Kinsey, the master of sexology
Alfred Charles Kinsey was born in New Jersey from 65438 to 0894. No one expected that his name would become a sexual consent word many years later. Kinsey is the eldest of three children. His father is an engineer. As a devout and strict Christian, Kinsey's father is also a part-time Sunday school teacher. At that time, people were secretive about their physical desires. Father told Kinsey that the erotic modern society would lead to the degeneration of human morality and hoped that he would follow in his father's footsteps. Kinsey's family is not rich. Due to the inability to pay, Kinsey once suffered from rickets, rheumatic fever and typhoid fever, and could not be completely treated.
Father's discipline is very strict, such as praying on weekends, having sex with girls, and forbidding to talk about any topics related to sex, including masturbation. At that time, this discipline was commonplace, and many freshmen had almost no sexual knowledge. In his childhood, Kinsey never touched anything related to his future research.
When he was young, Kinsey was very interested in nature and once went camping with the local YMCA. When Kinsey's community established an army, he joined the Boy Scouts, and his parents supported him very much. Because the boy scouts at that time were founded according to Christian teachings. Kinsey was very diligent and became an eagle scout in two years, and it took most children five or six years to reach this level.
In middle school, Kinsey was an introverted and diligent student. He is not interested in sports. Besides studying, he only concentrates on the piano. Kinsey once aspired to be a pianist, but finally decided to do scientific research. He became interested in biology, botany and zoology. Kinsey thinks that his middle school biology teacher Natalie plays an important role in his future as a scientist.
However, since childhood, Kinsey has always been rebellious in character. Later, despite his father's opposition, he entered Bowdoin College to study biology and psychology, and graduated with honors. Later, he entered Harvard University for further study, and 19 19 received his doctorate. From 65438 to 0920, he joined the Department of Zoology of Indiana University as a teaching assistant, thus entering a turning point in his life and career.
At Indiana University, Kinsey continued his previous doctoral program, tirelessly studied gallnut bees, and then became the most authoritative expert on gallnut bees in the world. His largest collection of gallnut bee specimens is still preserved by the American Museum of Natural History. At the same time, he met Clara Bleicken Macmillan, a young female student who was also interested in insect evolution. They fell in love and got married soon.
1938, the Women Students' Union of Indiana University applied to hold a lecture on "Sex Education" and "Marriage". At that time, it was illegal to publish articles about sex and even introduce contraceptive methods, and people could hardly obtain correct sexual knowledge. The school approved this request and arranged for Kinsey to teach this course.
Although the sex education course is very popular, Kinsey can hardly answer the students' urgent questions, and even he himself is at a loss about sex. Kinsey began to find that people's understanding of their sexual behavior was extremely scarce. So Kinsey gave up insect research and began to study sex. He collected the sexual history of students, colleagues and even all the people he could convince. In order to be as comprehensive as possible, he even spared gay bars and remote towns. At the end of 1940, Kinsey's work was well received by the National Issues Review Conference and won the research fund provided by Rockefeller Foundation for the first time. In the mid-1940s, Kinsey established the Sex Research Association at Indiana University.
During the investigation, Kinsey developed a set of unique questionnaire and interview skills, including more than 200 different sexual behaviors and as many as 350 questions. After each interview, the recorded data will be entered into the early computer.
1948, Kinsey published The Sexual Behavior of Men. The 25,000 copies printed for the first time were sold out in a few days, and a few months later, the sales of duplicate editions reached as high as 200,000 copies, which is unimaginable for academic books. This book not only became a bestseller translated into eight languages, but also gave birth to the sexual revolution in the 1960s. Kinsey is known as "Freud of America", even once as famous as scientific pioneers such as Galileo and Darwin. In a sense, Americans "began to talk about sex from that day (pointing out that the version date is 65438+10.5)."
Five years later, Kinsey published Women's Sexual Behavior. Although it is still a best seller, it has been criticized because Americans are shocked by the survey data of women's sexual behavior. Among them, 62% women masturbate, nearly 50% have premarital sex, and 26% have adultery. The press, clergy and congressmen are talking nonsense. Among them, Pastor Billy Graham thinks Kinsey is detrimental to moral purity; McCarthy said that Kinsey was deeply influenced by communism and tried to weaken American values. The House of Representatives set up a special investigation committee to investigate Kinsey and his research. The Rockefeller Foundation also stopped providing research funding.
After repeated crusades from all walks of life, Kinsey was exhausted physically and mentally. 1956 died of heart failure on August 25th at the age of 62.
About the film
Producer Gail Mutlu always wanted to put Kinsey's life on the big screen. He found bill condon to take charge of the film. Camden said: "Although Kinsey has almost been forgotten, he has changed the American concept of sex. He spent 20 years collecting more than 654.38+100,000 gallnut bees, and found that none of them were the same as others. He used this unique discovery to describe human sexual behavior, and proposed for the first time that everyone's sexual behavior is unique, so it is not accurate to describe sexual behavior with' normal' and' abnormal', only' ordinary' and' rare' are more appropriate. This view is still very radical. "
The more Camden knows about Kinsey, the more he realizes that Kinsey's exploration of sex still has extreme personal factors. "There is usually a potential flaw in shooting biographies, that is, the plot conceals the theme," Condon said. "The emphasis on personal struggle and crisis tends to weaken the appeal of characters. I was attracted to Kinsey because of his close connection with scientific research. " Condon once directed monsters from 65438 to 0998. He thinks that Kinsey in Life and Work is the same as james will in Ghosts and Ghosts.
Kinsey was controversial before his death, and even today, this controversy still exists. Condon decided to tell the story in a Kinsey way: completely honest, knowledgeable and inclined not to judge. "I think this movie is like a touchstone of sexual concept," Condon said. "Kinsey is a very complicated person, and I think it is very important to show all of him so that the audience can form their own opinions."
Condon spent six months studying oral interviews, Kinsey's own works, modern related materials and four biographies, including The Sexual Dimension of Everything: The Life of Alfred C Kinsey, written by Jonathan Garthorne Hardy. According to Condon, the official version of Kinsey's life lacks interest, but in Hardy's biography, many little-known personal experiences are revealed.
Condon also went to the Kinsey Association in Indiana and interviewed many people who were familiar with Kinsey and had worked with him. Among them, a scholar named Clarence Tripp worked for Kinsey after the publication of Men's Sex and became one of the two main photographers of Kinsey's research report. He was Kinsey's right-hand man and later became a famous writer. From him, Condon learned many interesting stories.
In the film, Kinsey's research partners Clyde Martin and Paul Djihad are still alive. Among them, Djihad, who is over 80 years old, still maintains the edge of youth and deserves special attention. Condon asked the old man many sensitive questions, such as how the open sex between the members of the research group was carried out and other relevant details.
Although Kinsey's wife Clara died in 1982, Condon was lucky enough to visit her two granddaughters. Condon recalled: "They had many similarities with Clara. I got important information through them, and Clara lived in the story they told. "
When Condon started writing the script, he synthesized all the information he had collected. Most importantly, Condon decided to change the sentimental tradition of past biographical films and create a more dynamic plot. Kinsey once described revealing people's past sexual interviews as a "prism", and Condon also tried to create this film with a prism to reflect all aspects of a man and the changes in human social attitudes.
"For me, Kinsey's most extraordinary talent is that he can make interviewees open their hearts and tell the most intimate side of life," Condon said. "So I want to deal with him as he deals with you, and use Kinsey's interview skills to expose his own life."
When producer Gail Mutrux saw the first draft of Condon's play, he was very surprised that he could turn such a complicated life into a compact and interesting story. Mutrux has been involved in the filming of Behind the scenes Lies and Donnie blasco, so he knows a unique way to adapt real life into movies. She said: "Bill's play presents a man who deeply influences American culture in an impartial way, which I like very much. The rarity and preciousness of the script is that there is no judgment on Kinsey and his works, only his life and what happened around him, so that the audience can gradually understand Kinsey and his influence on the world. "
About starring
When bill condon wrote the script for this film, liam neeson, the best person to play Kinsey, always came to mind. Condon said: "Liam is a natural leader, but he is an elegant giant with extraordinary ability to interpret the complex inner life of the characters."
Liam neeson knew it was a big challenge to play Kinsey, but the attraction of Kinsey and the script made him unwilling to miss the role. He said, "The film neither turned Kinsey into a saint nor avoided controversy, but regarded Kinsey as a complex individual. His willpower is incredible, and his sense of morality is extremely strong, especially his concentration is enough to finally change society. "
After signing up for the film, Nissen received a large box of information, which was the research result that Condon spent five years. Nissen said: "There are too many materials to read, classify and digest, but they are very helpful." Like Condon, Nissen got to know some of Kinsey's colleagues in order to understand Kinsey's various expressions, actions and habits in real life. However, to successfully shape characters, the most important thing is to have both form and spirit.
Nissen said: "We tried to imitate his hairstyle. His hair is like an upright wheat field. It's hard to explain, but I think it's beautiful. Also, he had rickets when he was a child, which caused his spine to bend, so I must learn this posture. "
In addition to Kinsey's unique personality, Nissen also found an unusual love story in the script: "The Kinsey couple's unique marriage lasted for 35 years. Although they are surrounded by many disputes, they still love each other deeply. Their stable relationship is based on mutual respect, and they have successfully raised three excellent children. "
This film is the third collaboration between liam neeson and laura linney. Prior to this, they co-starred in Broadway drama "Age of Passion" and comedy "Love Actually". Their skillful cooperation will undoubtedly help to show the intimate and tacit relationship between Kinsey and Clara.
Laura linney is very optimistic about the theme of this film. She said, "Kinsey and his work are very interesting and influential. I think no matter what attitude you have towards Kinsey, you will admit that his achievements have had a great influence on our culture. " Kinsey's wife Clara is an independent woman. She is obviously at the forefront of the times, and Linne is deeply fascinated by this. According to Lynn, Clara and Kinsey,
Both of them are unusual, thoughtful and talented people. However, the written record about Clara is very limited, so Lynn has the opportunity to create characters from her own ideas.
"The main message I can get is that Clara is an open-minded woman who loves Kinsey deeply," Lynn said. "But I began to realize that Clara was very interested in the topic of love and sex. She will ask Kinsey, how does love and sex blend together? How do you separate sex from love? Clara played an important role in Kinsey's man journey.