Hollywood has forgotten how to insinuate. For years, it was all they could do. The Hays Code, instituted in 1934 and named for the former postmaster general who was hired by the studios to enforce it, kept explicit portrayals or even clear references to sex offscreen (as well as violence, immoral attitudes, “miscegenation” and “ridicule of religion”). As a response, Hollywood got creative. They implied sex, rather than showing it or talking about it directly. They used witty cutaways, like the final shot of North by Northwest. They gave viewers the feeling of sex through snappy, innuendo-laden repartee, like in Double Indemnity. In the late ‘60s, Hollywood stopped insinuating and started just showing the stuff we weren’t previously allowed to see, but these days we have swung back in the other direction. Most mainstream films these days are pathologically inclined towards the youngest common denominator, forcing adult moviegoers to dig a little deeper to find life on screen in all its messy, sticky glory.
All of which makes Out of Sight both a throwback and a nod to our future.
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