Fonda and Voight.
I mean, I had known it was coming but I had figured, "Oh, here we go, another gratuitous sex scene, nothing to see here," but oh my Lord.
I'd watch the film again but I'm almost embarrassed to watch them :-O
I totally agree....
I never thought I'd be that moved by a sex scene...What a chemistry between them !!!!
I need a cold shower... ;-)
not to burst your bubble, but jane fonda used a body double for this scene. The chemistry still comes through because of Ashby's amazing editing of the shots he got. He edits very poetically and seamlessly.
sharekristenmval (Wed Jul 9 2008 21:29:10)
not to burst your bubble, but jane fonda used a body double for this scene.
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WRONG! Haskell Wexler, who shot the scene, stated that Fonda shot the scene herself in the nude!
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oh man, i just saw that movie last night and i just had to come to this board to see if anyone else thought that the scene was done so tastefully and sweetly. And yes, it was very intimate and you do feel as if you have walked in on them and so as no to disturb, you slowly back out while you are totally entranced.
Totally agree
Those willing to give up liberty for security, deserve neither
I agree. First tiem I saw the film, I cried with some scenes. love scenes, because, although sex, different sex we use to watch at the screen...feelings...love.
best regards
zortekento
The best love scene I have ever seen (beats this one in Coming Home) is the one in Enemy at the Gates. No flesh is shown (apart from the faces of the two protagonists) but the effect is divine. Watch the film for this sequence, among many others.
shareThat's Rachel Weitz, no?
shareYeah, I agree totally...Enemy At The Gates is for sure the best,but the one in this film amazing as well. If any of you haven't seen Enemy, check it out ASAP. It is an awesome film.
shareYou sure got that right. They didn't even show much ... at least by today's TV standards! But it was so intense. Watching him unfurl her like a morning flower. Oh my!
shareThat was a pretty hot love scene, Jon Voight's body was amazing!
"..nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"
yeah this sounds kinda weird, but i was attracted to voight myself
Those willing to give up liberty for security, deserve neither
I'm glad other people thought this was one of the best love scenes in a movie. If you look at it from all analytic angles it shouldn't work. I mean a man in a wheelchair in a hot sex scene. But it does and that really shows the genius of Hal Ashby. By far one of the best and most underrated filmmakers that America has ever produced.
To hear Jon Voight tell a great story about Hal Ashby's work style and this movie in particular, watch A Decade Under the Influence. I cried. Beautiful stuff.
Try watching this is a class. We all started looking at each other nervously.
shareJon Voight was so HOT! (but then so was I,(ha ha) guess we all get old) I know that his character made me want to volunteer at the nearest VA hospital when that film came out! To this day one of the most sensuous love scenes I have seen in a film, without being too raunchy or gratuitous. One of the most memorable love scenes in a motion picture to me, which was done in good taste.
share"Jon Voight was so HOT! (but then so was I,(ha ha) guess we all get old)"
I was thinking the same thing. He really was a hottie back then, wasn't he? Yep, we all age. My husband has of course seen pics of me back then and always comments he wishes he knew me back then. LOL!
The movie is good(except that Haskell's camera work really bored me). I watched it last night, but skipped the sex scene, because it disppointed me to see Sally betrayed her husband and never even seriously thought about what would happen to her husband. Maybe it was normal in late 60's, but still, morally speaking, adultery is not right unless the husband is really a bastard. Though the movie deliberately described Bob as a stupid, boring and weak husband, but every reasonable man know that in reallity, he is just a ordinary soldier, a victim of the war. And remember, Sally's disloyalty is the main cause of Bob's suicide. While for Luke and Sally, it is interesting that we don't even know whether they really love each other. If they do, they should not try to deceive Bob and maintain Sally's marriage, if they didn't, then they have no excuse for having an affair since they should be smarter and more "righteous" than ordinary people.
So anyway, the sex scene just simply doesn't make sense to me, even considering about the chaotic late 60's background. If they just had a kind of intimate friendship like in Roman Holiday or Lost in Translation, the story should have been much better.
Stefaniesun, I have a problem with some parts of your post. First of all, yes, this kind of behavior was common in the late 60s. People were experimenting with "open marriage", etc. Your sentence "morally speaking, adultery is not right unless the husband is really a bastard" doesn't cut it. Adultery is adultery. I'm not making a judgement, I'm just pointing out that your logic is incorrect.
Secondly, Sally's disloyalty is not the main cause of Bob's suicide. It was the straw that broke the camel's back so to speak. He came back to the U.S. a broken man, partly because of his war experiences, including the guilt he suffered over shooting himself in the leg and then receiving a bronze star among other things. I don't think he was wrapped too tight to begin with.
The sex scene was perfect. It gave the film a balanced intensity that matched the intensity of the times represented. It made perfect sense.
That sentence may show we have different moral standards, but has no logical flaws. In real life, there are a lot of circumstances that adultery of betraying one's husband is not wrong or even justified, for example, if the marriage commitment has been violated by the husband first, if there are serious domestic violence, if the husband is a gay, etc.
But in this case, Sally's disloyalty is not right, because Bob does nothing wrong to danger or damage their marriage, he may be boring and far away in battlefield, he may be not so charming, brave or humorous as Luke, but that is not the excuse for betraying.
Yes, it may be not the main cause of Bob's suicide, but after he loses his career object and face in that stupid war, his marriage and family is the last straw.
While Sally and Luke had some happy time together and they don't even think about future and Sally's family. And did they seriously say goodbye and promise never be together after Bob comes back? I don't remember. What they did is lying to Bob and showing their superiorities.
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He certainly had got some mental problems after the war, but Sally's adultery happened BEFORE that. After knowing his wife's betrayal, he became more emotionally unstable. But I don't think I know this is a great film and it is the war ruined his marriage and life, but a bad war didn't justify Sally's adultery.
share[deleted]
Of course, by most people's standards (including mine), adultery is wrong. Very wrong, in my book. Sally acknowledges this. The film isn't depicting adultery as acceptable, and skipping over the sex scene for this reason alone strikes me as a little bizarre. Just because a movie shows something, doesn't mean it's endorsing it. Coming Home is all about Vietnam as well, but no one in their right mind would call it a pro-war picture.
shareThey didn't have sex PER SE..remember..he's paralyzed. It was a beautifully done scene, IMO, and she finally found out what it's like to fully experience the act, to a degree.
Bob was asked to leave the service..shooting himself in the leg didn't set too well with the brass..then, when he comes home, he's told about Sally and Luke..
I think he's more upset with having to leave the service and resign his commission than he is about Sally..but that was the candles on the cake, so to speak.
Remember when he comes home, wounded? Gets off the plane, hobbles over to the gate and the first thing he says to her is, "What the hell did you do to your hair???"...and Welcome home to you, too, buddy! She was well rid of him.
And yes, he committed suicide at the end...and boy, did he have a fat butt!!
Sally and Vi go shopping...the door to the market says "Out"..and that's just what Bob was.
Here's Jeff Buckley's great song:
Once I was a soldier
And I fought on foreign sands for you
Once I was a hunter
And I brought home fresh meat for you
Once I was a lover
And I searched behind your eyes for you
And soon there’ll be another
To tell you I was just a lie
And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you ever remember me?
Though you have forgotten
All of our rubbish dreams
I find myself searching
Through the ashes of our ruins
For the days when we smiled
And the hours that ran wild
With the magic of our eyes
And the silence of our words
And sometimes I wonder
Just for a while
Will you ever remember me? . . . . Ever remember me?
"If you can make a girl laugh, you can make her do anything!"....
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What most surprised me about this scene was how long Jane Fonda's character has an orgasm and the close-up being on HER not Jon Voight's character. It's like, the viewer is directly confronted with this woman recieving complete pleasure from a man, and not the opposite. It seems like movies today are scared of real female sexuality. This is like total anti-porn. Ashby's great.
shareP.S.S: This scene is actually talked about in the documentary "This Film Is Not Yet Rated" which is about the MPAA rating system. I think I remember it being compared to the love scene with Chloe Sevigny and Hilary Swank in "Boy's Don't Cry". If anyone is interested...
shareThe sex scene with Fonda and Dern made it quite clear that this later scene would take place and set the grounbd for the cheating. Sally just lay there while he went at it.
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yeah. that was one hell of a sensuous love scene. i love DVR.
I guess we got the same dreams...or is it the same nightmares?