Hollywood entering a new era of Puritanism

Fred MacMurray obsesses over the way a bracelet sticks into Barbara Stanwyck's leg in the movie "Blood Pact."

Viggo Mortensen and Maria Bello go from a marital fight to a lustful and aggressive sexual encounter on a staircase in "A History of Violence."

Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke engage in a flirtation on the kitchen floor in "9 1/2 Weeks."

These are just three examples of burning desire on the big screen, among many others throughout the history of cinema.

Whether it's lustful gazes or intense caresses carefully framed on the sheets, sexuality is an inherent part of the movie experience, because sex is an inherent part of our lives.

To deny sex and sexuality in film is to deny our own humanity as a whole. But are filmmakers increasingly avoiding the erotic?

This summer, before the premiere of his film "Benedetta" at the Cannes Film Festival, veteran filmmaker Paul Verhoeven gave an interview to Variety.

When asked why movies like his 1992 erotic thriller "Basic Instinct" were no longer being made in Hollywood, he said: "There's been a general shift toward Puritanism. I think there's a misunderstanding about sexuality in America."

"Sexuality is the most essential element of nature. It always amazes me that people are surprised by sex in movies."

To some film critics, who have for some time been lamenting what they perceive as the new Puritanism in Hollywood, hearing this from Verhoeven seemed like vindication.

After all, Verhoeven helped define the '90s erotic thriller and has been a filmmaker interested in flamboyant sexuality from the start.

Although he began making films in his native Netherlands in the late 1970s, his move to mainstream Hollywood kept the same taste for pushing the limits, from the notorious interrogation scene in "Basic Instinct" to the vulgarity of the maligned "Showgirls" (1995), to her recent sexual consent drama "Elle" (2017).

Verhoeven hasn't lost his transgressive edge either: At this year's New York Film Festival, a Catholic group turned out to protest his portrayal of 17th-century lesbian nuns in "Benedetta."