs and the Planets in the charts, the astrologer deduces the diseases that the subject is prone to and the probable causes of the present sickness. The astrologer then prescribes the remedy which may include herbal medicine, sometimes including the time the herbs should be gathered, or the mineral and cell salts needed by the patient. The astrologer’s prescription may include actions on the part of the patient, such as taking a vacation or expressing his/her ideas openly without fear or inhibition.

By reading the natal and other astrological charts, the astrologer gets to know the whole personality, including mental and emotional attitudes, and even the whole history of the patient. The astrologer can thus prescribe the remedy that would cure not just the present symptom but the whole being.

For example, gallbladder stones may be caused by the patient’s anger over someone or something which s/he could not express. Or for a patient with heart trouble, the charts may indicate the real cause of the problem – inability to love or being unloved.

Medical astrology is not a separate branch of astrology. Astrology is holistic – it studies the whole of (wo)man – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual.

Hippocratic Law

Linda Goodman, in her book Star Signs (St. Martin’s Press: New York), is particularly concerned about the timing of surgery. She quotes Hippocrates who stated, “Touch not with iron that part of the body ruled by the sign the Moon is transiting.” “Touching with iron” means operating with a knife. Goodman further explained that according to Hippocrates, disobeying this law will result in 1] complications, including infection, 2] slow and painful healing and recuperation or even 3] death.

Goodman says that when a physician declares that “the operation was successful but the patient is dead,” it usually indicates that this Hippocratic law was not obeyed.

It is rather strange that medical doctors of today swear by the Hippocratic Oath, yet they do not practice or follow most of what Hippocrates advised.

Goodman gave some startling examples. Jeff Chandler, star of many detective films, went for a simple operation for a slipped disc. He died while being operated on. Cause of death? “Unnatural causes.” On that day, the Moon was in Leo, ruler of the heart, spine and the back.

Another example was Bertha Todd, first wife of Michael Todd, who later became the husband of Elizabeth Taylor. Bertha had cut her finger on a broken glass. She decided to go to the hospital the following day to have her finger stitched. Afraid that it might be painful, she asked to be anaesthetized. After the third dose of anesthesia, she died. On that day, the Moon was transiting Gemini, ruler of shoulders, arms, hands and fingers.

Goodman mentioned other examples. She was emphatic in urging readers not to have any sort of operation or even injections when the Moon is transiting the Sign which rules the body part concerned. The Moon changes sign every two and a half days so the postponement of the operation will not be more than that period.

The Moon’s influence on the tides is well known. Since the human body is seventy percent water, it is but logical that the Moon would have great influence on it, too. The menstrual cycles of women are also known to be influenced by the Moon. Hence, the rationale behind the above-mentioned Hippocratic Law is that first, the Moon has great influence on the human body. Second, any surgery naturally interferes with the tidal flows of the body fluids. And third, the parts of the body ruled by the Sign the Moon is transiting at the time become especially sensitive and vulnerable. So next time you need to have a medical or dental operation, check where the Moon is transiting.

ZODIAC SIGN RULERSHIP

OF THE PARTS OF THE BODY

ARIES head, face (except nose), cerebral hemispheres of the brain

Subrenal glands which pump adrenalin to the system

TAURUS neck, throat, larynx, tonsils, carotid arteries and jugular vein

Thyroid gland

GEMINI shoulder, arms, fingers, lungs, upper ribs

CANCER stomach, diaphragm, breasts, alimentary canal, lymph system,

Mammary glands

VIRGO large and small intestines and the pancreas

LIBRA kidneys

SCORPIO nose, genitals, descending colon, rectum, the blood, urethra. rules bodily outlets and procreative processes

SAGITTARIUS hips, thighs, liver, veins, femur bone, sacral region, and the sciatic nerve

CAPRICORN teeth, bones, kneecaps, skin, hair, nails and cell walls

AQUARIUS lower legs and ankles, varicose veins and circulatory system

PISCES feet and toes, the entire body system relating to “leaks” and the draining of fluids

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Published in the Mr. & Ms. Magazine: Supermonthly of the Body, Mind and Spirit January 2006

The Magic of Physics

There is a new theory in the scientific community - the M-theory. Princeton professor Edward Witten, its leading proponent, says that M stands for mystery, magic or matrix, his favorite words. It is understandable for physicists to like the word matrix as calculations using matrices are necessary in particle physics. But it seems strange for physicists to favor terms like mystery or magic. Or is it?

There seems to be a growing tribe of theoretical physicists who write books with titles like The Physics of the Soul, or Taking the Quantum Leap or Parallel Universes. What these physicists are trying to do is to proclaim to the world that there is already a new paradigm in the scientific community.

THE NEWTONIAN PARADIGM

In the 17th century, we had what some historians call the Galilean-Cartesian (scientific) revolution. Galileo’s insistence that the sun was the center of the solar system erased the belief that the Earth was the center of the universe. Galileo asserted that “the Book of Nature was written in mathematics” while Rene Descartes showed that everything in the universe can be reduced to mathematical equations. Descartes created the basis for the “Scientific Method”, which became the hallmark of what we call scientific research.

Galileo and Descartes made Physics the queen of the sciences replacing theology which had ruled the Christian world since the Dark Ages. But it needed another 17th century scientist to complete the revolution – Isaac Newton, who discovered the three laws of motion and the law of gravity and invented calculus.

The next scientific revolution occurred in the 20th century. But the philosophical implications of the Newtonian worldview still reign supreme in most societies. In his best-selling book, The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, Revised and Updated for the Nineties., Michael Hart listed Newton as the second most influential person in history, besting Jesus Christ who was number three.

In the Newtonian paradigm, science is the ultimate authority on physical reality; a reality that is “out there”, tangible, separate and independent from the human observer. Man was supposed to be able to measure and analyze this reality using the absolute laws of physics. Although Earth is just a minute part of the universe, Mankind, with help from the laws of physics, has the capacity to conquer all Nature – and even colonize other planets.

James Clerk Maxwell’s discovery of the laws of electromagnetism in 1864 brought about the “death of physics” according to one physicist. The laws of electromagnetism and gravity were supposed to explain all fundamental physical phenomena.

Newton said that light was made of particles. But 19th century physicists, especially Maxwell, concluded that light was a wave.

In 1896, JJ Thomson, while experimenting with light rays, discovered the existence of particles, specifically, electrons. But according to Maxwell, light was a wave, so how could it have particles? How could a wave be a particle? Was Newton correct after all? The physicists were confused.

EINSTEINIAN PARADIGM

The 20th century was greeted by the theories of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, the twin pillars of the New Paradigm. In 1900, Max Planck discovered that bodies did not give off energy in a continuous manner but in small units or packets of energy, which he called quanta. In 1905, Einstein explained that in JJ Thompson’s experiment, light was arriving in quanta and not in a continuous manner. Newtonian physicists could not understand Einstein. Again, they asked, was light a wave or a particle?

Werner Heisenberg put the question to rest by saying that light was both a wave and a particle depending on the instruments used. If one were looking for a wave, one would find a wave. If one were looking for a particle, one would find a particle. But one could not find both at the same time.

Moreover, Heisenberg discovered that one could not observe the particle with certainty. There is simply no instrument, even theoretically speaking, that could measure both a particle’s momentum and position. This is the famous Uncertainty Principle. In addition, the very act of observation affects the experiment.

By the first quarter of the 20th century, it was clear that the death of Physics was not at hand. Rather, it was the end of Newtonian physics.

Einstein proved that all measurements are correct only relative to a frame of reference. For example, imagine a man standing inside a train moving at 10 mph. With respect to the train, the man has zero velocity or speed. If you are inside the train with the man, you will see that he is not moving. But if you are outside in the field, you will see that the man is moving as fast as the train. Relative to the ground or the Earth, the man has a speed of 10 mph. Therefore, the statements “the man is moving at zero velocity” and “the man is moving at 10 mph” are both true and valid depending on one’s frame of reference. Extending it to cultures, an act may be considered a sin in one culture but a virtue in another.

The new physics is a physics of possibilities, of tendencies, of relativity – not of absolutes. The experimenter affects the experiment. Philosophically, this means that the observer and the observed are interactive, inseparable. And not everything can be explained completely. Light does not have to be either a particle or a wave. It could be both. Or it could be neither. We simply do not have the proper instruments to determine the exact properties of light. In the same vein, man could be body, mind or spirit or maybe something else.

With a quantum jump, subatomic particles can disappear from one place and reappear in another without crossing the intervening distance. (Can this explain teleportation?). Results of quantum experiments support the idea that everything in the Universe is interconnected.


FUNDAMENTAL FORCES

Gravity is the universal fundamental force affecting all bodies while Electromagnetism acts between electrically-charged particles. The physicists at the end of the 19th century thought gravity and electromagnetism were the only fundamental forces that make the universe work.


Through quantum mechanics, the physicists discovered that protons and neutrons are not elementary particles. They are composed of still tinier particles called quarks and gluons. The physicists also discovered a host of other elementary particles. The study of these particles introduced two more fundamental forces - the weak nuclear force and the strong nuclear force. These forces are responsible for the interaction of these extremely tiny elementary particles.

While quantum theory paved the way for the discovery of numerous subatomic particles, the relativity theory enabled astrophysicists to discover more stars, clusters of galaxies, supernovae and even discover (or mathematically construct) concepts such as black holes, wormholes, voids and dark matter.

However, particle physicists and astrophysicists reached a dilemma. Gravity is impossible in Quantum theory while it is inevitable in General Relativity theory. Fortunately, Superstrings came to the rescue. The superstrings theory allowed gravity in the quantum world with a new particle called graviton.

The physicists say that the universe started with the Big Bang. But the Big Bang, the very beginning of the universe, was a singularity – a zone of infinite temperature and density and zero mass. But in such a zone, the laws of Physics cannot apply. Again, the magic of Superstrings theory somehow resolved the mathematical difficulties.

In the superstrings theory, the universe is made of subatomic particles even tinier than the elementary particles called quarks, the basic building blocks of matter. They are called strings, billions of times tinier than an atom. (Others say strings are actually quarks in a particular state). These minute energies vibrate like violin strings and cause complex harmonics which create the electrons, neutrinos and other elementary particles which the universe is composed of.

From numerous superstrings theories, the physicists whittled them down to five. But in Physics, there should only be one theory for one phenomenon. And so came the M-theory, which seems to have unified the five superstrings theories and validated both quantum and relativity theories.

With the M-theory, physicists can resolve the very beginning of our universe – the moment of the Big Bang. M-theory also tries to unify all the four fundamental forces of nature, that is, reduce the four forces into one. The cosmos and the subatomic world will be described by one general unified theory. Thus, the M-theory is sometimes called the “theory for everything” or the “mother of all theories”. Proving this theory is every physicist’s dream.

According to the M-theory, there are eleven dimensions and not just the four that we are accustomed to (3-dimensional space plus the time dimension). And, there is probably more than one universe.

In Magick, there is an axiom that says, “As above, so below” – what applies to the heavenly bodies applies to sublunary bodies. In the New Paradigm, what applies to the Cosmos applies to the subatomic world. In Magick, Mysticism and the New Paradigm, everything is inter-connected.

Moreover, in the subatomic world and in the cosmos, scientists found that there is mostly nothing – just empty space. Some cosmologists estimate that all the galaxies and intergalactic matter of the universe add up to only one one-hundredth of one percent. In other words, 99.99 % of the universe is composed of nothing.

Are we now any nearer to knowing what the Universe really is? It seems that the Universe is just as inscrutable as God is according to world scriptures.

The physicists have drawn up an almost empty Universe with strings vibrating in complex harmonics resulting in the creation of elementary particles, the building blocks of matter. This compares to mystics’ description of God in the Cosmic Void meditating on His creation while playing celestial music. (end)

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Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter is magazine cover story

The cover story for this month's Mr. & Ms. magazine, Supermonthly of the Body, Mind and Spirit is Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame.

I can't wait to see Order of the Phoenix. I have high hopes that director David Yates will not make the same mistakes as Director Mike Newell.

Check out the site of Mr. & Ms. Magazine and read my review of Spiderman 3


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A more mature Daniel Radcliffe and Harry Potter

In April, I uploaded an article I wrote about Harry Potter books and films. I prefaced the article with notes on how the actors had grown. I included a picture of a naked Daniel Radcliffe taken from behind. See post.

There were hundreds of visitors to this site looking for naked photos of Radcliffe. I am thus posting a few Radcliffe publicity shots for his play, EQUUS.

The Harry Potter hero has indeed grown up. I hope that Equus will give the producers and director the idea that Harry Potter is no longer a child and so the film should be addressed more to 17 year-olds and above rather than to 8-year olds.

I hope the coming Harry Potter film, Order of the Phienix is going to be better than the last one. I expect David Yates will prove to be a better Potter director than Newell.

What Would You Do?

If the boatman were you, would you rather that you see the shark or simply be oblivious to it?

Sex at 24 Frames Per Second - Film Review

FROM MR. & MS. MAGAZINE JUNE 2007 ISSUE.

Playboy Magazine produced a documentary titled Sex at 24 Frames Per Second (2003) that was written and directed by Kevin Burns and Steven Smith. It gives the viewers a brief glance at the relationship between Sex and Hollywood.

In line with its producer’s characteristics, the film gives the audience a review of Hollywood’s sex goddesses from Theda Bara and Alice Faye to Jean Harlow and Marlene Dietrich to Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansefield to Gina Lolobrigida and Sophia Loren to Elizabeth Taylor and Raquel Welch to the James Bond girls up to sexy comedienne Cameron Diaz.

Of course, Playboy boss Hugh Hefner is one of the interviewees. Director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct and Showgirls) and Adrian Lyne (Fatal Attraction) and actresses Sharon Stone and Raquel Welch are among those interviewed for the film.

NOSTALGIC TOUR

The documentary brings us on a nostalgic tour of Hollywood, showing us film clips from the silent era to the present times. We get glimpses of the naked bodies (PG-rated only) of the stars of bygone eras like Theda Bara and Heddy Lamarr. We get to hear once again the sexually witty one-liners of Mae West like when she quipped, “When I’m good, I’m very good; when I’m bad, I’m even better.”

We get to see the all-time G-rated love team of Rock Hudson and Doris Day. Under the Hayes Code (the very strict censorship code Hollywood invoked upon itself), the actors, even if they play husband and wife characters, were not allowed to be seen together in one bed. Even married couples were required to have separate beds! To get around that, Hudson and Day got to say a lot of double-entendres and the directors used a lot of split screen where they can be in say, separate bath tubs yet share the same movie screen (and viewers’ minds) at the same time.

Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor got the biggest exposure. Marilyn represents the tragic sex goddess while Elizabeth represents the sex goddess as a celebration of life.

MARILYN MONROE

Milestones in Hollywood’s cinematic sex history like The Valley of the Dolls, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy, and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice were acknowledged. And so were the ground-breaking X-rated films Deep Throat and Beyond the Green Door at the height of the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s. But understandably, Caligula, produced by Hefner’s rival, Penthouse’s Bob Guccione, was mentioned quite negatively.

MARILYN CHAMBERS starred in BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR

ROSE-COLORED GLASSES

Like Playboy magazine, Sex in Hollywood is presented through rose-colored glasses. The innocence of pre-Code Hollywood was mentioned but the hypocrisy of Hollywood under and after the Code was glossed over.

The legal battles between the movie producers and the State over Censorship were not mentioned at all. And it presented Hollywood as if it were at par with Europe in terms of presenting sexuality on-screen.

LEGAL BATTLES

The First Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the enactment of any law abridging the freedom of speech or press. But censorship remained.

In the 1960s, the film version of Lady Chatterley’ Lover was banned in New York. Fortunately, the Supreme Court reversed the lower court’s ruling. Justice Stewart, in his ponencia, noted: “What New York has done, therefore, is to prevent the exhibition of a motion picture because that picture advocates an idea…Yet the First Amendment’s basic guarantee is of freedom to advocate ideas. The State, quite simply, has thus struck at the very heart of constitutionally protected liberty.”

Milos Forman’s The People vs. Larry Flint gives a good picture of how the battle for censorship was waged between the anti-censorship activists and the State.

SEX IN EUROPEAN CINEMA

The documentary tries to give the impression that Hollywood is as sexually advanced as European cinema. Nothing can be further from the truth.

By the mid-70s, sex in European cinema became ordinary fare. Before Jane Fonda starred in Barbarella, she already made a number of sexy films in France. When Sylvia Kristel as Emmanuelle burst into the movie screens, European cinema was already showing sex in cinema as a matter of course. The top ingredient of Emmanuelle was not the story or direction; it was the sheer charisma of its star, Sylvia Kristel. I saw the movie in Paris and people really queued up to see the film.

I remember the time I went to see Caligula in a mainstream cinema in Paris. When I entered the theater, the film already started. Before I took my seat, I looked up at the screen and was shocked at what I saw. The film starred Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, Helen Mirren and Sir John Gielgud. I thought I went into the wrong cinema. I stood still for several seconds until the usherette brought me out of my shock. She kept on repeating, “Service, M’sieur.” She was waiting for her tip.

While Caligula was shown in Europe just like any mainstream film, it was banned in the United States and created a huge controversy. In the documentary, Bob Guccione said that he just wanted to portray how life really was in Imperial Rome. This, to me, is very important.

The Roman Empire had been inculcated in our minds as “The Glory that Was Rome”. It was the epitome of European civilization. When I was young, I thought of the ancient Romans as the Caesar of Rex Harrison or the Anthony of Richard Burton or the Brutus of James Mason or the Calpurnia of Diana Rigg. After watching Caligula, I researched into Roman history and was shocked at how barbaric it was. And yes, ordinary Roman and Greek soldiers were naked except for their shields and spears! Those who had ranks wore an upper armor but no skirts. Only the commanders wore skirt armors.

ROMAN FOOT SOLDIERS in CALIGULA

Recently, for the Athens Olympics, a film was made about the ancient Greek Olympics. Many people complained that it was not realistic. Many people now know that the ancient Olympians wore nothing at all.

It is quite remarkable to think that in the cradle of Western civilization, during the times of “The Glory that was Greece” and “The Grandeur that was Rome”, people actually go about their business stark naked and sex was not taboo.

EXPLICIT SEX IN CINEMA

The documentary did not delve into explicit sex. It ended by saying that by the late 1990s, sex was again being celebrated in Hollywood. While some interviewees said that Hollywood is hypocritical, the documentary itself is hypocritical. It tries to give the idea that sex in cinema today is exemplified by comedies like The Full Monty (1997) and Something About Mary (1998).

This Playboy documentary even ignores its own Playboy Channel on cable which features steamy sex and full frontal nudity.

Explicit sex in cinema has been around since the 1970s but such movies were usually shown “underground”. The one that started it all in mainstream cinema was the Franco-Japanese film In the Realm of the Senses by Nagisa Oshima in 1976.

European cinema has been pushing the envelope further to the edge since then. In 1986, one of my favorite actresses, Maruschka Detmers (Prenom Carmen), shocked the world by giving her co-star Federico Pitzalis a fellatio, which was shown uncut. The brief scene was totally gratuitous. The film was mediocre and it did not help Detmers’ career at all.

In 1998, Denmark’s top director Lars Von Trier made The Idiots which included explicit sex scenes. In Switzerland and Germany, it was rated only R-16 and was even shown on Australian TV uncut.

In 1999, Catherine Breillat outdid herself when she directed Romance X with Caroline Ducey, Sagamore Stévenin, and porn actor Rocco Siffredi. The film contained “unsimulated” sex accompanied with heavy philosophizing.

In 2000, Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi co-directed Baise-Moi, a film that showed explicit sex throughout the film. The film is anything but erotic.

In England, respected actors Mark Rylance and Kerry Fox starred in Patrice Chereau’s Intimacy (2001). There is also a fellatio scene. While Detmers and Pitzalis were young and beautiful, Rylance and Fox were middle aged and average-looking. Yet the Intimacy fellatio scene appeared more intrinsic to the film than the one in Detmers’ movie. Rylance is the Director of Shakespeare’s Globe Theater while Fox (An Angel at my Table) is an established New Zealand actress.

Mainstream British filmmaker Michael Winterbottom upped the ante with his 9 Songs (2005). The film’s actors Kieran O’Brien and newcomer Margo Stilley performed unsimulated sex which was shown in its entire splendor.

Cult director John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus (2006) contains graphic sex but is also innovative, provocative and presents several perspectives on sex. It won several awards in international festivals.

Shortbus lead actress Sook-Yin Lee found out that having sex on screen may be dangerous to one’s job. Her bosses at Canadian Broadcasting Corp (CBC) fired her because of her sex act in Shortbus. Lee was a host of a radio program. The public and several celebrities like Francis Ford Coppola, Julianne Moore, Gus Van Sant, David Cronenberg, and Yoko Ono rallied to her support until CBC relented.

THE SEXUAL SUBJECT

In the documentary, Hugh Hefner said that his magazine’s centerfold is their way of saying, “hey, good girls want sex, too.” While Mr. Hefner isolates himself in his mansion with a bevy of bunnies, the rest of the word has grown up. World cinema has grappled with the sexual subject in all its manifestations.

Cinema offers us representations or versions of reality. When it comes to sexual activity, the manner and limits of representation in mainstream cinema continue to be passionately debated.