Sex in the Cinema

Keynote Speaker:
Professor Linda Ruth Williams (University of Southampton)

"I know it when I see it": Sex, simulation and classification in mainstream cinema since the 1990s.

THE SECOND ANNUAL POSTGRADUTE STUDY DAY WILL EXPLORE THE FOLLOWING TOPIC

What is the role of sex in mainstream cinema? When is sex art and when is it pornography? Art cinema has a long tradition of making films with sexually explicit scenes. How is the line drawn differently in different contexts of world cinema? For example, Lust, Caution by Ang Lee brings into question issues of censorship, distribution and transnational spectatorship. In one cultural context the film is seen as pornography and in another as art cinema.

Representation and perception of sex differ according to cultural, religious and political formations. ‘Sex in the Cinema’ will deal with these issues in an informative, constructive sense and aims at giving some answers to the question of how and why we incorporate, or refuse to incorporate, images of sex into cinema.


The Centre for Film Studies

CENTRE FOR FILM STUDIES
Postgraduate Study Day
University of St Andrews, 15 May 2008

Program:
9.30 Keynote:
Professor Linda Ruth Williams (University of Southampton)
"I know it when I see it": Sex, simulation and classification in mainstream cinema since the 1990s.

11.00 Coffee

11.30 Student led workshop:
The Cinematic Encounter with Sex
Postgraduates present clips of their choice: Lies (1999), Lie with Me (2005), Lust Caution (2007), The Idiots (1998)

1.00 Lunch

2.00 Screening:
Shortbus (John Cameron Mitchell, 2006)
“Voyeurism is Participation”

4.00 Round Table:
Locating the Pornographic Image in Art Cinema

5.45 Close
Summing up by Dr David Martin-Jones (Head of Film Studies)