Intimacy is a 2001 erotic drama film directed by Patrice Chéreau from a screenplay he co-wrote with Anne-Louise Trividic, based on stories by Hanif Kureishi (who also wrote a novel of the same title). It stars Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance. The film is an international co-production between France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy,[2] featuring a soundtrack of pop songs from the 1970s and 1980s. Intimacy contains an unsimulated fellatio scene by Fox on Rylance.[3][4] A French-dubbed version features voice actors Jean-Hugues Anglade and Nathalie Richard.
| Intimacy | |
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 French theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Patrice Chéreau |
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| Based on | Intimacy by Hanif Kureishi |
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| Starring |
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| Cinematography | Eric Gautier |
| Edited by | François Gédigier |
| Music by | Éric Neveux |
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| Language | English |
| Box office | $2.7 million[1] |
The film has been associated with the New French Extremity.[5]
Plot
editJay is a bartender who abandoned his family because his wife lost interest in him and their relationship. Now living alone in a decrepit house, he has intense weekly sex with a woman whose name he does not know. At first, their relationship is purely physical, but he develops an emotional attachment to her.
Wanting to know more about her, Jay follows her across the streets of London to the grey suburbs where she lives. He then follows her to a pub theatre where she is working as an actress in the evenings. Jay learns that her name is Claire, and she has a husband and a son. Subsequently, she makes it clear to Jay that she will not leave her family, and won't see him anymore.
Cast
edit- Kerry Fox as Claire
- Mark Rylance as Jay
- Susannah Harker as Susan, Jay's wife
- Alastair Galbraith as Victor
- Philippe Calvario as Ian
- Timothy Spall as Andy, Claire's husband
- Marianne Faithfull as Betty
- Fraser Ayres as Dave
- Michael Fitzgerald as bar owner
- Robert Addie as bar owner
- Rebecca Palmer as Pam, girl in squat
Reception
editIntimacy was placed at 91 on Slant Magazine's best films of the 2000s.[6]
In a 2001 lengthy column for The Guardian, Alexander Linklater described the jealousy he experienced when his partner Kerry Fox took the real-sex role in this movie. Linklater concludes that he accepted the unsimulated oral scene, but he insists that the sexual intercourse is an illusion.[3] Nevertheless, critics have declared its realist tendencies. Linda Williams, for instance, writes that "Intimacy opens with urgent, hurried and explicit penetrative sex"[7] and Tanya Krzywinska writes that in this first scene "the spectator is left in little doubt that penetration has occurred".[8]
In a 2015 interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mark Rylance spoke of his experience on the film. At the time of the film's release, talk of the film's unsimulated sex scenes in tabloids added stress on his marriage. Rylance commented, "It soured me on my life two months. It’s my mistake, but I felt Patrice [Chéreau] put undue pressure on me on set to do that. And at that point I didn’t have the confidence as a film actor to say no. Now I think a lot of actors that people say are difficult are actually just being sensible.”[9]
Awards
editIntimacy won the Golden Bear for Best Film and the Silver Bear for Best Actress (Kerry Fox) at the Berlin Film Festival in 2001.[10]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Intimacy (2001)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ "Intimité (2002)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 9 March 2017. Retrieved 18 April 2022.
- ^ a b "Dangerous liaisons". TheGuardian.com. 22 June 2001.
- ^ "Intimacy". whatculture.com. 14 February 2016. Archived from the original on 6 December 2021.
- ^ Quandt, James (February 2004). "Flesh & blood: sex and violence in recent French cinema". Artforum. Archived from the original on 10 August 2004. Retrieved 10 July 2008.
- ^ "Best of the Aughts: Film". Slant Magazine. 7 February 2010. Retrieved 10 February 2010.
- ^ Williams, Linda (22 April 2008). "Hard-Core Art Film: The Contemporary Realm of the Senses". issuu.com. Retrieved 30 January 2022.
- ^ Tulloch, John; Middleweek, Belinda (2017). Real Sex Films: The New Intimacy and Risk in Cinema. Oxford University Press. p. 97. ISBN 978-0190244613.
- ^ Goldman, Andrew (5 March 2015). "Damian Lewis and Mark Rylance Star in PBS Masterpiece's 'Wolf Hall'". The Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
- ^ "Prizes & Honours 2001". www.berlinale.de. Retrieved 11 October 2022.
Further reading
edit- Frey, Mattias. (2016) Extreme Cinema: The Transgressive Rhetoric of Today’s Art Film Culture. London: Rutgers University Press.
- Krzywinska, Tanya. (2006) Sex and the Cinema. London: Wallflower.
- Palmer, Tim. (2011) Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
- Williams, Linda. (2007) ‘Hard-Core Art Film: The Contemporary Realm of the Senses’, Quaderns portàtils, (13), pp. 1–20.