 |
An interactive Web site delivers Center of the
World's sexy message.
|
The on-screen warning unfolds in lavender script. No one under 18 allowed. No touching the girls. No lewd behavior.
Past the doorway of a nondescript strip club, the shadowy outline of a stripper hugs tightly against a stage pole. One click of the computer mouse and the stripper wiggles her ass. Another click brings the expected cleavage. "Want me to dance for you?" she asks teasingly. Streaming video allows the dancer to quickly gyrate in lifelike fashion.
While other movie Web sites offer trailers and publicity photos, director Wayne Wang's The Center of the World site (www.center-of-the-world.com) aims for something decidedly erotic. By taking visitors inside a clandestine strip club, The Center of the World hopes to give a promotional boost to its unrated adult drama.
Wang (Chinese Box and The Joy Luck Club) re-teams with Paul Auster, his Smoke and Blue in the Face collaborator, for The Center of the World. The film, which opens in Cincinnati in late May, tells the story of a dot.com millionaire (Peter Sarsgaard) who lives his life immersed in a digital world. Unaccustomed to normal social interaction, the nerdy millionaire persuades a pretty stripper (Molly Parker) to spend three days with him in Las Vegas. Inevitably, before the three days are over, both of them will discover new truths about money, power and their own sexuality.
Billed as the Last Tango in Paris for the Internet generation, Wang knew that the film's highly sexual content would draw a ratings battle with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). What he didn't realize was how difficult it would be to promote the film's theatrical release.
"Newspapers and theaters have their own censorship," Wang says, speaking recently from San Francisco. "Some newspapers refused to run the ad, which in my mind is not a blatantly sexual image. So there are certain types of censorship that go on with a film like this. There is also the kind of heavy air of the Bush administration saying censorship and all that."
Inside a West Hollywood art cinema, The Center of the World poster stands provocatively in the lobby. Its image is appropriately adult: A naked woman stands with her arms folded over her breasts. But daily newspapers including The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times refused the image for opening week ads. Last fall, many theaters removed The Center of the World's steamy trailer from prints of the addiction drama Requiem for a Dream. In the struggle to market its unrated adult drama, Artisan Entertainment, the film's distributor, has placed its hopes on a titillating Web site.
"I think that this is a perfect example of a Web site allowing us to have more freedom with images we are able to explore," says Amorette Jones, executive v.p. of worldwide marketing for Artisan Entertainment. "Our Web site is very provocative in nature and mirrors the adult content that the film contains. But there's also a message in the Web site about detached intimacy, and that's one of the themes underscored in Wayne's movie.
"Having an unrated film allows some freedom with the MPAA with regards to the content of the film," Jones says. "But then there is another set of challenges that have been placed upon us to deliver the message and work within the boundaries of our exhibitors and tools for advertising. The Internet does allow us freedom in our ability to reach an audience, and we can be very targeted with that audience."
Back at the online strip club, a trip to the strippers' dressing room turns into an impromptu chat session.
"I know you are there," says one of the strippers. " ... My boyfriend and I broke up two weeks ago. Can you help me ease this tension?"
Flash technology brings this stripper to life. She leans forward with her legs spread open. Slowly, she begins to masturbate. Wang shot additional scenes exclusively for the Web site. He also collaborated extensively with hi-res!, the site's graphic designer. The goal was to present Center of the World's online content in a way that balances skin with human emotion.
"To be completely honest, I don't really go to many other movie Web sites, because most of them are just completely boring and uninspired," says Florian, creative director of nu media at hi-res!. "I guess the thing that makes the Center site different is that it tells you about the film without telling you about the film. It gives you a feeling, the feeling we had when we saw it and presents that to you. The very special thing on the Center site was that we were able to create some form of artificial intelligence for it in the chat part and actually link it to video sequences. That was the biggest challenge on the site."
Most movie Web sites interact with their users by offering contest giveaways. But Center of the World's aim was for something dramatically more adult. Its task was to promote an adult movie in a fashion honest to its mature themes and content. The high volume of its users indicate that the Center of the World Web site is doing its job spectacularly. The question is whether these Internet surfers will also buy tickets to the movie.
In the wake of the unexpected controversy over Center of the World's newspaper advertising, its Web site becomes even more important. Of course, the challenge for Wang and the designers at hi-res! is to prevent the Center of the World site from dissolving into run-of-the-mill pornography. Wang is clear that he wasn't interested in making some 1-900-Sex-For-Sale site.
"I think there's a lot more mystery to it," Wang says. "It's actually quite dark, and I think we use the streaming carefully to give it a surreal quality instead of a real quality. So it doesn't have a porn look to it. We were judicious in picking the kinds of images we wanted. It's not like anything goes.
"If you look at American movies in the last 30 years, there really has been nothing going on," Wang says. "Nobody has been challenging sexuality, and it's been pretty boring. Hopefully an audience will find a film like this and see it's not pornography. It doesn't try to sell sex, but it's about sex and young people trying to deal with each other sexually and pretty important issues. I hope people will find it and see it and get something from it besides the sexuality." ©
