Interview: Gaspar Noé on Love, Sex, Masturbation, and More

In case you didn’t already know, Gaspar Noé is keen on outraging audiences, from the brutal rape and graphic murder portrayed in Irréversible, his breakout film, to the up-close-and-too-personal-for-some depiction of a penetration, as well as an abortion, in Enter the Void. His latest effort, Love, is considerably—perhaps deliberately—less shocking. The film depicts a romantic triangle that develops between Murphy (Karl Glusman), a young American (and Noé stand-in) living in Paris, his ex-girlfriend, Electra (Aomi Muyock), and his current partner, Omi (Klara Kristin). Throughout the film, Noé uses one prickly, beyond-sexually-charged situation after another to tease out issues of jealousy, trust, and truth as Murphy grapples with his obsessive desire for Electra and his current unhappiness with Omi. The film undoubtedly leaves little to the imagination, which is precisely Noé’s agenda as a provocateur: to be as in-your-face—cheap, scary, sexual, or otherwise—as possible. During a pit stop at this year’s Philadelphia Film Festival, Noé sat down to discuss with me the making of Love, masturbation, playing with spectators in three dimensions, and what the different permutations of sex in the film may have to say about more than just his characters.

You like to stimulate and provoke. Watching Murphy and Electra masturbating each other in the opening scene is kind of like foreplay.

Masturbation is one of the multiple games a loving girl and boy can play with each other. I don’t see the difference between cunnilingus or a blowjob or masturbation or frontal sex. It’s just, when you love someone, you play all these games. That opening scene was supposed to be in the middle of the movie, but I liked it so much that I kept the whole two minutes of it and moved it to the beginning. It made much more sense there. Instead of starting the film with Murphy waking up from the phone ringing, he’s dreaming of his past before the phone rings. It was also a way of saying, “You heard what the movie is going to be about, so let’s start strongly.” I don’t know if it gets you aroused. It could arouse the audience if I hadn’t put a sentimental melody on top of it. You’re used to seeing images of people having sex in ’70s films with cheap disco music on top of them. The fact that I use classical music makes things more loving.

Murphy describes wanting to make a “sentimental sex film,” which I assume was your own intention with Love. For you, what makes an erotic film “sentimental?”

I watched The Dreamers and I thought Bertolucci was still censoring himself, maybe for commercial reasons. But I like that movie, especially for all the sexual scenes. When it happens in real life, usually sex is very simple. You follow your instincts and then things happen one way or the other. I don’t understand why this aspect of sex in people’s lives is so rarely portrayed in mainstream movies. So many films have people killing each other, cannibalism, monsters, bank robbers, all those things that rarely happen in people’s lives. But something that’s most relatable, like a love story of this kind, is always portrayed in a way that isn’t natural. When you talk about love in movies, and the couple goes to bed, the door closes, and you don’t get to see the best part. You see them the next day having coffee. When people are attracted to each other, it’s natural to procreate or simulate the act of procreation. It’s a simple, happy, positive thing. When it comes to the portrayal of this act, people start shaking. It’s easier to show murder in a film and that doesn’t disturb anyone. I’ve had some reactions that asked, “Are we in the 19th century…in Victorian times?” Why are people scared of sex, which is as natural as breathing or swimming?

What made you decide to shoot the film in English and in 3D, and what kind of challenges did that create?

The decision to shoot in English came first. French isn’t my native language. I was born in Argentina. My parents moved to America, then they went back to Argentina. When I started speaking, I was speaking English at school and Spanish at home. I wanted to shoot the film in Paris, which is where I live, so I could produce the film and manage the shooting easier. English is the Esperanto of the Western world. Most people speak English, so I wanted the movie to have a wider release, and not put on the “foreign” shelf in most countries. And in 3D, the subtitles are really annoying—letters floating between you and the space that’s supposed to be real. When I was casting guys, I looked at English, Irish, Canadian, and American guys, and the best actor I found to play the part ended up being American. He could have been South African.

About the 3D, I like the fact that when you see a 3D movie, it’s like playing a game with the spectator: You tell people to put the glasses on and that they’re going to see something more real than a regular movie. Also, three years ago, I bought a home-video 3D camera. I was filming many things and they were shaky on a handheld camera, so I wanted to do a film in 3D with a tripod or a crane with slow movements so as not to create nausea. A month before shooting I ran into a guy who told me there were subsidies from the French government to make 3D movies, and they confirmed that I would have the money to rent the 3D camera. I enjoyed 3D because it was more intimate, and it allowed me to make a richer movie, in cinemascope, in English, and in 3D.

How did you first conceive Murphy?

Murphy is an extension of myself. It’s not autobiographical, but I relate to him because I’ve been through similar experiences in my life. Or my friends have. He’s like my younger brother.

What about the sexual tableaus in the film? Was it a question of creating emotion through sex?

I wanted to portray the love addiction in all flavors. You meet a person and are really attracted to them and start falling in love. You want to spend all the time with them and try every experience you can dream of with that person. Some people think whatever you can do [within coupledom] makes you stronger, like Nietzsche said. But if you share those experiences with someone else [like a threesome], it might make them closer, but that’s not always true, because some experiences are risky, and there are other people involved.

What can you say about working with the actors and getting them to perform some very explicit sex acts? Was it exhausting shooting all of the sex scenes? Did Karl require heavy doses of Viagra to maintain that erection?

Not that I know of! The good thing about Karl was that he was young and willful. He wasn’t at all a sex maniac. He had just broken up with a girl a year earlier, and he was extremely broken. He’s not at all the guy who’s running after his dick, contrary to almost every other guy I know. He’s very handsome and had no problems with nudity. He knows that some people don’t like seeing themselves naked and he had no issues with that. Neither did the women. Some things are real and some things are simulated in the movie, but it’s not an issue as long as it looks real on screen. By starting with a scene where things really happen, you believe all the rest is real. I did not want to get into those kinds of promotional issues that Blue Is the Warmest Color or Nymphomaniac went through about the sex not being real, but looking real. It’s like a magician bringing a rabbit out of a hat: If the rabbit looks alive, that’s important, not how it comes out. The actors were open-minded, and they weren’t worried about what we did on the set. During the casting process, almost every male friend I had in France wanted to be in the film and show their dick.

I understand you had a full-frontal role in the film. Why did you decide to do this?

I wanted Murphy to be obsessed with the ex-lover of his girlfriend. I thought showing that he had images of the enemy’s dick would make sense, and it was easier to do it than get a body double. Also it was a way to show to Karl that it was no problem. He would show his dick, so I would show mine too.

You have featured sex clubs in several of your films. What is your experience or impression of these places?

[laughs] I’m not a swinger. In France, Germany, and Belgium, five percent of the population likes sex clubs. I don’t belong to that five percent, but I’ve seen parties of that kind. But maybe I’m too sentimental to enjoy those situations. It doesn’t hurt my eyes. It even arouses your eyes and brain. But I’m not attracted to anonymous love or sex that much.

Some folks might find the scene with the transsexual discomfiting, but the lesbianism very erotic. What are your thoughts about the two very different permutations of a threesome in the film between two women and one man?

That’s something I’ve heard many times: how a guy and a girl will have a threesome with a girl—one time out of two—and then the girl will want equality and want to have a threesome with a guy. Heterosexual men are far more competitive with guys, and are scared to have another man’s penis close to the object of their desire, so Murphy’s reaction in the movie is very relatable. I wanted to put a twist on that compromise by having a transsexual, which might be less problematic because he would not be sharing his girlfriend with another man. The Brazilian playing the transsexual was very funny, but for Karl that scene was riskier because he thought about the reaction of his family. As an actor, you may be exposing yourself to the whole world, but you know your mother or father will see it too.

Did you ever have the kind of despair Murphy does over a woman? How did you handle it?

Time heals the scars, or calms down the addiction. I think many guys have fallen for the wrong person, and guys who are strong emotionally, fall in love and get addicted to a woman. But if they break up, they consider suicide because the pain was too great.

There are some very interesting ideas in Love, as when the characters grapple with jealousy, addiction, and love.

When the worm of jealousy is ruining the apple of the couple’s relationship, they’re playing hidden power games. The characters are afraid of each other. They end up doing things that they aren’t strong enough to handle. There’s not one situation in the movie that I condemn. I like my friends who are open-minded, but some people can handle monogamy. A guy can be very monogamous with one girl, and in the next relationship he can be very different. It all depends on the starting point of the relationship, everyone’s needs, and how much you trust the other person and how addicted you are. The ultimate fear is the idea of losing that human drug that fulfills your life. You then turn jealous and you end up losing what you desire. Jealousy never helps. In French as in English, the world “love” contains many different meanings. There are different kinds of love. There’s the love you can feel for your parents, or your kids, or your best friends or your ex. It isn’t possessive. Then there’s falling in love in an addictive way, and trying to possess someone. There should be a different word for that. Some people call it romantic love, but I would call it carnal addiction, and when you get into that emotional zone, you turn blank. Your house could be burning, but you don’t care, as long as you’re in the arms of the person that obsesses you.

Can I ask you, as Murphy does Electra: What is your ultimate fantasy in terms of sex?

[laughs] I will not say, because it’s like a movie project: You don’t talk about them until they’re done. I have a few. But mostly they’re situations that aren’t very common. I guess I have one or two that will maybe happen one day.