Description
Book SynopsisFor many years, kisses were the only sexual acts to be seen in mainstream American movies. This title investigates how sex acts have been represented on screen for more than a century and, just as important, how we have watched and experienced those representations.
Trade Review“
Screening Sex is a truly remarkable follow-up to Linda Williams’s groundbreaking book
Hard Core. It reaffirms her place as the leading feminist scholar of the history and theory of on-screen sex. Not that it was ever in doubt.”—
Jane Gaines, author of
Fire and Desire: Mixed Race Movies in the Silent Era“Linda Williams is a terrific storyteller about sex, and, as she tracks the growth of her own cinematically mediated sexual consciousness, we go to the movies with her, imagining as though for the first time new encounters with explicitness, new sexual knowledge, and new spectatorial sensations.”—
Lauren Berlant, author of
The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture“With
Screening Sex, Linda Williams establishes herself as not only
the preeminent scholar of cinematic eroticism, but also the most significant voice in cinema studies of her generation.”—
Eric Schaefer, author of
“Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!” A History of Exploitation Films, 1919–1958Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1. Of Kissing and Ellipses: The Long Adolescence of American Movies (1896–1963) 25
2. Going All the Way: Carnal Knowledge on American Screens (1961–1971) 68
3. Going Further:
Last Tango in Paris,
Deep Throat, and
Boys in the Sand (1971–1972) 112
4. Make Love, Not War: Jane Fonda Comes Home (1968–1978) 155
5. Hard-Core Eroticism:
In the Realm of the Senses (1976) 181
6. Primal Scenes on American Screens (1986–2005) 216
7. Philosophy in the Bedroom: Hard-Core Art since the 1990s 258
Conclusion: Now Playing on a Small Screen near You! 299
Notes 327
Bibliography 379
Index 397
