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THE LIFESTYLE: GROUP SEX IN THE SUBURBS
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United States
2000 / 35 mm / Color / 75 min.
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Some middle-class, middle-aged couples like to get together on Saturday night and play bridge or go bowling. Others like to have group sex. Known to outsiders as swinging, the lifestyle -- as swingers call it, has grown quietly in the '90s. Every U.S. state except North Dakota now has at least one swingers club. The swingers themselves estimate that three million Americans are involved in organized group sex. THE LIFESTYLE is an in-depth account of this undiscovered subculture that exists in suburbs and small towns across the United States, and affords participants a vehicle to explain the how and why of swinging. Director David Schisgall spent over three years getting to know the members and leaders of the lifestyle and documenting their dreams, hope and beliefs. Like most Americans, they want family, marriage, and limitless sexual indulgence, except that unlike most Americans, members of the lifestyle feel they have achieved all three.
In its blunt deglamorization of sexual licence, THE LIFESTYLE is more like the antidote to Stanley Kubrick's elegant, fearful erotic dream, EYES WIDE SHUT. In Kubrick's Freud-drenched vision of sexual transgression, group sex within the upper class was portrayed as the ultimate taboo, a secretive nightmarish dance with the Devil. Here it is an indoor sport played by married, middle-class couples on Saturday night in living rooms decked out with disco balls and Japanese lanterns. -- Stephen Holden (New York Times)
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Phot.: Peter Hawkins.
Ed.: Andrew Hafitz.
Mus.: Byron Estep, Edward Sperry.
Prod.: Dan Cogan,Swinging T, c/o Seventh Art Releasing, 7551 Sunset Boulevard, # 104, Los Angeles, CA 90046 (�tats-Unis), t�l.: (323) 845-1455, fax: (323) 845-4717, e-mail: [email protected] / Good Machine, 417 Canal Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10013 (�tats-Unis), t�l.: (212) 343-9230, fax: (212) 343-9645.
Sales: Good Machine International.
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David Schisgall
David Schisgall studied filmmaking and philosophy at Deep Springs College and Harvard University. He worked on ABC News' Emmy-winning documentary series, Turning Point, hosted by Peter Jennings, Diane Sawyer and Barbara Walters. He also worked on Errol Morris' last three features, A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME (1992), FAST, CHEAP AND OUT OF CONTROL (1997) and MR. DEATH: THE RISE AND FALL OF FRED A. LEUCHTER JR. (1999). THE LIFESTYLE: GROUP SEX IN THE SUBURBS marks his directorial debut. |
