| 9 Songs | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Michael Winterbottom |
| Written by | Michael Winterbottom |
| Produced by |
|
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Marcel Zyskind |
| Edited by |
|
Production company | Revolution Films |
| Distributed by | Optimum Releasing |
Release date |
|
Running time | 70 minutes[1] |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Budget | £1 million |
| Box office | $1.6 million[2] |
9 Songs is a 2004 Britishartromanticdrama film written and directed byMichael Winterbottom. The film starsKieran O'Brien andMargo Stilley. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film.
The film was controversial upon original release due to its sexual content, which includedunsimulated footage of the two leads,Kieran O'Brien andMargo Stilley, havingsexual intercourse and performingoral sex as well as a scene ofejaculation.[3] The film was showcased at theCannes Film Festival.
Having met at aBlack Rebel Motorcycle Club gig Matt and Lisa, an exchange student, have intercourse, the next day she leaves for work. Matt narrates the relationship from the future, where he is a climatologist inAntarctica.
After seeingThe Von Bondies Matt performs cunnilingus on Lisa, then they have sex on the sofa. They do somecocaine and have sex, a few days later they seeElbow. They stay at a cottage and in the bath Lisa gives Matt afootjob. He swims nude in the sea, they seePrimal Scream. They have sex and go clubbing. The next morning he blindfolds her and ties her up then performscunnilingus on her. After having sex they see The Dandy Warhols. Lisa is once more blindfolded, and Matt fingers her, they then visit astrip club where nude women dance on Lisa. Remembering the naked women Lisa masturbates using a dildo. Matt walks out and leaves Lisa at the strip club. This causes them to become distant. The next morning Matt watches Lisa masturbate, disappointed.
Matt goes to theSuper Furry Animals alone. They argue, but later Lisa buys some high heeled leather boots and ties Matt up, and they have sex. The next morning she fellates him and we see him ejaculate. They seeFranz Ferdinand, then stay at a hotel for Matt's birthday, they do some cocaine before going to aMichael Nyman concert and Lisa tells Matt she is returning to America.
The next morning they have sex, Lisa on top of Matt. At Christmas after Lisa leaves. Years later Matt is flying over Antarctica. We see the Black Rebel Motorcycle Club close the film.
On the first day of filming in the fall of 2003, Margo Stilley and Kieran O'Brien shot a scene where they are just kissing and taking their clothes off. "It wasn't until after lunch that we had sex," O'Brien recalls. As would happen throughout the shoot, Winterbottom left little to chance. "He really mapped out everything," O'Brien says. "The order he wanted me to take off my clothes, her clothes, whether my socks stayed on or not. He had specific ideas of how he wanted our bodies to move. Sometimes, he would start us and then stop and say, 'Let's try this from a slightly different angle,' and then take 15 minutes to reset the shot. I wondered if he remembered the delicate machinery of the male sex organ."[4]
9 Songs holds a score of 24% onRotten Tomatoes based on 97 reviews with an average rating of 4.38/10. The site's consensus states: "The unerotic sex scenes quickly become tedious to watch, and the lovers lack the personality necessary to make viewers care about them."[5]Metacritic, which uses aweighted average, assigned the film a score of 43 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[6]
Derek Malcolm ofThe Guardian praised the film: "Nine Songs looks like aporn movie, but it feels like a love story. The sex is used as a metaphor for the rest of the couple's relationship. And it is shot with Winterbottom's customary sensitivity."[7]
Radio Times gave a lackluster review, awarding it two stars out of five and claiming: "From the hot, blurry chaos of the gigs to the sparsely furnished flat where the couple unite, this is very much an exercise in style over content. As such, some will find it a rewarding art house experiment with much to recommend it, others watching simply for the explicit and unsimulated lovemaking may well find it boring and pretentious."[8]
Writing forEast Bay Express, Luke Y. Thompson claimed: "Michael Winterbottom delivers the sex, and not much else." He continued: "Though there isn't much narrative in effect, Winterbottom does quite literally build to a climax...O'Brien iswell endowed, while Stilley is all natural...If the movie were any longer, the onscreen events might become a lot more tedious, but there are just enough different things each time to avoid dull repetition. You may have seen ahandjob onscreen, for instance, but have you ever seen afoot job? It's interesting, to say the least."[9]
According toThe Guardian,9 Songs is the mostsexually explicit mainstream film to date, largely because it includes several scenes of real sex between the two lead actors. The film is unusual in that its lead actors,Margo Stilley andKieran O'Brien, actually had sex on set, much of which is shown clearly in the film, including genital fondling,masturbation with and without avibrator (including a footjob in a bathtub scene),penetrativevaginal sex,cunnilingus andfellatio. During a scene in which Stilley gives O'Brien ahandjob after performing fellatio on him, O'Brien became the only actor who has been shownejaculating in a mainstream, UK-produced feature. To avoid a possible pregnancy, O'Brien wore acondom on his erect penis during the vaginal sex but not while receiving oral sex. Margo Stilley initially asked Winterbottom to refer to her simply by her character's name in interviews about the film.[10]
The release sparked a debate over whether the scenes of explicit sex artistically contributed to the film's meaning or crossed the border into pornography. In the United Kingdom, the film received an18 certificate from theBritish Board of Film Classification and became the most explicit mainstream film to be so rated in the country. MPAnn Widdecombe complained about the film in the UK House of Commons and calling on the Home Secretary to reverse the decision to release it uncut.[11]
In Australia, theOffice of Film and Literature Classification gave the film anX rating, which would have prevented the film from being shown theatrically and restricted sale of the film to the Australian Capital Territory and Northern Territory. The OFLC Review Board later passed the film with an R rating, although the South Australian Classification Council raised the rating back to X inSouth Australia.
InNew Zealand, while theSociety for the Promotion of Community Standards lobbied for the film to be kept out of cinemas, it was passed uncut at R18 by theOffice of Film and Literature Classification. The film was broadcast on New Zealand pay TVRialto Channel in July 2007.
In June 2008, the film was broadcast on Dutch national television by the public broadcasting station VPRO.
