Why This Is the Sexiest Scene Ever
Byon July 15, 2014
It's no surprise that the creators of Masters of Sex, the acclaimed Showtime series that has just returned for season two, claim as a primary influence the notorious sex scene from Don't Look Now (1973). They sat down to watch 50 sex scenes from various movies when making the show's pilot, and this is what they determined, according to an interview:
So you guys watched 50 sex scenes. What was the sexiest?
[Michelle] Ashford: We all agreed that Dont Look Now, the Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie movie, from 1973, was memorably sexy. Michael Sheen (who plays Masters) loved it. We loved it. And our director, John Madden, said, 'Every love scene I've ever directed was influenced by that movie.' So when we went and watched the film again, we tried to figure out what were we all responding to. We just assumed it must not be trying to be sexy. But that's actually not true the sex is very sexy. But what they did was they shot that sex scene and then they intercut it with all these shots of that couple after sex, getting ready to go out for the evening. And so the aftermath of being together is on their faces, what this intimacy has meant to them. And so all of a sudden you get a whole story, because you're seeing the sex but you're also seeing the effect of the sex.
There's rarely been a lovemaking sequence any hotter, or sharper, than the one featured in Nicolas Roeg's drama, about a couple (Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie) living in Venice in the aftermath of their young daughter's accidental drowning. A film marked by narrative fracturing, disorienting hallucinations, and suggestions of the supernatural, it's a masterwork about the tangled relationships between grief and passion, death and love. And it's one that remains best remembered for its early instance of Sutherland and Christie overcoming their sorrow and reconnecting emotionally via carnal embrace and not only because it's long been rumored that the actors weren't, ahem, just acting.
The debate over whether Sutherland and Christie were actually having sex in Don't Look Now no doubt contributes to the scene's reputation (Roeg, for what it's worth, says it was simulated). Yet what truly continues to make it so memorable is Roeg's astute staging and direction. As they lie next to each other on their bed, Christie slowly, somewhat unthinkingly strokes the nude Sutherland's back, leading him to kiss her hand casual affectionate gestures that enhance the moment's intimacy, and drive the two to turn their full attention to each other. Soon, clothes are being stripped off and flesh is being pressed together in ways that are both awkward and unaffected. There's a rushing-headlong-into-each-other quality to the scene, an impulsive and uncontrollable momentum to Sutherland and Christie grasping at each other, turning each other over, and even attempting somewhat clumsy maneuvers, as when it appears that Christie is thrusting her face into Sutherland's armpit, and he in turn wraps his arm around her body so it almost seems like he's going to flip her over his shoulder.
Such inelegance gives the sequence a compelling naturalism, and is part of the reason people still think the two stars weren't faking it for the camera. Further enhancing the scene, however, is Roeg's masterful decision to interweave shots of the two in bed with post-coital clips of them getting dressed. That intercutting leads to a series of delicate imagery echoes (also found throughout the rest of the film), so that the sight of Christie initiating sex by caressing Sutherland's back is mirrored by a similar act when the two are exiting their apartment, and a glimpse of him placing his hand on her ass at the conclusion of their lovemaking is similarly duplicated by Sutherland behaving likewise as they pass through a hallway door. Such directorial flourishes create a sense of harmony between foreplay, intercourse, and the cool-down period immediately following, intertwining all three as equally vital phases of sex.
Moreover, in those snapshots of Christie and Sutherland putting on their clothes, Don't Look Now suggests both characters' gratification from the sex they've just had. In corresponding images of Sutherland sitting on his bed with a muted grin on his face, and of a happy Christie licking her lips as she stares in the mirror, Roeg enhances the eroticism of the couple's ongoing sex by simultaneously illustrating how much enjoyment each character derives from it even once it's over. By showing us both the sex and what comes after, the film enhances its portrait of its characters' satisfaction and, in Christie's devilish bathroom smile, conveys her measure of self-satisfaction at having thoroughly thrilled her partner. The result is a sequence whose own enduring power comes from its recognition that, when sex is really great, the pleasure lingers.
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