Italian bishops condemned for urging actors to shun sex scenes

Times of London ^ | 02/15/08 | Richard Owen

[TigerLikesRooster]

Italian bishops condemned for urging actors to shun sex scenes

Richard Owen in Rome

A row has erupted over “Vatican interference” after the Italian Synod of Bishops appealed to actors to exercise their consciences and refuse to take part in “vulgar and destructive” erotic scenes in films.

The appeal follows public condemnation by the bishops of an explicit sex scene in Caos Calmo, starring the Italian actor and director Nanni Moretti, which has just been released. In the film, directed by Antonello Grimaldi, Moretti plays a television executive who experiences a mid-life crisis after the death of his wife in the course of which he has a torrid affair with a woman he saves from drowning.

Father Nicolò Anselmi, head of the youth section of the Italian Bishops Conference, said that Moretti was normally noted for his “idealistic and sensitive” films. But the “gratuitous” sex scene with Isabella Ferrari, his co-star, would have an undesirable effect on the “impressionable young” since it was shown without any context involving love or tenderness.

Franco Zeffirelli, the film and opera director, said: “The Church is full of pedants who have lost all sense of proportion.” It was a “fourth-rate” film that did not merit the publicity generated by the bishops' intervention.

The row comes amid charges that the Centre Right, led by Silvio Berlusconi, is playing the Catholic card by making abortion an issue in the run-up to the general election in April. Mr Berlusconi has asked the United Nations to pass a moratorium on abortion and the death penalty.

He said that there was a human “right to life from conception until natural death”. He added, however, that the abortion issue should be left to the individual conscience of citizens, and disassociated himself from Giuliano Ferrara, his former spokesman and editor of the newspaper Il Foglio, who has announced that he will stand for parliament on an exclusively anti-abortion platform.

[TigerLikesRooster]

European movie's last frontier: passing an upscale porn as an artistic film.

Latest European protest culture: nude demonstration.

Coming to Europe in the future: large-scale group sex in public as a means of protest.

When outsiders make issue out of it, the talking point is, "We just do wanton sex, but Americans do gruesome violence."

[kittymyrib]

When Italy becomes Muslim, there will be no such arguments...or movies of any kind. Problem “solved.”

[fieldmarshaldj]

I’d rather have porn and no Mohammadans rather than Mohammadans and no porn.

[Nextrush]

Its a porno world out there and I’m glad someone is drawing a line somewhere.

Its not funny when you see how it sucks up children into problems that cause harm to them.

Sex is marketed in sleazier ways all the time till you get sick of it.

[YOUGOTIT]

As the trash continues to pile up and the toxic waste continues to be brought from the north to southern Italy and placed in the lakes, rivers, and on the farms. And as the cancer rate goes up every day in Campania which is now called the “Capitale dei Rifiuti del Mondo” (Trash Capital of the World) there should be no films until the people who are spreading the waste are rounded up and transported to China where they are now sending toxic waste for what reason I cannot find out.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Bishops say "Use conscience," celebs say "Stop interfering." Reminds me of the guy who wrestled with his conscience, and lost.

Or this old anecdote:

- Dad, I'm going on a date. Can I borrow your car?
-- Here's the keys, son.
- Can I borrow $40?
-- Sure, son.
- Can I borrow your fleece jacket?
-- Here ya go....uh, and have a good time, son.
-(Snarling) Old man, don't tell me how to live my life!

[allmendream]

I am about as far from being prudish as is possible, but I do think I have taste and discernment.

I LOATHE it when you watching cinema and suddenly it becomes skineama. I LOVE nudity in films and look forward to it if ‘warned’ that a movie staring a particularly attractive woman contains nudity. What I HATE is seeing two actors humping on each other, making the beast with two backs. They can leave that to our imagination.

I loved the movie “300”, but did NOT need to see King Leonidas doing Queen Gorgo doggy style (I laughed out loud at the tawdriness of it). All I wanted or needed to see was Lena Headley and Gerard Butler get naked together (hopefully full frontal on Lena) and a good standing butt shot of her leading him to bed; then fade to black. We know what happens in the bed and don’t need to see it.

Just my opinion. Save the soft core for skinemax movies, show us how gorgeous the actress you casted for the role is naked, then show the actors hopping into bed; and that is all that is needed and anything more is gratuitous.

[Mr Ramsbotham]

In the film, directed by Antonello Grimaldi, Moretti plays a television executive who experiences a mid-life crisis after the death of his wife in the course of which he has a torrid affair with a woman he saves from drowning.

Sounds fairly original.

[TigerLikesRooster]

Yeah, it blew my mind, too./s

[livius]

I agree. I think suggestion is much better than watching the “real thing,” anyway. Face it - the act itself isn’t exactly aesthetically attractive, and I honestly can’t think of any situation in which it is necessary for a movie to actually show it.

IMHO, the mandatory sex scene stops the action and is just thrown in as a bit of sensationalism; however, it’s gotten so routine now that it doesn’t even create a sensation anymore. In other words, it serves absolutely no purpose.

[allmendream]

Agree completely. It isn’t even that exciting, you don’t see the beauty of the actress, just simulated sex - which as you rightly pointed out is NOT aesthetically attractive.

I think to push the ‘envelope’ they threw in doggy style; but that just made me laugh as even MORE inappropriate. Hardly the reaction they were going for I am sure. All for seeing Lena Headley nekkid; but do not need to see her humping on Gerard Butler.

Yes, it serves no purpose in moving the story forward. We knew Queen Gorgo loved her husband by her expression when she told him “Spartan! Come back with your shield or upon it!”. It was what duty demanded her to say, but her eyes said “I love you”. And when Leonidas sent back his necklace to her and his friend asked if there was any message, the King said ‘No’. But the message was “I love you!”. We didn’t need to see him doing her to know he loved her. The sex scene was entirely gratuitous.

[Bitsy]

Sex is marketed in sleazier ways all the time till you get sick of it.

Some of the greatest films of all times had no outright sex scenes in them. Some say we have become a more sophisticated audience. I say it is easier to make and sell a film today with gratuitous sex than to actually have to a creative and talented mind. Is it sophisticated or deviant are these film making creatures?