CULTURE> > > FILM

and the Angry Inch, which After narrowing down the is currently enjoying a applicants, a nearly three- successful revival on stage in year workshopping process the US – Shortbus has all the began, and the plotting of the magical realistic hallmarks film was underway. of a movie musical, but rather Among the actors involved than letting music help the in the process were Paul story, Mitchell uses sex. Dawson and Sook-Yin Lee, That is, of course, what who play the two main Shortbus is infamous for; its characters of James and Sofia. unparalleled, unflinching and “I looked at it as these desperately realistic approach weird art camps that I’d to sex. From the beginning of infrequently go to,” Sook-Yin the film’s development, John recalls of the workshops. “It wanted to make a project was nice to leave my work for that contained unsimulated, a couple of weeks to a month, explicit sex scenes. have an adventure in New “The question was,” he says York and foster relationships to us, “why do serious smaller with the people in the cast.” films need to be terrified Having previously worked of explicit sex? There’s with John on Hedwig, Sook- years of complexity in sex itself, at Yin was excited by the DIY least in our lives, so why can’t aspect of the film. “I’m a it be as explicit in a story? filmmaker and I tell a lot of 10 The first time you have sex stories, so I was interested in SHORTBUS with someone that you love coming up with a character is rife with dramatics and that was a combination of Since it’s release in 2006, John Cameron metaphor. Why shy away? myself, but that was also Mitchell’s Shortbus has become an essential Continuing, he adds, greatly fictionalised.” “Whenever you saw sex in Likewise, this is something addition to the canon of alternative a narrative it was either to that Paul Dawson felt drew LGBT+ films. To celebrate a decade of titillate or there was some him to the project. “It was the harsh negativity around it, most pure, artistic experience this important piece of cinema, and with which usually ended in tears I’ll probably ever have in my interviews with the director and two cast and rape.” life,” he says. “To work with members, we tell the unusual story of its John wanted to achieve John is to collaborate; he something different. “There’s insists upon it.” production and explore why its themes are nothing wrong with porn,” he In the film, both Sook-Yin’s still so relevant ten years later. explains, “but there’s more character of Sofia and Paul’s to sex than arousal. There’s character James go through comedy, sadness, depth, immense transformations.

WORDS alim kheraj IMAGES ned stresen-reuter isolation and connectedness. Sofia is married but is I wanted to use sex in a way “pre-orgasmic”, meaning that another film would use she’s never had an orgasm. It’s rare in cinema that, Brooklyn, where sex in all music. Music is a language Meanwhile James, an artist within the first ten minutes its forms is welcome, the and sex is a language. I and filmmaker who’s in a of a film, you witness a man ensemble cast explores the wanted to use it to draw long-term relationship with autofellate and ejaculate in multifaceted and intricate out emotion and comedy, Jamie (played by Paul’s real his own mouth, a woman workings of the human like another paint in the life partner PJ), is suffering and her husband fornicate condition. cinematic paint box.” With with suicidal thoughts and enthusiastically all over an Touching on topics of this in mind, he opened up a what could be described as apartment, and a dominatrix anorgasmia (the inability nationwide casting for ‘The internalised homophobia. prostitute help a man cum so to orgasm), sexual fluidity, Sex Film Project’. “We began with [John] hard that he spurts all over intimacy (or the lack thereof), Receiving around 500 trying to get us to share some a Jackson Pollock. But then self-preservation, sexuality, audition tapes, 40 people of the most difficult aspects Shortbus is no ordinary film. technology and mental were asked to come to New of our lives because he knew Set in the early 2000s, health, you’d be forgiven York to try out for the film, those areas were rich,” Paul Shortbus deals with a myriad for thinking that Shortbus which at the time didn’t have says of the creative process. of characters as they navigate is a recent film; in fact, the a plot or a script. “We were “James was born from a seed their complicated emotional film celebrates its tenth just trying to find couples and of an idea that was from my and sexual lives in a post-9/11 anniversary this October. people that were compatible own experiences.” New York City at the dawning Directed by John Cameron sexually, but who were also That’s not to say that the of the digital age. Converging Mitchell – who is also behind really good actors. We’d then characters were completely at a weekly social, sexual the subversive genderqueer build the story around those autobiographical; John, and artistic salon party in musical dramedy Hedwig we chose,” he says. Sook-Yin and Paul point

70 1 171 CULTURE> > > FILM

out they were fictionalised digital age and you saw a lot of as without it we wouldn’t correctness comes, all three creations, with Paul adding, people start to alienate,” John see Sofia’s unravel from agree, a need for conformity, “At least 25% of each says. “James is so isolated that being uptight to her ultimate both outside and within character is John, because, he makes a suicide note in the breakdown and orgasmic the queer community. ultimately, he wrote it.” shape of a film rather than revelation. “I feel that Sofia As Sook-Yin states: “My Utilising the techniques of reaching out to his lover.” is the walking embodiment understanding is that the visionary directors like Mike Both John and Paul liken this of someone who needs to LGBT+ community has come Leigh and John Cassavetes, self-preservation to today’s give a trigger warning for so far that the movement is the cast and crew held obsession with Instagram everything, which is what’s now mainstream, and it’s so fake press conferences and and self-documentation. impeding her from creating mainstream that it’s become improvisation sessions to “Watching James with his film connections with herself and conser vative.” mine into the characters’ is something that was, at the others,” she says. This, John argues, has backstories. This wasn’t, as time, unusual to see, whereas For Sook-Yin, however, created a hypocritical society Paul remembers, an easy nowadays it’s common to this impediment stems where sexual permissiveness task. “The hardest part is to document our lives,” Paul says. from the growing crisis is available online but use these very tender parts “We try and shape surrounding language and puritanism operates in the of yourself but to keep the our identity with online what can and cannot be said. real world, and is part of character separated from the profiles to try and make an “It dresses itself up to be why he feels Hollywood real you. A few of the younger identity that we can love,” progressive, but then it seems and television hasn’t used cast members had problems he continues. “That’s what a lot of its concerns are very Shortbus to push boundaries. with that.” James was doing with his conformist.” As she says, “Freedom of sexuality and Documenting the experience film; he was turning painful today the persona of Sofia gender are threatening to in a behind the scenes film, situations into something he appears to be everywhere. centralised authority,” he Gifted and Challenged: The could find beautiful.” In the resulting ten years, says. “And I really believe Making of Shortbus, you can This urge to connect and conversations around that a fear of gender – by see the cast and crew begin search for acceptance is sex seem to have stifled, which I mean fear of energies to form a tight-knit creative something that, upsettingly, too. “In 2016 we still can’t both feminine and masculine family, something that was still lives on. “It’s sad talk about sex and we’re – always accompany a fear essential when it came to and troubling that it still screwed,” Sook-Yin says. It’s of sex. There’d be no panic principal photography and resonates today because, in what, perhaps, makes the about queer people if there the sex scenes. Trust became a way, ten years later, we’re concept of the “Shortbus weren’t the horror of the an imperative part of filming; even more isolated,” Paul says. party” so utopian; there’s a feminine. Gay guys aren’t in order for the actors to truly This is mirrored in the film permissible freedom that a allowed to find what they feel comfortable performing with the scary foreshadowing safe space like that creates, call feminine attractive as real sex on camera, they had of mobile apps like Grindr. allowing for discussions and it threatens the patriarchal to feel safe and supported. One scene sees Ceth, a experimentation around power stakes.” John recalls how, during one young man who becomes female and male sexuality, Paul adds: “I wonder if, ten of the rare sexual rehearsals, embroiled in a relationship gender and non-conformity. years later, we aren’t still a one of the actors suggested with James and Jamie, Like the characters bit ahead of our time.” that the entire crew were also utilising a smartphone-like themselves, the Shortbus While we continue to lose naked. In fact, as director, he device called a Yenta 650, salon was based on real-life queer spaces in cities like felt it imperative that he took which geo-locates potential club nights and events of the London and New York, it does part, and in the final orgy husbands. “It’s funny because 90s and late 00s that were feel that this heightened sequence he even performed we invented Grindr,” John born out of a craving for an isolation and lack of oral sex on a woman for the laughs. “Yet what we did is antidote to homogenisation alternative movements may first time. very sweet. Grindr by its very and the isolation of the be, in some way, partly to Shortbus’ enduring charm name insinuates grinding it city. “There really was this blame. Likewise, as increased and importance as a snapshot up and spitting out. Whereas punky, hippie, queer vibe; I xenophobic and conservative of the human experience is ‘yenta’ is the Yiddish for experienced it,” John recalls. rhetoric becomes a mainstay also grounded in the personal matchmaker.” Gentrification and property of society and a Trump journeys of the characters, John argues that this prices, however, always push presidency a real possibility, of which sex is just one is one way that sex and out fringe offerings, but the spirit of Shortbus and its (integral) part. They’re all sexuality has been mutated for John it’s more systemic inherent and freeing urge for searching for something, by technology in the passing than that. “The internet has connectedness feels more whether that be absolution, decade. “It’s the delivery caused those spaces to shrink essential than ever. intimacy, gratification or system of sex that has and become self-conscious,” “Everything I do is to existential answers. It’s what changed,” he says. “The he argues. Like Sook-Yin, he remind people that there are makes this decade-old film internet and Grindr have, believes that constrictions people in our world,” John resonate so much today. certainly in the industrialised on language and digital says, “and that life isn’t just Take, for example, Paul’s Western world, warped the mediums like social media about shouting, but singing, character James, an ex- way that people discover and have helped shift Western dancing and, of course, hustler who has to deal with experience it.” society into one of isolation. having sex.” decades of self-hatred, which Sexual discovery is critical With technological In this difficult time, then, ultimately sees him attempt to the journey that Sook- advances and the shrinkage perhaps it’s our duty to bring suicide. “It was the start of the Yin’s character undergoes of language to fit political the spirit of Shortbus back. l

72 1 173