Mondays at 7 p.m.
January 28 through May 13
Introduced by Linda Williams
This series considers the history of the representation of the sex act in cinema. When, why, and how did movies begin to show the "dirty parts" that had once been carefully elided by a cut to a fire burning in a fireplace or a train going through a tunnel? What form did the representation of formerly censored sex acts take in movies nationally and internationally? We will look particularly at the sixties and seventies, across a range of cinematic forms: American avant-garde films whose formal innovations were often matched by sexual innovations; international art films that brought a new sexual sophistication to the narrative film; blaxploitation films that broke longstanding taboos against the representation of racial and interracial sexual relations; the brief era of "porno chic" when American pornography seemed poised to challenge Hollywood; and New Hollywood's response to the challenge of these more "adult" forms. Finally, we will look at the recent phenomenon of explicit sex at the movies.
-Linda Williams
Warning: The very subject of this series means the films present graphic sexual materials, including pornography, that some viewers may find objectionable. Please do not attend these screenings if you are not prepared to engage with this material.Linda Williams is Director of the Film Studies Program. Her books include Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the Frenzy of the Visible (UC Press), and Playing the Race Card: Melodramas of Black and White from Uncle Tom to O.J. Simpson (Princeton). She will present introductions of about twenty minutes to each program. Cinema and the Sex Act is presented through the spring semester in association with a course taught in the Film Studies Program by Professor Williams.
