A kiss is just a kiss?

By Nicola

Amongst all the Valentine's Day related articles in the papers last week I noticed one in the Sunday Times that I could not resist blogging about. Entitled "What Happened to the Big Screen Kiss," it was written by a film critic and claimed that the cinema kiss was officially dead. His contention was that there had not been a great cinema smooch since the days of Gone with the Wind, From Here to Eternity and Casablanca.

The history of the cinema kiss

The first screen kiss made its debut right back in 1896 in a 21 second film called, appropriately enough, The Kiss. In it May Irwin and John Rice re-enacted the kiss from their 1895 Broadway stage play The Widow Jones. It was filmed by Thomas Edison and became the most popular film produced that year by Edison's company. Inevitably it was denounced in some quarters as disgusting and scandalous, which no doubt aided its popularity! After that it did not take long for the kiss to become the star attraction in films. The 1920s was the great age of the silver screen smooch with actors such as John Barrymore, Rudolph Valentino and Theda Bara giving it their all.

Between the 1930s and the 1960s the screen kiss flourished in every shape and form, sweet, sexy, dangerous, flirty. This was the period that gave us such classic kisses as the kiss in the rain in Breakfast at Tiffany's and the swirling 360 degree kiss between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway in The Thomas Crown Affair. So what happened to the screen kiss in the 1970s? Is it true that with the shedding of sexual inhibitions the heterosexual screen kiss was seen as too tame, replaced by the shocking images of films such as Last Tango in Paris? Is that when the screen kiss lost lustre, never to recover? ? Did the kiss seem corny in comparison to erotic explicitness?

Leading men don't measure up

One of the most shocking claims in the article was that none of today's leading men are great screen kissers. Hugh Grant was dismissed as a "nibbler" who aims and lands his mouth on the small area above the upper lip and below the nose, then settles down for a nice nibble like a rabbit. This is hardly a romantic image. Neither George Clooney not Brad Pitt were rated as halfway decent in the smooch stakes. Is this too harsh? Or is it not the fault of the actor but simply that the kiss will never regain its power because it has lost its ability to shock? There was a time when all screen kisses were moments of huge dramatic and sensual tension. Eyes met, hearts melted, lips locked and audiences swooned. Now the kiss is usually the romantic prelude not the main event. It has even been suggested that the rise of the vampire owes something to the urge to bring back the romance of old. The bite is the new kiss, erotic but innocent at the same time.

All this got me wondering firstly if it was true - are screen kisses less memorable and romantic now that they used to be - but also, is this apparent trend reflected in books as well as on screen? Has the kiss been sidelined in the rush to get the hero and heroine between the sheets? I'd hate for either of those ideas to be true. I'm an unashamed romantic who still relishes the build up of sensual tension on screen or on the page and for whom The Kiss is still The Moment.  My favourite movie kiss moments from (relatively) recent years include Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver in The Year of Living Dangerously (and I love that poster too!), Mel Gibson and Sophie Marceau in Braveheart, Mel Gibson and Julia Sawahla as Rocky and Ginger in Chicken Run...  Yes, there is a Mel Gibson theme here. Also Laura Linney and Rodrigo Santoro in Love Actually and George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer in One Fine Day. And I could certainly make a case for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in Mr and Mrs Smith.

Sweep me away between the pages

With books I think the author has to work even harder to create a "sweep me away" moment on the page in a medium that isn't visual like cinema. The Literary Review offers a "Bad Sex Award" for appalling descriptions of sex in books and this can encompass desperately off-putting kisses as well. A reference to a kiss tasting of sawdust and fish-slime will forever stick in my mind. But some kisses in books still hit you right there with the intensity and emotional punch, the kiss being so much more than "just" a kiss.

So please reassure me I'm not alone in believing that the kiss is still vitally important in both the movies and on the page. It doesn't have to be the romantic prelude. It can still be the unforgettable moment.

What are your favourite movie kisses? Do you think that a kiss on the page can have as much impact as a kiss on the screen? Or do you think the article was right and the kiss is no longer the star attraction?

Comments

[Elizabeth Hawksley]

For me, nothing beats the artist Benjamin Haydon’s description of a kiss from his Journal of April 16th, 1815:

‘Your floating eyes meet hers, looking out under her black locks with lustrous tenderness. Down sinks her lovely head under your heated cheek, and you feel her heavenly breath, breathing quickly into your neck! You move your lip gently to meet hers, but are unable to reach it, buried as it is in your neck. O God! with the look of an Angel she turns up her exquisite mouth, and as you kiss it, your lips cling, with a lingering at every little separation and you suck ecstasy till your brain is steeped in steam! You press her with an intensity of grasp. She suffers all, trembling, depending, smiling. Does not this speak all a man could wish?’

And that’s only about a third of the entry! It ends, charming with: ‘One bounds home like a deer, and rushes to rest that one may dream.’

Wow!

[Linda Banche]

I agree that the kiss is on its way out. I've read book reviews where the reviewer complains "No sex scenes until page 235." That kind of person wants sex on page one, and no measly kiss is going to be enough.

That said, I prefer the buildup. In a book, I like a great kiss, and less about the sex. For all the sex out there nowadays, there are people who tell me they skip the sex scenes.

Kisses in books are fine. Screen kisses embarrass me.

[Nicola Cornick]

Elizabeth, they really knew how to write those passages in those days, didn't they!

Linda, I think that's so sad about reviewers complaining about a lack of sex scenes. Each to their own when it comes to taste in books, of course, but for me there can be so much passion and intensity and meaning wrapped up in a single kiss. When I look at the books on my keeper shelves at least half of them are very tame in terms of sex scenes and the focus of all the build up and excitement can be one mind-blowing kiss. That's not to say that I don't enjoy reading a well-written love scene. However, let's not just dismiss the kiss!

[theo]

You must not have seen Dear Frankie then. That has got to be one of the most...OMG kisses on screen in the last 20 years.

I have to admit, I started writing because I saw a movie whose ending didn't really end and was totally unsatisfying. So, I finished the movie the way I thought it should have been and posted it on one of those fiction sites. There were many kisses, but no sex until the final chapter, after they'd married. One of the commenters said, "I read this whole thing just to find out there wasn't any sex until the end???"

You know, that's who erotica is written for. It's why that genre isn't called romance. And it's sad that the lines between the two are getting more blurred.

[Christina Courtenay]

I totally disagree with that article in the paper, Nicola - the writer has just been watching the wrong movies! What about the kiss between Clive Owen and the Scottish girl in Gosford Park? Or when Keira Knightley kisses a tethered Johnny Depp in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies? Or Brad Pitt kissing Rose Byrne in Troy? ... Okay, I could go on, but I won't. The screen kiss is definitely not dead IMO.

[maryjoputney]

Wow, Elizabeth, that Benjamin Haydon really understood the power of the kiss!

I suspect that whoever wrote that article in the Sunday Times was just looking to stir things up for a Valentine's feature, but it's true that in the old days, a movie kiss was freighted with a lot more sexual tension and implied culmination than movie kisses now.

Still, I can think of some great ones of not too distant vintage. In FIRST KNIGHT, there is the moment when Richard Gere and Julia Ormond as Lancelot and Guinevere give into the desperate attraction they've been fighting.

Or in Ladyhawke,at the end--I'm not sure if it's exactly a kiss, but when Navarre and Isabeau (Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer) are finally free of the curse that kept them apart for years, he sweeps her up in his arms in the cathedral and whirls her around and around as the sunlight pours in around them. A wonderful moment!

I really must watch that movie again!

[Nicola Cornick]

I haven't seen Dear Frankie, Theo, but your comment made me hurry right along to add it to my "must see" list. Fascinating that you were inspired to start writing in order to re-write the end of an unsatisfactory movie. I love that!

[ncb]

I had to jump out of Google Reader to comment, only to be delighted that someone else already mentioned my all-time favorite movie kiss: Dear Frankie. Every time, I swoon. Really swoon. And it's not at all the kiss; it's the buildup, the anticipation. Everything about it just screams, "YES! THIS IS THE MOMENT!"

(And thanks, theo, for mentioning it, but I disagree about the end of the movie. I don't think it could've ended any more perfectly.)

[Mom2teebee]

My all time favorite screen kiss is in The Quiet Man when John Wayne grabs Maureen O'Hara and the wind is ripping around them.

[Nicola Cornick]

Another vote for Dear Frankie! Ncb, it sounds as though that's exactly the sort of kiss I was thinking of, where it's all about the build up and far more than just a kiss.

Christina, you've reminded me of one of my all time favourite screen kisses, that one in Gosford Park between Clive Owen and Kelly Macdonald. That's one that makes me swoon! My stomach does that butterfly thing whenever I see it!

[NinaP]

Good kiss scenes aren't dead. They're just hard to do... on the screen and between the pages. But when they’re done right... oh my, somebody please get me a fan.

Some of my screen favorites... Remington Steele and First Knight. Nobody did it better than Pierce Bronson and Stephanie Zimbalist (all they had to do was look at each other) and of course Richard Geer and Julia Ormond's dangerous liason. But it took a long time (and some duced good writing) for the story plot and their characters to get there.

And then there’s Meet Joe Black. Throughout the entire sex scene, the camera never left Brad Pitt’s face. Never have I seen better. But, then again, it took scads of footage to create that level of thrill.

Some of my favorite books... Mary Jo's Kiss of Fate, Edith’s entire "C" series and Heyer's These Old Shades. No page one kisses, no page 100 sex scenes, but when it did happen, it was better than good. It was right.

As a writer, balancing story tension is one of the things I find most difficult to do. I feel so cheated when kisses don’t arrive when they should, and even more so when they barge in, unwelcome. So, a few years ago, I asked one of our wise Wenches what made a kiss (or sex) scene good. Her response was that one partner (and preferably both) best be sacrificing something mighty precious to get it. And it takes a boatload of pages (and film footage) to build the tension required to get there.

But, we live in an impatient world where everything imaginable sits at our fingertips and no one has to wait for anything if they don’t want to. (including a sexual high, I understand, if one has the right drugs)

The question is, can we, as writers, give them what they really long for… to fall in love with that natural high that only good story tension can bring?

I say we can, and that no, The Kiss isn’t gone even if it has been temporarily replaced by a Bite. :-)

Nina, loving the new sub-title blog format.

[Nicola Cornick]

Ladyhawke was on TV here a couple of days ago, Mary Jo. I hadn't seen it before but I was really pleased to catch up with it and that scene at the end was lovely. They are having a 1980s season on Film 4 over here - Romancing the Stone, Top Gun (not much chemistry there IMO, between the h/h at least!) and some other classic movies from my teens!

[Kat]

I don't think the kiss is entirely dead. There have been some good kisses in recent years. But I think the problem is that many kisses are less effective then they could be because romantic movies, especially romantic comedies are not generally as good as they used to be. The writing is often bad and they don't develop the main relationship properly so you aren't as invested in it as you should be. There are exceptions to the rule of course but in general there needs to be better romantic movies.

[Nicola Cornick]

I think the John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara kiss was mentioned on a site I visited of great screen kisses. Must check out that film too!

Thanks for your comments, Nina. I love the idea of a kiss barging in at the wrong time! I love that wise Wench quote: "One partner (and preferably both) best be sacrificing something mighty precious to get it." Yes!

[Lyn S]

A teen on an America daytime soap opera was asked about his first kiss scene. He said he was told to pick one lip. I guess with inflation we only get one lip now. In the old days it was two. And Haydon went over the top.

[Nicola Cornick]

LOL, Lyn! Perhaps that explains the Hugh Grant "nibble" style of kissing too!

Kat, that's a very good point about the quality of the movies. If the central romance isn't convincing then the kiss is not going to be a great climactic moment.

[maryjoputney]

I just put DEAR FRANKIE in my Netflix queue. *g* I do hope it has a happy ending!

[Susan/DC]

As far as kisses and sexual tension go, I think MJP's "Thunder and Roses" is a textbook case of how to do it right. The hero demands one kiss a day from the heroine. The kisses and the sexual tension build from there to a boiling point. No sex on page 10, but everything -- the relationship, the anticipation, the the sensuality -- are all the better for it.

[NinaP]

I just put DEAR FRANKIE in my queue, too, Mary Jo! And I didn't know you were a FIRST KNIGHT fan. Goodness, I love that movie!

[Kay]

Two movie kisses come to mind: The kiss between Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed in "It's a Wonderful Life", when he's trying to come up with all of these reasons why they shouldn't end up together. And the one between Bogart and Bacall in "To Have and Have Not"...you know just pucker and blow. I don't like the little short noisy kisses that seem to be inhabiting the big screen these days.

[Kay]

I forgot, Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Cliff in "A Place in the Sun"

[Anne Gracie]

Fabulous post, Nicola.
I'm not sure it qualifies as a great scene kiss, but I remember the moment when Daniel Craig kissed the female lead/suspect in the TV movie The Icehouse (Minette Walters.) He wasn't playing the great romantic lead, just a detective, and it was quite a brief kiss, but there was an intensity to it that I've never forgotten. This was years before he became 007.
And I'm sure you'll enjoy Dear Frankie. I never understood the Gerard Butler phenomena until I saw it. In fact, for Aussies I believe it's being repeated on SBS on Saturday night.

[theo]

Oh, no, ncb! I didn't mean Dear Frankie. It was a totally different movie that I was heartbroken over and wrote a new ending. Oh, gosh no, Dear Frankie couldn't have ended any other way. :o)

And I have to say, I really believe too that it's the man kissing that makes a great screen kiss and Gerard Butler...could kiss me any time he wanted to! That man can kiss. *sigh*

Okay, I'll stop.

soon...

any minute now...

*sigh*

[Kat]

I must say that I don't think Hugh Grant is that bad of a kisser. Usually when I think someone is a bad kisser I find it distracting and it takes me out of the moment but I've never experienced that watching Hugh Grant movies.

[peg s.]

I much prefer kisses, anticipation, and sexual tension to scenes that sound like a Penthouse letter. I like to use my own imagination-but please don't go back to ........like Cartland!

[Nicola Cornick]

First Knight is a winner for me as well. All those smouldering looks and trying to resist temptation...

LOL Kay, on the little short noisy kisses. Absolutely a turn off. And I hate the slurpy wet sounding ones!

[Nicola Cornick]

Anne and Theo, I am with you on the Gerard Butler thing. I loved the Michael Crighton book Timeline and was very disappointed in the film, except for the interaction between Gerard and the heroine, which is hot! There's a moment (or should that be Moment when he's about to go back to rescue his friends and the heroine stands on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and he turns and kisses her properly and I melt!

[Janice]

All time best kiss: Cary Grant & Ingrid Bergman in front of the door to the wine cellar in Notorious - great because not only was it a great smooch but Hitchcock had built up to it so well.

I think the trouble with more modern TV/movie kisses is that there are just too many of them, so it's hard to have a moment that stands out. Doctor Who has about one per season, so it's worth waiting for as it saves a life, saves a universe or cements some terribly difficult choice. It's not the sex so much as the dramatic impact that makes it work. I suspect I'm not the only person who watches the Doctor for the romance and the relationships as much as the sf.

[Nicola Cornick]

Kat, I'm glad that someone is standing up for Hugh! I remember a comedy fundraising event for charity on the TV over here a few years ago and to raise money Hugh Grant kissed Dawn French, one of our female comedians. She looked totally stunned when he let her go (and I don't think that was all for the camera!) so he can't be that bad!

[Nicola Cornick]

Yup, Janice, I'm another who watches Doctor Who for the relationships. It's what gives depth to the story IMO and I think Russel T Davies understood that and worked it for all he was worth (in a good way!)

LOL, Peg, on the... Cartland!

[MJ]

Memorable recent screen kisses:
1992 - Last of the Mohicans, Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe. It inspired a generation of romance writers.

2003 - Lord of the Rings, Return of the King, Viggo Mortensen and Liv Tyler. After all Aragorn has gone through and the look on his face when Arwen steps out from behind her father's back, it's enough to make your heart start pounding . And then, the kiss! Wow!

But then you see the heartbreak for Elrond, knowing he's lost his daughter forever to the mortal world. A bittersweet moment.

[Joanne]

I will never get bored with kissing in romance books, especially when the authors adds to it, kissing the neck, etc.........and I love the sex scenes very much!!!!!!!!!!!!

As far as best kiss in movies, too many to state..........

[Maggi Andersen]

I love old movies, but in the period late thirties to late fifties, censorship affected screen kisses. They weren't allowed to move their heads. And definately no tongues! Historical romance novelscan have great kisses, which are sometimes more exciting than a detailed sex scene.

[Patricia Barraclough]

For me, it is the kiss in the indian burial grounds between Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe in Last Of The Mohicans. It shows all the longing and desperation of their situation.

I have to agree with MJ also about the scene in Lord Of The Rings.

Benjamin Haydon missed his calling. His life story is very sad. Had he turned to writing, he may have been more successful. That jounal entry is lovely.

[Mary Gramlich]

I have thought about this question all week with much internal debate. I went over my book shelves trying to see if any book stand out as amazing and well they all do which is why I have them and refuse to part with them. Then my mind reviewed all my favorite movies and while The Natural ranks the highest the relationships while passionate do not bode well for the male or female in this movie. My other favorites involve movies that are less about kissing and more about leading up to the kiss. So this gave me pause and what I decided was that I think the most passionate kiss is the one that is the brush of lips against one another with the slightest of touches, the touch of a finger down the check or the barest of whispers in the ear. These bring out the passion in the kiss so regardless of who might be the best kisser - the question could also be who has the best lead in. Again there are so many choices here and where historical romance is concerned there is not a book written that does not entice the reader to think - were the men really that romantic - it appears they may have been and perhaps today's male could read up a little on the prelude to the kiss.

[Nicola Cornick]

Thank you all very much on such interesting and thoughtful responses to this question. It seems the screen kiss is far from dead and we all have our favorites. Also that we prefer the subtlety and the build up and the anticipation, and it is that which makes a kiss memorable on the page or on screen. It's all about investing in the characters and the intensity of their emotions. Anyway, you've all made me very happy that I am not the only True Romantic left around, not by a long way!

[Peggy Wong]

Coming in rather late...

My favorite movie kiss of all time is actually the unseen kiss of the Cary Grant/Deborah Kerr "An Affair to Remember." It's that first kiss on the ship where they move up the stairs and out of sight so it's all left to your imagination as you watch Deborah Kerr's legs and the way she leans into Cary Grant's body.

I guess having grown up with explicit movie/TV kisses and sex scenes, they just don't have any power in and of themselves anymore. What makes a great kiss is the build-up that makes the reader/audience really believe that the kiss stems from great yearning and encompasses the promise of great love.

Can I also say that I find older movie kisses more romantic? Current movie/TV kisses are just too open-mouthed and slobbery. All well and good to experience but not to watch. Plus, I find that that older, close-mouthed kiss allows for a forcefulness and physical intensity--as the hero presses his lips hard against the heroine--that just seems to shout "love" more than merely "lust" to me.

[christina erickson]

Your blog is really very nice but i am reading one interesting blog. So i can share with you. A wonderful kiss marks the onset of a beautiful relation, bringing two individuals closer to one another and one another thing is kissing in rain is also romantic.
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