Sexual Cinema: Kinsey

Sexual Cinema: Kinsey
by Steve Finkelstein

It seems that the “moral values” crowd that re-elected Bush (and who were more upset about the fellatio follies that bedeviled Bill Clinton than the unjust war currently being waged in Iraq) is on the warpath again. This time they’re screaming bloody hell about the current excellent film Kinsey, which is about the famous Indiana university professor who conducted ground-breaking sex surveys in the late 40’s and early 50’s. On cable news programs, these “purveyors of morality” falsely claim that Kinsey was a pedophile and threaten to boycott this film (like they were gonna see it anyway). These hypocritcal members of the “flat-earth society” are the same sniggering “red state” prudes who secretly revel in the lascivious goings-on of Desperate Housewives on Sunday nights, clad only in raincoats.

(What does this have to do with the film I am about to review? Absolutely nothing! I just wanted to hook the readers in with a lurid opening tease.)

Onto the review:

Kinsey—Oscar-winning writer/director Bill Condon (Gods and Monsters) with this biopic of sex-surveyor Alfred Kinsey, has turned in another excellent film. Liam Neeson as Kinsey and Laura Linney as his wife both turn in Academy Award caliber performances. Condon’s direction is stylish and first rate. One sequence stands out in particular: Condon demonstrates the interview process where 18,000 people were surveyed about their sex lives, depicting them as disembodied talking heads that rapidly pop up and multiply exponentially on a map of the United States. It’s an excellent and economically done piece of exposition, and the film is filled with such sequences.

That Condon succeeds so brilliantly is quite an accomplishment, because Alfred Kinsey was not the most likeable of characters. A former zoologist who specialized in the study of gall wasps, Kinsey at times behaves like an unfeeling robot, treating his research team and survey subjects more like insects than human beings. This even extends to the sequence where he has a homosexual affair with one of his research assistants (Peter Sarsgaard). The affair comes off as less a manifestation of Kinsey’s desires and more like field research!

Kinsey’s two sexual surveys, which were conducted in the late 40’s and early 50’s, are still controversial, because they showed that thousands of people were engaging in acts that were considered “deviant” (i.e. “forbidden sexual positions,” masturbation, oral sex, homosexuality, etc.) by the public at large then, and today.

There’s a touching scene toward the end of the movie where an interview subject (Lynn Redgrave), who portrays a bisexual married woman, says how Kinsey’s surveys saved her from suicide by demonstrating that bisexual behavior was far more common than previously thought. Many will view this as as Kinsey’s (and Condon’s) plea for tolerance. The “moral values”crowd will probably see this as Condon pushing an agenda, particularly since Condon is gay. They will also likely be outraged at the torrid gay love scene between Kinsey and his assistant. (An honest personal aside: this scene made me a tad uneasy. Hopefully I don’t come across like a square homophobe.) These bigoted,
reactionary types should be ignored as the backwards fools that they are. Shut them out and rush to see Kinsey, which is a finely crafted, eye opening study of human sexuality.

Afterthought—A friend of mine who knows me as a tough critic asked me the following question: “What’s with all the favorable reviews lately? Are you possessed?” A fair enough question, which now brings me to the interesting method of how I select the movies I see. The film genres I enjoy most are horror and science fiction. The reason for this is that when these genres properly deliver their fantasy goods, I find them to be the most vital of film genres, and when they’re bad (which is often), they are often unintentionally hysterical, delivering great campy entertainament. Either way, I end up enjoying the film. It’s for those reasons, that when I go to see a major film of these genres, I do it without the benefit of reviews. It’s a different matter for the other film genres, however. In that instance, I rely upon the fine critics of the following publications: the New York Times, Time and Newsweek. If at least two out of these three publications give favorable reviews to a film, I’ll see it; less, then I pass. It’s not a foolproof method, but I’ve seen many fine films this way.

Combine my film selection method with the fact that, at this time of the year, studios roll out their highest quality films for Oscar consideration, and you can see why I've seen so many good films lately. So to answer my friend's question—no, I'm not possessed.

See you soon.

Steve can be reached at steve@babblog.com.