Why I Kiss in My Movies
Something I do in every single one of my movies is kiss someone—that’s my trademark as a Director, a la Hitchcock appearing in some small way in each one of his movies. Like everything I do, I do it primarily because it tickles me how it can be misinterpreted—the uninitiated, or haters, might see it that I am a perverted director trying to make out with the actresses I work with. Every great idea runs the risk of being read completely wrong—‘safe’ ideas aren’t doing anything new. Me kissing someone in every single one of my movies is a great idea.
It all started as an accident—my first two films just both happened to have me kissing someone in them. In Shredder, it figured into the story, and in Rehearsals, it was a spontaneous kiss that happened during the documentary. When it came time to write my third film, Ramekin, I wrote a scene in which my girlfriend Chloe Pelletier and I are making out on the main character Emily’s bed, annoying her—just a quick gag to help establish her frustrating living situation. At that time was when I realized that I kiss someone in every single one of my movies. I started to wonder how long I could keep it up—a ‘kiss for good luck’, I called it. I love each and every one of movies, and it’s the closest I could come to kissing the movies themselves.
It ended up being very easy to keep up—every movie I made, there just seemed to be an opportunity for it that made sense. Obviously it made sense in the ones in which I play someone in a relationship, but also there came peripheral opportunities where I could just kiss Chloe in the background. Across eleven movies I’ve never felt that I’ve done it gratuitously or in an obligatory way. If ever it became that, I’d probably stop, but it seems to me that my movies enjoy being kissed by me, and want it to happen.
It also serves practical and logistical purposes as well. I don’t feel comfortable as a director telling two actors to kiss each other—I don’t like that I can never be fully sure where the heads of both parties are with it. If I’m kissing someone though, I can be sure that at least one of the two people kissing has the best of intentions, and is professional. I can’t read people’s minds, but I can read my own mind and know where I’m at with it, so it just seems safest for the actor I am kissing if it’s me kissing them. It also is a thing of not asking my performers to do anything that I wouldn’t do myself—a director that puts themselves in the shoes of their actors is one who truly understands what they are asking them to do.
Because the women I kiss in my movies are attractive, people assume that I do it out of pleasure—the reality though is that kissing on screen feels like nothing. It’s hard to explain if you’ve never done it, but it’s like kissing paper. I remember before kissing Chloe in Ramekin, I warned her that when we kiss on screen, she might feel surprised by how little she actually feels while doing it. She didn’t understand, figuring that because we were in love, of course we’d feel something. Fast forward to us doing it, and she got it immediately. It’s a disorienting thing to kiss someone—even someone you are attracted to—and it feel like nothing, but that’s screen kissing for you. Just because it may look like pleasure on camera doesn’t mean it’s anything other than utilitarian in practice.
There’s a thing in rock and roll where rock bands have what’s called a ‘rider’—an attachment to their contract with a venue that states what they require in order to perform. Rock fans often read these for amusement, reveling in how absurdly demanding rock bands can be. One classic example often carted out is the bowlful of brown M&Ms that Van Halen asks for. What a lot of people don’t know is that there is a very logical purpose for this—they want to make sure that the venue has taken every single thing on their rider seriously, as lives can be at stake if any corners are cut. Rock shows involve a ton of electricity and equipment, and if anything is done improperly, someone could die, and people have. For Van Halen, the brown M&Ms are so that they know that every single thing in the contract, no matter how absurd, has been followed. It makes them feel safe—and probably really does ensure a higher level of safety.
The kissing thing for me is a lot like that—something that on the surface might be a little strange, but which has a lot more to it. One more aspect to it that I haven’t mentioned here yet is that it helps me to overcome my fears. I am normally very apprehensive about kissing people—if I’m not in a relationship with them, it’s something I really have to bring myself to do. I have an irrational anxiety that something bad will happen as a result—I’ll catch a cold, or I’ll get herpes, or our dynamic will change in a negative way, or whatever. It’s important when creating to let go of your fears—you should never create while consumed by fear, and if you feel fear while creating, you should face it and head into the fire of it. Me kissing someone in my movies is me trusting the movie, trusting the person, trusting the moment, trusting that everything will be okay. It’s not therapy or anything—it’s just an act of commitment to what I am doing. Most of all though, it’s a thing that makes sense to me—it doesn’t need to make sense to anyone other than me and who I am doing it with. I’ve been quite lucky to have fans who understand it though, if not literally, than intuitively—and now they know the full story behind it.
If you enjoyed this post, or enjoy my films, consider contributing $2 per month to my film studio, Kill The Lion Films.