Sharon Stone and the secrets of "Low Instincts": an actress without underwear, a maddening crossing of legs, n-ked on set and a slap
The interrogation scene was unforgettable for a generation. And, perhaps, it holds a singular record: that of being the slowest scene in VHS history.
There are scenes that define a movie, scenes that become the center of a story, that become unforgettable. Their impact makes us remember what went through our body the moment we saw them for the first time, and when we review them (they are always seen again) they surprise us again, and we continue to find details and elements that we had missed. I escaped. The absence of the initial impact does not deteriorate them.
The Basic Instincts interrogation scene was unforgettable for a generation. And, perhaps, it holds a singular record: that of being the slowest scene in VHS history. Perhaps the inventor of the frame-by-frame feature had Sharon Stone's character Catherine Trammell in mind when she developed her technique. To fix that image, to eternalize those few seconds.
In 1992, the year of the premiere of Low Instincts, Sharon Stone was 34 years old and had been trying to get noticed in Hollywood for a decade. She had participated in a dozen films but without actually starring. She seized her opportunity when she got a good role in Paul Verhoeven's Avenger of the Future, who would also direct Low Instincts.
Stone was the thirteenth candidate for the role of the sensual and dangerous Catherine Trammel. Julia Roberts, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kim Basinger, Meg Ryan, Geena Davis and Demi Moore, among others, declined the offer to star. It was a risky role, with too much exposure. When one of these superstars asked the Dutch Verhoeven if he would film the script as it was written, with that high level of eroticism, he responded impassively: "No, I plan to make it much stronger still." The actresses fled.
Verhoeven had a strong, shocking, highly s-xual film in his head. One of his goals was for his to be the first mainstream movie to show a boner. That, we know, he didn't make it. The Dutch director knew what he wanted from his female lead and knew that in a medium like Hollywood he was going to get it.
Sharon Stone got the chance to audition by concocting a little hoax. But at the time of taking the test on camera she did not keep anything. She knew it was the chance of her life. A couple of years ago, Sharon posted on her Twitter account a minute from that moment. We see her in the foreground, disheveled, her, her voice, the malicious smile, a drink and a cigarette. After that minute it was impossible not to give him the role of her. There is electricity and vertigo in those eyes and in that mouth.
The scene in question from the film lasts less than three minutes. Five investigators question Trammell, a successful writer suspected of killing a former rock star. She is sitting in an armchair in front of them. Five against one. The questions are meant to be tough. Relentlessness is one of the hallmarks of the homicide detective. She, however, disarms them instantly. It is she, the prey, who dominates the situation. The five men are uncomfortable, restless. The woman is calm, confident, overwhelms with her sure gestures and her self-confidence.
She lights a cigarette despite being told the building is smoke-free. It becomes a weapon that she wields masterfully. She lets out the smoke. She speaks into their eyes, leans forward, addresses her interlocutors with confidence from her, calling them by her names. She seduces them, she plays with them. She dominates them. She enjoys the situation. She then she takes off her white coat. Her dress is the same color. Elegant and inviting. A sneaky tribute to Hitchcock's Kim Novak in Vertigo.
She leans back on the couch. She talks about sadomasochism, hands, fingers, s-x, pleasure, and cocaine. Until the time comes. Little more than a second. Her legs crossed, left over right. She uncrosses them. They remain open. Detectives can see under her skirt, unopposed by her underwear. She crosses her legs again to the other side, left over right. Catherine Trammell knows that she won.
About the filming there are, as appropriate, two versions. Although they both resemble each other. Until a moment of the events the two protagonists agree.
Both Sharon Stone and Verhoeven agree that the director asked her to remove her underwear. He argued that the white of the panties could provoke an annoying reflection. She accepted. And she took off the garment and, as in a game, put it in Verhoeven's shirt pocket.
They rolled for long hours. The actress, the director, the cinematographer Jan de Bont (director after Twister and Maximum Speed) and a few other members of the team. Several shots, different shots. Verhoeven showed Sharon the result on the monitor. She was satisfied.
Everything changed when the actress saw the first cut on the big screen. She at that moment she approached Verhoeven and slapped his face away. She felt exposed and uncared for by the Dutchman. He claimed that everything had been talked about and that he had even shown her the images on set. That nothing had happened without his consent. Sharon explained that since HD did not exist at that time, what she saw on the monitor was a dark version of the scene that in film and in a movie theater, on the immense screen, acquired a definition and sharpness that she had not imagined . That a shot like that should be shown to the actress first. She demanded that she take it out. Verhoeven listened no more. With his fingers marked on her cheek, he asked her: "If you take off your underwear and the camera is pointing there, what do you think she is going to see on the screen later?"
Perhaps Sharon thought it was only a hint, that Verhoeven would not be encouraged any more. Possibly the Dutch ancestry of the director and the cinematographer, the naturalness with which they assume n-des, the low propensity to be scandalized, have created a climate without pressure, relaxed, that allowed Sharon to be more daring than she was. had even considered.
Sharon could not get the shot out of her head (after all, the same thing that she would later happen to viewers around the world). She used all the charms of her to convince the directors of the study to cut the controversial plane but she was not listened to.
The representative after the private function insisted that this scene was going to kill her career, that she would be signed forever. She was wrong. The exact opposite happened. That movie and that scene in particular made her a superstar. She immediately became a s-x symbol - perhaps the greatest of the 90s - she starred in several more films and even got an Oscar nomination.
The role that a dozen stars rejected because they did not encourage the n-ked, because they feared violence, he consecrated to her.
The screenwriter for the film was Joe Eszterhas, a very high-profile and controversial character. He had previously written, among others, Flashdance, Hearts of Fire and Edge of Suspicion. By selling this script, which originally had other titles: Love Hurts and Sympathy with the devil, she broke a record. She was paid three million dollars, the maximum amount obtained by a screenwriter so far.
In her memoir, Hollywood Animal, she tells that she had several altercations with the director because on the film set she altered what he had written. However, the incredible thing about the situation is that the movie with the most expensive script in history is remembered for a scene that was not in it. It was an invention of Paul Verhoeven derived from an episode that he lived at a party. One of the girls present, drink in hand and many more already taken, told him that she was not wearing her underwear and asked the director to observe the reaction of the men present when she sat in an armchair. The Dutchman immediately knew that at some point he would use that resource in a movie of his.
The character was not written or thought of her but of a striptease dancer Eszterhas met, but Catherine Trammell is her actress. The looks, the abrupt changes of state, the fury that coexists with the charm, the dangerousness, the sharpest smile in Hollywood.
"Sharon Stone is Catherine Trammell without the ice pick," said Paul
Verhoeven. She recounted that she was inspired by the sensuality of Kathleen
Turner. There is something of the sinuosity of Turner or of the Barbara
Stanwyck of Blood Pact in Trammell, in that character in which she converges a
writer, a kind of female superhero, a murderer and a dominator.
The choice of the lead actor was also a success, although less surprising. Michael Douglas had already starred in films with some erotic content such as Fatal Attraction and was a leading figure. He also arrived after other names such as Richard Gere, Don Johnson, Tom Cruise or Patrick Swayze were considered.
The relationship between the protagonists was not ideal off camera. Or maybe yes. There was tension, a suspicion, an air of violence and attraction flying over them.
Filming was not easy. It is rumored that Sharon had a hard time finding the character and that after the first day she was almost fired, while Michael Douglas pressed for them to hire Kim Basinger, who had already rejected the role so as not to be pigeonholed as an erotic actress after 9 weeks and a half.
Sharon said that, in some scenes, lying on the floor next to her bed was her best friend to give her strength and for her to feel protected from her. And that she once had to use an oxygen tube that was on set because it was decomposing due to the intensity of the violent sequences.
The s-x scenes took more than five days to shoot. The n-de actors spent hours in bed.
It is known that Michael Douglas never made modesty a norm. Sharon discarded the use of semi-transparent adhesive patches that adhere to the crotch and cover the woman's vagina and anus. She did not want to use them because she had to peel and stick them every time she went to the bathroom and the operation was very painful.
Having filmed the erotic scenes for so many days brought an extra benefit to the director. When the censorship forced him to modify scenes if he did not want the film to have the highest rating and thus restrict the public that could see it, Verhoeven replaced a few shots with others shot at different angles, which only suggested or hinted at. There were many changes but very brief. Less than 40 seconds of film were modified. Among the demands to lower the film's rating was never, oddly enough, the interrogation scene. After those days shooting s-x scenes, Sharon reflected, "The film crew got to know me more deeply than my gynecologist."
At the time of its premiere there was not only controversy over the s-x scenes or the violence. LGBT + groups raised protests and demonstrated in front of the cinemas that passed it, considering that the film criminalized them by putting a bis-xual character as the murderer. They complained that they portrayed bis-xual women as psychopaths.
The response from the public was immediate. It was one of the highest grossing films of the year. However, the critical reception was neither unanimous nor friendly. Respected critic Jonathan Rosenbaum gave it a zero star rating. He wrote that it was a film of no value but very dangerous because its formula would be heavily copied (in this he was right). Years later he modified his opinion and vindicates it like so many others.
Paul Verhoeven from the beginning wanted to film a tribute to Hitchcock but with a lot of s-x. To this we must add the bombastic style, less elegant but more spectacular and impressive from Eszterhas. This combination made Low Instincts a role model in the 1990s. There was a wave of erotic thrillers. But none achieved the impact of this film.
That crossing of the legs (and especially its uncrossing) perhaps overshadows that Low Instincts is a good movie, that manages to maintain tension and that made a genre fashionable. And that a mainstream film has been encouraged to cross certain borders respected until then in terms of s-xuality and the way of showing it. Low instincts is part of your time and about your time. It describes and represents the nineties quite accurately. Its characters and the actors who played them and various moments in the film, especially the interrogation scene, became icons of those years.
Sharon Stone agrees with that: "Michael Douglas and I became the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, horizontal and n-ked, of the nineties."
