Yorgos Lanthimos talks about sex scenes and breaking taboos in “Poor Things” – IndieWire

There’s more (much more) to “Poor Things” than explicit and (downright) crazy sex and nudity, but inevitably, questions about it will continue to arise from director Yorgos Lanthimos.

That includes during a recent IndieWire interview with the film’s screenwriter, Tony McNamara, with whom Lanthimos has been collaborating since his Oscar-winning 2018 film “The Favourite.” But even that film can’t quite prepare you for the story of Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter, who A reanimated corpse embarks on an epic journey of soul and body to learn the true meaning of being human. Bella’s exciting journey takes her from Gothic-inspired Victorian London to Lisbon to a Mediterranean cruise line and eventually to a brothel in Paris, where she learns that she can indulge in her favorite pastime and get paid while doing so.

Returning to the Venice Film Festival where Poor Things premiered, Lanthimos asked: “Why is there no sex in films?” Well, he answered this open question with a lot The sex is on screen in this movie, including with Mark Ruffalo as the lusty Duncan Weddenburn.

Here, Macnamara and Lanthimos adapt Alasdair Grey’s 1992 novel, paring down its epistolary framework to explore Bella’s subjectivity more deeply—which means being true to her search for her erotic self in all its forbidden glory. Cautious quarters of the public might be shocked, while no one, even one familiar with European art, would be scandalized.

“Poor Things” is by no means pornographic, but you have to wonder how this shamelessly sex-obsessed film made it past the MPA system without an NC-17.

“Initially with the script, there wasn’t any kind of concern, but maybe after the film was shot, it became a reality,” Lanthimos said when asked if there were requests from the studio or production side to cut back on the film’s expenses. Erotic preoccupations in the scenario or post-stages. “It’s just a matter of knowing how a very specific group of people will perceive it and react to it. I find it a strange process anyway, but I don’t think there was much in the end. We showed the film, and we made small adjustments in order to get it to get an R rating.”

“But it was always meant to be this way,” Lanthimos added. It was very important to be true to Bella’s character, and it was very important that she not be ashamed of anything, not just sex, but her interactions and her relationships and the way she perceives the world, and the way she wants to experience it. The world, all of it.”

Its star Emma Stone, who bares it all in the film in her freest and funniest performance yet, felt the same way. “The sexual side of it was the same. We had to deal with it the same way we dealt with everything else.” “Otherwise it would be too disingenuous for the character. That’s what Emma felt too, and that’s what we did. You can only go by your own perception of what’s right, (whether) it’s violence, sex, comedy, drama or music.

Have American films become more modest in general? “People say, ‘Oh, there’s too much sex on TV.’ It’s a weird kind of separation of genres,” Lanthimos said. “From where I come from, you expect movies to be bolder and more personal. But I think that in Anglo-Saxon countries or America, television might be more free from this kind of taboo. I have no idea. I can only be true to the things I want to make and the story and character I’m telling.

In fact, “Poor Things” has been 12 years in the making for Lanthimos, since he first met Alisdair Gray, who died in 2019. While he worked on previously written material with McNamara, “Poor Things” still makes a bold statement. From the personal style Lanthimos established in nuclear family neltdowns like “Dogtooth” and “The Killing of a Sacred Deer” or dystopian romance “The Lobster.”

“I always want to actually quit after every time I make a film, I want to retire, because it’s so hard and exhausting. After finishing one, I’m like, why am I doing this? I don’t want to do this again! Maybe I’ll do something else,” the director said. Of course time goes by and you forget all that, you get drawn to something new and you want to improve yourself.”

What would it take for Lanthimos to stop making films altogether? “I wouldn’t like it if movie theaters didn’t exist. I don’t know if I would be as excited about making movies just for iPhones and laptops. Maybe if you didn’t have another outlet, maybe, but that would be a devastating thing. I don’t think it’s external to me in The first place, which is the reason why I stop. It would be like that if I wasn’t interested in exploring other characters. Even if such a devastating thing happened, like no cinema, if you still had the desire to explore, you would compromise and find another way. … “To stop that would be a much more personal thing, like feeling like nothing is progressing, or the stress is so intense it’s unbearable. That’s what I think about every time I finish, but then it goes away.”

“Poor Things” opens in select Searchlight Pictures theaters on Friday, December 8, with the following expansion.