Themes: Star-Crossed Lovers, Brief Encounters, Sexual Awakening
Main Cast: Margo Stilley, Kieran O'Brien
Release Year: 2004
Country: UK
Run Time: 69 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Plot
A relationship between a British scientist and an American student is chronicled through the concerts they saw and the love they made in this highly personal romantic drama from director Michael Winterbottom. Matt (Kieran O'Brien) works with the British Antarctic Survey team, and as he travels to the South Pole and ponders the vast plains of snow and ice, his mind drifts back to his short-lived romance with Lisa (Margo Stilley), a free-spirited girl from the United States. Matt and Lisa met at a rock concert, and afterward the two went back to his flat and made love; as Matt relives their relationship in his mind, their time together is reduced to a few meals, bits of conversation, and nine concerts they attended together, punctuated by their sessions in the bedroom. Described by several critics as the most sexually explicit film produced to date by a noted international director, 9 Songs was a labor of love for Michael Winterbottom. Primarily improvised, self-financed, and shot using digital video equipment with a three-person skeleton crew, 9 Songs includes performances by Primal Scream, the Von Bondies, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Franz Ferdinand, Super Furry Animals, the Dandy Warhols, Elbow, and Michael Nyman. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Cast
Margo Stilley - Lisa
Kieran O'Brien - Matt
Credit
Michael Winterbottom - Director, Michael Winterbottom - Editor, Mat Whitecross - Editor, Marcel Zyskind - Cinematographer, Andrew Eaton - Producer, Stuart Wilson - Sound/Sound Designer, Joakim Sundström - Sound/Sound Designer, Primal Scream - Musical Performer, The Dandy Warhols - Musical Performer, Franz Ferdinand - Musical Performer, Super Furry Animals - Musical Performer, Elbow - Musical Performer, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Musical Performer, The Von Bondies - Musical Performer
For the ancient Chinese set of poems 九歌, see Jiu Ge
This article needs references that appear in reliable third-party publications. Primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please add more appropriate citations from reliable sources. (July 2009)
9 Songs is a 2004British film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The title refers to the nine songs played by eight different rock bands that complement the story of the film. The film was controversial on its original release due to its sexual content, which included unsimulated footage of the two leads having sexual intercourse and performing oral sex as well as a scene of ejaculation.
The film tells the modern love story set over a period of 12 months in London, England of a young couple: Matt, a British climatologist, and Lisa, an Americanexchange student. The story is framed in a personal review from Matt's perspective when he is working in Antarctica. Their main common interest is a passion for live music and they frequently attend rock concerts together; the film depicts the couple, or Matt alone, watching nine songs at Brixton Academy and other concert venues. It also shows their weekend getaway into the countryside, and their travels around London. Lisa brings their short and intense relationship to an end at Christmas time when she returns home to America.
According to The Guardian, 9 Songs was the most sexually explicit mainstream film to date, largely because it includes several scenes of real sex between the two lead actors. Margo Stilley's role is highly unusual in that she had unsimulated and very graphic sex with her co-star Kieran O'Brien, including genital fondling, masturbation with and without a vibrator, penetrativevaginal sex, cunnilingus and fellatio. During a scene in which Stilley masturbates his penis with her hand after performing fellatio on him, he became the only actor who has been shown ejaculating in a mainstream, UK-produced feature. Due to the controversy, Stilley asked that Winterbottom refer to her simply by her character's name in interviews about the film.
The release sparked a debate over whether the scenes of unsimulated sex artistically contributed to the film's meaning or crossed the border into pornography. It was released unrated in the U.S. but received an 18 certificate from the British Board of Film Classification in Britain and became the most explicit mainstream film to be so rated in the country.
In Australia, the Office of Film and Literature Classification gave the film an X rating which would have prevented the film 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 in South Australia.
In June 2008 the film was broadcast on Dutch national television by the public broadcasting station VPRO. There was no public debate on this broadcast, perhaps because some months earlier the 1972 pornographic film Deep Throat was shown by the public broadcaster BNN. Deep Throat raised some questions in the public debate (initiated by small Christian parties), but there was no legal basis to prohibit its broadcast.
9 Songs currently holds a 25 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as "Rotten" and a slightly higher 28 percent from the critics labelled as "Cream Of The Crop".
