Talking Seduction with "Fish Tank" director Andrea Arnold

I can barely remember the first time I had sex. I mean, I remember the details of picking up a bar-back named Jeff at the Limelight nightclub in the early nineties and letting him take me back to his apartment for some straight-up screwing. What I don’t recall is any mind-blowing sensation – any “eureka!” moment of realization, of suddenly knowing that that’s what the big deal was. To me a one-night-stand seemed akin to just another night of sweaty clubbing.

Yet I do remember the first time I got mind-fucked. It left me in a state of ecstasy greater than any vanilla sex ever had. And I can recall those details vividly the same way a born again Christian recollects the moment of finding true religion. It was Thanksgiving weekend 1995 and I was in Boston visiting my friend Aimee who was attending Harvard at the time. It was at the goth club Man Ray that I met Arthur, tall with a mane of long black hair flowing down the back of his black leather jacket, a twinkle in his eye and a half-amused smile on his face that said he’d seen (and tamed) oh-so-cool types like me many times before. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted a man mostly because he was so aloof, exuded the unattainable. Yet I did work my flirtatious skills enough to get him to accompany me back to Aimee’s Cambridge pad where I soon made a move to meet his lips as he gently stroked my leg while we sat on the couch. His arm shot out, hand grabbing my hair as he pulled me away then kissed me instead. As things got hotter and heavier and I straddled his lap fully clothed he deftly pinned my arms behind my back, held me still as if taking mental note of this unusual pose for future reference. Then he asked me what I was into. “Sex,” I answered confused. “Just sex?” he wondered in his Schwarzenegger-sounding accent. “Sure, why? What are you into?” I countered feeling my naïve age (nearly a decade his junior). “Bondage,” he replied firmly stating the sexiest word I’d ever heard. And then out of the blue Arthur announced he didn’t do one-night-stands, that he’d call and come visit me in NYC sometime soon. Despite my protests that bordered on shameless begging he stood up and sauntered out the door. Leaving me shocked and angry, and sexually frustrated and utterly thrilled all at the same time. That was the night I fell madly in love with BDSM.

Of course, this is just one of a million stories of sexual awakening in the naked city. (And yes, Arthur stayed true to his word.) More recently, I thought about this life altering experience and the myriad forms of seduction and loss of innocence while reviewing “Fish Tank,” Andrea Arnold’s stunning follow up to her equally visceral, Cannes-winning debut “Red Road.” In the film Michael Fassbender’s older man Connor has an extremely hot and unnerving encounter with Katie Jarvis’s teenage Mia, the rebellious daughter of his partying girlfriend. Arnold herself is less a feminist than part of an exciting tide of British directors, Shane Meadows included, who are redefining the kitchen sink realism of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh for a new post-punk generation. But when I sat down with the critically acclaimed director at the Soho Grand a few weeks back that gorgeously specific, coming-of-age scene in “Fish Tank” stood foremost in my mind. Fortunately, the very accessible Arnold was more than happy to shed light on the importance of detail, female insight and listening to imaginary horses.







LW: First off, one of the things that most impresses me is how concise and precise the images are in your films. You say everything you need to say within the least amount of frames. Obviously a lot of people are going to think of the kitchen sink realism of Loach and Leigh but there’s also a poetic, nearly Neorealist quality to your work. Can you talk a bit about your filmmaking influences?

AA: Ooh, I have quite a lot. Everyone from Terence Malick to the Dardenne brothers to David Lynch, Michael Haneke –

LW: “The White Ribbon.” Everyone hated it but me. (laughs)

AA: Yeah, I saw it at Telluride. I don’t know if I was just in a funny mood that day, but it was the first time during a Haneke film that I wanted to leave the cinema.

LW: That’s good!

AA: Yeah, I know. He wants me to feel that way.

LW: Well, you direct in a similar way. I mean, you don’t have a comfortable filmmaking style at all. That seduction scene between Connor and Mia, which is the centerpiece of “Fish Tank” – that’s damn hard to watch.

AA: Yeah, one of my friends described it as “everything I didn’t want and everything I wanted.”

LW: Let’s talk a little bit about that disturbing scene, because interestingly, I found myself smiling during it.

AA: (laughs surprised) Oh, really?

LW: Yes, but what made me smile was the realization that this is a director who actually “gets it” – how seduction can turn to coercion in the blink of an eye. I can’t remember when I’ve seen this rite-of-passage aspect even depicted onscreen and yet it’s something a lot of teenage girls go through. It was like a catharsis for me to see it. It’s also a situation few teenage boys ever experience, which is maybe why male filmmakers wouldn’t think to depict it. Can you talk a bit about its importance and how you developed it? It also happens to be the most visually stylized scene in the film.

AA: Well, I think a lot of it just starts with the writing. When I’m writing I try hard to imagine that situation and how it would really be. And a lot of the details, I think it goes back to what you were saying about being precise. I’m able to concentrate on details, to really think them through, to really imagine them. Quite often there will be some strange detail that I don’t even understand. There was an earlier short where I wanted a shot of a balloon floating across this wasteland. And I’m getting everyone to do the shot, and I don’t think they understood quite what I was getting at, but I somehow knew it was really important.

LW: David Lynch works that way.

AA: Oh really? Does he? (laughs flattered) Well, like with the horse in this film. When I was writing about the horse –

LW: Was that the first image that you had when you started writing?

AA: No, it wasn’t the first. But when I started writing at the beginning always there was that horse. I actually wrote two different beginnings, just trying to find my way into the story, to try to see this person, to ask, “What is she doing on this day?” Yet every time I started writing about her, every time I came at it a different way, the story still came from the horse. And the horse in the script was always an old, dirty brown horse. It wasn’t a white one. But she just kept meeting that horse so I thought, well, the horse is supposed to be there. I didn’t question it. A couple people said it was a metaphor – a heavy-handed metaphor – but I never meant for it to be a metaphor for her situation. The horse just wanted to be there.

LW: Sometimes a horse is just a horse.

AA: Maybe so.

“Fish Tank” is now playing at a theater near you. My review and interview with lead actor Michael Fassbender is now playing at Slant Magazine.

My Fave Film of The Past Decade

If I had to choose only one movie of the past ten years to be stranded with on a deserted island it would be Martin Campbell’s smart and sassy “Casino Royale.” The director and his cast and crew collectively returned a sense of fun and play not only to the Bond franchise, but to the blockbuster as well. This popcorn flick’s got something to lure practically everyone into abandoning oneself to the magic of the screen. There’s richly drawn characters embodied not by stars but by highly skilled, hardworking actors (a definition that still fits Daniel Craig despite the film’s subsequently launching him into the cinematic stratosphere). Watch the chemistry between and concentrated performances from the likes of Craig (as a thuggish Bond cut from the roguish Connery cloth), Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre and Jeffrey Wright as Felix Leiter during that famous high-stakes poker tournament – they could just as easily be performing Mamet on Broadway! The film’s action sequences are actually thrilling because they are organically connected to the swift-moving script, as opposed to mere excuses to blow something up so as not to disappoint a test market audience. Not to mention the riveting storyline keeps you on the edge of your seat like Ian Fleming’s page-turners did in the first place. Heck, as an added bonus there’s even a steamy gay leather scene between (my personal fetish object) Craig and sexy Mikkelsen! “Casino Royale” is classic, feel-good, Hollywood comfort food served up with just the right amount of spice.

Better Than Santa: The 12 Acts of Christmas

Take a dash of burlesque, a scoop of modern dance mixed with classic ballet, plenty of candy cane-colored costumes, some sultry cabaret lighting, a rocking score stuffed with updated versions of holiday standards, sprinkle generously with vaudeville, then toss it all up in midair and you’ve got “The 12 Acts of Christmas” presented by Suspended Cirque, the sexiest troupe of aerial performers on the other side of the Hudson. I trekked through a blizzard to get to the warm intimate setting of the Galapagos Art Space in DUMBO for the only evening performance of their winter spectacular this year. (The weather outside was frightful but that dominatrix Santa sure was delightful!)

The entire show was one euphoric toy train ride, from its opening winking catfight routine and Santa riding a unicycle on the ground, to “Michelle on Fabric Skating in the Air” and “Angela and her Rope on a Silent Night” high above. There’s a touching, old-fashioned sensibility to this troupe, a reverence for burlesque and vaudeville, for slapstick and flappers. (“Michelle Drunk at a Party” could be a Chaplin routine – if Chaplin were a yogi.) Suspended Cirque combined the bawdy fun of the holiday season with the true beauty in its meaning via ropes, trapezes, sturdy fabric and hoops – not to mention the Peter Pan aerialists whose own bodies manage to defy both gravity and the human form itself. And the childlike thrill these talented folks take in performance is both exhilarating and downright contagious. For them the sheer joy of flying is a calling, and we as the audience are merely being allowed to live vicariously through them, to feel a part of their fantasy made real for a couple of hours. This is nothing less than transcendental performance art. Laced with Viagra.

For there’s a deep rooted sexiness that lies in the mingling of physicality and spirituality, allowing a transcendence of the self. With the dexterity of jungle animals and the enthusiasm of kids climbing trees the company uses each other’s bodies, even their own limbs as ropes, utilizing flesh on flesh to create. As they seamlessly move from floor to ceiling, as if walking on air is the most natural thing in the world, the need to be air born becomes a palpable hunger, an orgasmic drive. There’s a lust for life that encompasses the room. Indeed, watching “The Ladies of Suspended Cirque on the Triangle Trapeze” camp it up in miniskirts and glitter, mock pushing then catching one another from on high to a club mix of “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” it’s hard to believe that any dream wouldn’t come true.

So Cold He's Hot

“Race,” the latest David Mamet play to open on Broadway, stars the effortlessly brazen James Spader. Spader, of course, has fashioned an entire career playing slick, sexy scoundrels whose looks allow them to get away with behavior a lesser nebbish like Woody Allen would get locked up for. For nearly three decades(!), and in a feat incomparable to any other actor of his generation, Spader has repeatedly and subversively performed his own form of jujitsu on Hollywood typecasting. Consistently he's cashed in on his leading man, pretty boy looks while simultaneously embodying character actor assholes—in the process exposing the very essence of sex appeal. In contrast, a star like Tom Cruise is a good guy at heart, forever excusing his high wattage looks in an "Aw shucks, don't hate me because I'm beautiful" appeal. Spader is Cruise's polar opposite, both refusing to apologize for the genes life dealt him and not caring one iota whether we like him or not. Frankly, my dear, he doesn't give a damn. Spader's sexiness—as opposed to mere physical attributes—lies in his flaunting of genuine self-confidence through his characters.

To read the rest visit my “Sex Beat” column at Carnal Nation.

Beyond Queer: "The Lily's Revenge"

Once upon a time, there was an entity called community. It evolved out of the retro notion that people needed one another both to survive and thrive. It began with blood ties, since in the old days most of the support network around an individual happened to have a biologically-related component. But as people ventured out of these clans and the world became more global, communities became more fluid. Those whose blood ties fell short of support suddenly began to band together to form new families. These new outsider families were given labels—Beat, hippie, punk, queer—and often overlapped in their membership. But then a strange thing happened. As those communities grew, they began to splinter into ever more niches until identity suddenly required the individual to choose sides against oneself and family. Were you a lesbian first and a black woman second? And why would a black lesbian set foot in a white gay male bar? Where once there was a GLBT community that felt unrepresented in the media and in society at large, there's now a queer silent majority reeling from the over-saturated mainstream images of a cookie-cutter gay life they don't conform to or recognize at all.

To read the rest visit my “Sex Beat” column at Carnal San Francisco.

CineKink: San Francisco, November 19-21

Mark your calendars for the west coast edition! Our “Un Piede di Roman Polanski” will be screening Saturday, November 21st as part of the Best of CineKink/2009 Shorts Sampler program. Stop on by!

Sexual Violence and "The New Guignol"

My most delectable Halloween treat last week was attending “The New Guignol,” an evening of short, ripped from the perverse-but-true headlines plays presented by The Blood Brothers and Nosedive Productions at my new haunt, The Brick Theater in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Of course a Grand Guignol show, theater's answer to a haunted house, is pretty much critic-proof, akin to reviewing a night of campfire tales. Either you delight in the horror – which I unequivocally did – or you find yourself nodding off anxious to crawl into the nearest sleeping bag. (I was especially fond of the patter and chemistry between “blood brother” actors/directors Pete Boisvert and Patrick Shearer, who served as our Uncle Fester looking guides through the simultaneously gory and hilarious vignettes.) Acting, directing, sets, lighting and costume design are mere accompaniments to the spectacle of body parts and stage blood, and savoring that which is taboo in proper real life.

To read the rest visit my “Sex Beat” column at Carnal San Francisco.