Nervous Cough

Courtney and I – in what must count as a shocking display of un-Americanism – went to see Bertolucci’s The Dreamers last night. An intelligent and provocative film, the responses it squeezed out of the audience of twenty or so offered what I think is an insight into the collective consciousness of the nation.

Without spoiling the film for anyone who intends to watch it (and by all means do) it deals with the political scene in Paris in 1968, cinema, sex, and incestuous relationships through the eyes of three students. During one beautifully edgy disrobing I caught a nervous cough firing out from behind me. It was a mellow, deep, throaty cough; the kind of cough your Dad coughs. You’d expect the owner of this cough to have seen a thing or two. One would presume (he was there with a woman of similar age) he’d been married for many years and is no stranger to the sight of naked female flesh. He had also sought out an art house cinema and an NC-17 rated film. Why, then, was he unnerved by a little post-pubescent petting?

The Dreamers is not a comedy, but it has its comic moments. Courtney and I were the only ones laughing. Did people just not get it, or didn’t they find it funny? No-one walked out in disgust, but the cinema drained pretty quickly as soon as the credits rolled. All of which leaves me wondering: is sex a taboo outside Los Angeles and New York?

In comparison, when Pasolini’s Salo was re-released in the UK a couple of years ago I saw it in a packed cinema. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom is far more graphic and very disturbing. It features killing, sexual humiliation, shit eating and torture. Certainly many sat in shocked silence through much of the film, but there was no awkward coughing. The audience stayed riveted until almost the final credit had rolled, and while they didn’t leave the cinema in a jovial mood, they were talking animatedly. Clumps of them hung around in the cafe to dicuss it some more. There were many criticisms of the film, but no-one was unable to deal with what they’d just seen. There is a stark comparison between that audience of two years ago and the audience of last night.

I am waiting to be proved wrong, but right now I get the impression that the mainstream American attitude to depictions and discussions of sexual matters is analagous to that of a five year-old who blushes and covers his eyes when the couple in the old movie he’s watching start to smooch.