A group of surrealist artists and writers gather to discuss sex in this Alan Rudolph ensemble film, loosely based on Jose Pierre's actual 1928-1932 Paris study. Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney star as stenographers hired to both transcribe the sessions and act as muses for the male subjects.... [More]

A group of surrealist artists and writers gather to discuss sex in this Alan Rudolph ensemble film, loosely based on Jose Pierre's actual 1928-1932 Paris study. Neve Campbell and Robin Tunney star as stenographers hired to both transcribe the sessions and act as muses for the male subjects. Alan Cumming, Elliot Davies, Terence Howard, and Til Schweizer play some of the artists present, who delve into topics like bestiality, onanism, and menage-a-trois. Their leader, Edgar (Dermot Mulroney), is in love with a female demon that haunts his dreams, much to the annoyance of his flesh-and-blood girlfriend (Julie Delpy). Nick Nolte and Tuesday Weld give the film's best performances as Edgar's boozy, sex-crazed sponsors. The characters gather in a modern art-filled room and an orgy practically ensues as they find themselves liberated by the erotically transgressive talk and surroundings. The script by Rudolph and Michael Henry Wilson utilizes the actual session transcriptions to create an overflow of poetic, insightful dialogue. Another of Rudolph's signature explorations of jazz-age love and artistic camaraderie (see also THE MODERNS and DOROTHY PARKER AND THE VICIOUS CIRCLE), it's set in 1924 Cambridge, Mass, but filmed in Berlin. This film screened as part of the Film Comment Selects series organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York City. [Less]