Kinsey (film)
Encyclopedia
Kinsey is a 2004 biographical film
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...

 written and directed by Bill Condon
Bill Condon
William "Bill" Condon is an American screenwriter and director. Condon is best known for directing and writing the critically acclaimed films Gods and Monsters, Chicago, Kinsey, and Dreamgirls. In 1998, Condon debuted as a screenwriter in Gods and Monsters, which won him his first Academy Award....

. It describes the life of Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Kinsey
Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...

 (played by Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

), a pioneer in the area of sexology
Sexology
Sexology is the scientific study of human sexuality, including human sexual interests, behavior, and function. The term does not generally refer to the non-scientific study of sex, such as political analysis or social criticism....

. His 1948 publication, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male (the first of the Kinsey Reports
Kinsey Reports
The Kinsey Reports are two books on human sexual behavior, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female , by Dr. Alfred Kinsey, Wardell Pomeroy and others and published by Saunders...

) was one of the first recorded works that tried to scientifically address and investigate sexual behaviour in humans. The movie also stars Laura Linney
Laura Linney
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...

 (in a performance nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...

), Chris O'Donnell
Chris O'Donnell
Christopher Eugene "Chris" O'Donnell is an American actor. He has played Robin in two Batman films, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, Charlie Simms in Scent of a Woman, Finn Dandridge in Grey's Anatomy, Peter Garrett in Vertical Limit, and more recently, Jack McAuliffe in The Company. O'Donnell...

, Peter Sarsgaard
Peter Sarsgaard
John Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...

, Timothy Hutton
Timothy Hutton
Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...

, John Lithgow
John Lithgow
John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...

, Tim Curry
Tim Curry
Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....

, Oliver Platt
Oliver Platt
Oliver James Platt is a Canadian-American actor. He is currently starring in the Showtime original series, The Big C with Laura Linney.-Early life:...

, Dylan Baker
Dylan Baker
Dylan Baker is an American actor, known for playing supporting roles in both major studio and independent films.-Early life:...

 and William Sadler
William Sadler (actor)
William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,...

. The film received critical acclaim, including a 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...

.

Plot

The film begins with Professor Alfred Kinsey (Liam Neeson
Liam Neeson
Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

), being interviewed about his sex history. Interspersed with the interview, there are flashbacks from his childhood and young-adulthood. The former depicts his experiences as a Boy Scout
Boy Scout
A Scout is a boy or a girl, usually 11 to 18 years of age, participating in the worldwide Scouting movement. Because of the large age and development span, many Scouting associations have split this age group into a junior and a senior section...

 and the other shows Kinsey disappointing his father by his chosen vocational intentions. It then shows Kinsey teaching at Indiana University
Indiana University Bloomington
Indiana University Bloomington is a public research university located in Bloomington, Indiana, in the United States. IU Bloomington is the flagship campus of the Indiana University system. Being the flagship campus, IU Bloomington is often referred to simply as IU or Indiana...

 as a professor of biology lecturing on gall wasp
Gall wasp
Gall wasps , also called Gallflies, are a family of the order Hymenoptera and are classified with the Apocrita suborder of wasps in the superfamily Cynipoidea...

s. Kinsey falls in love with a student in his class, whom he calls Mac (Laura Linney
Laura Linney
Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...

), and marries her. Their consummation of their marriage is difficult at first, because of a medical problem Mac has that is fixed easily with minor surgery, after which it is shown that she has an equally intense sexual appetite as her husband. Meanwhile, at the University, Professor Kinsey, who is affectionately called "Prok" by his graduate students, meets with students afterhours to offer individual sexual advice.

At a book party celebrating Kinsey's latest publication on gall wasp
Gall wasp
Gall wasps , also called Gallflies, are a family of the order Hymenoptera and are classified with the Apocrita suborder of wasps in the superfamily Cynipoidea...

s, Kinsey approaches the dean of students about an open-forum sex education
Sex education
Sex education refers to formal programs of instruction on a wide range of issues relating to human sexuality, including human sexual anatomy, sexual reproduction, sexual intercourse, reproductive health, emotional relations, reproductive rights and responsibilities, abstinence, contraception, and...

 course as opposed to the anti-sex propaganda taught in a general health class. Eventually, it is approved. Kinsey begins teaching the sex course to a packed auditorium; nevertheless this course is open only to teachers, graduate or senior students or married students. Kinsey continues to answer students' questions in personal meetings but finds his answers to be severely limited by the complete paucity of scientific data about human sexual behavior. This leads Kinsey to pass out questionnaires in his sexual education class from which he learns of the enormous disparity between what society had assumed people do and what their actual practices are. After securing financial support from the Rockefeller Foundation
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is a prominent philanthropic organization and private foundation based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The preeminent institution established by the six-generation Rockefeller family, it was founded by John D. Rockefeller , along with his son John D. Rockefeller, Jr...

, Kinsey and his research assistants, including his closest assistant, Clyde Martin (Peter Sarsgaard
Peter Sarsgaard
John Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...

), travel the country, interviewing subjects about their sexual histories.

As time progresses Dr. Kinsey begins realizing that sexuality within humans, including himself, is a lot more varied than was originally thought. The range of expression he creates later becomes known as the Kinsey scale
Kinsey scale
The Kinsey scale, also called the Heterosexual-Homosexual Rating Scale, attempts to describe a person's sexual history or episodes of his or her sexual activity at a given time. It uses a scale from 0, meaning exclusively heterosexual, to 6, meaning exclusively homosexual...

, which ranks overall sexuality from completely heterosexual to completely homosexual and everything in-between.

The first sexological book Kinsey publishes, which is on the sexual habits of the male, is a large-scale success and a best seller. Kinsey's research turns to women, which is met with more controversy. With the release of the female volume, support for Kinsey declines. McCarthyist
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...

 pressures lead the Rockefeller Foundation to withdraw its financial support, lest it be labeled "Communist" for backing the subversion of traditional American values. Kinsey feels that he has failed everyone who has ever been a victim of sexual ignorance. A customs office is tipped off to an importation of some of Kinsey's research material, which only exacerbates the financial situation of Kinsey's research organization. Kinsey suffers a heart attack, and is found to have developed an addiction to barbiturate
Barbiturate
Barbiturates are drugs that act as central nervous system depressants, and can therefore produce a wide spectrum of effects, from mild sedation to total anesthesia. They are also effective as anxiolytics, as hypnotics, and as anticonvulsants...

s. Meeting with other philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...

s fails to garner the support needed. Still, Kinsey continues his taking of sex histories. He interviews an older woman, who tells Kinsey that she had felt so much shame about her attraction to another woman that she became an alcoholic, but that his research has saved her life and made her happy again, by helping her come to terms with her own sexuality.

The story returns to the initial interview with Kinsey, and he is asked about love and if he will ever attempt to conduct research on it. His response is that love is impossible to measure and impossible to quantify (and without measuring, he reminds us, there can be no science), but that it is important. The final scene is of Kinsey and his wife, pulling over to the side of the road for a nature walk. She remarks about a tree that has been there for a thousand years. Kinsey replies that the tree seems to display a strong love in the way its roots grip the earth. Afterwards, the two walk off together, Kinsey remarking "there's a lot of work to do".

Cast

  • Liam Neeson
    Liam Neeson
    Liam John Neeson, OBE is an Irish actor who has been nominated for an Oscar, a BAFTA and three Golden Globe Awards.He has starred in a number of notable roles including Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List, Michael Collins in Michael Collins, Peyton Westlake in Darkman, Jean Valjean in Les...

     as Alfred Kinsey
    Alfred Kinsey
    Alfred Charles Kinsey was an American biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, now known as the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction, as well as producing the Kinsey Reports and the Kinsey...

  • Laura Linney
    Laura Linney
    Laura Leggett Linney is an American actress of film, television, and theatre. Linney has won three Emmy Awards, two Golden Globes, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She has been nominated for three times for an Academy Award and once for a BAFTA Award...

     as Clara McMillen
    Clara McMillen
    Clara Bracken McMillen contributed to the Kinsey Reports on human sexuality. She was the widow of Alfred Charles Kinsey....

  • Peter Sarsgaard
    Peter Sarsgaard
    John Peter Sarsgaard is an American film and stage actor. He landed his first feature role in the movie Dead Man Walking in 1995. He then appeared in the 1998 independent films Another Day in Paradise and Desert Blue. That same year, Sarsgaard received a substantial role in The Man in the Iron...

     as Clyde Martin
    Clyde Martin
    Dr. Clyde Martin was an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey and a co-author of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.-Scholarly biography:...

  • Chris O'Donnell
    Chris O'Donnell
    Christopher Eugene "Chris" O'Donnell is an American actor. He has played Robin in two Batman films, Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, Charlie Simms in Scent of a Woman, Finn Dandridge in Grey's Anatomy, Peter Garrett in Vertical Limit, and more recently, Jack McAuliffe in The Company. O'Donnell...

     as Wardell Pomeroy
    Wardell Pomeroy
    Wardell Baxter Pomeroy was an American sexologist and co-author with Alfred C. Kinsey. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He graduated from Indiana University and earned a Ph.D. in psychology in 1954 from Columbia University...

  • Timothy Hutton
    Timothy Hutton
    Timothy Tarquin Hutton is an American actor. He is the youngest actor to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he won at the age of 20 for his performance as Conrad Jarrett in Ordinary People . He currently stars as Nathan "Nate" Ford on the TNT series Leverage.-Early life:Timothy...

     as Paul Gebhard
    Paul Gebhard
    Paul H. Gebhard, born , was an American anthropologist and sexologist. Born in Rocky Ford, Colorado, he earned a B.S. and a Ph.D. from Harvard in 1940 and 1947, respectively. Gebhard followed Alfred Kinsey as the second director of the Kinsey Institute and served in that capacity from 1956 to...

  • John Lithgow
    John Lithgow
    John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio...

     as Alfred Seguine Kinsey
  • Tim Curry
    Tim Curry
    Timothy James "Tim" Curry is a British actor, singer, composer and voice actor, known for his work in a diverse range of theatre, film and television productions. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California....

     as Thurman Rice
  • Oliver Platt
    Oliver Platt
    Oliver James Platt is a Canadian-American actor. He is currently starring in the Showtime original series, The Big C with Laura Linney.-Early life:...

     as Herman Wells
    Herman B Wells
    Herman B Wells was the 11th president of Indiana University. He served the university in a variety of capacities, most notably as president and as chancellor. He was pivotal in the development of Indiana University into a world class institution of higher learning.- Early life :Herman B Wells was...

  • Dylan Baker
    Dylan Baker
    Dylan Baker is an American actor, known for playing supporting roles in both major studio and independent films.-Early life:...

     as Alan Gregg
  • William Sadler
    William Sadler (actor)
    William Thomas Sadler is an American actor who works in film and television. His television and motion picture roles have included Lewis Burwell "Chesty" Puller in The Pacific, Luther Sloan in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Sheriff Jim Valenti in Roswell, convict Heywood in The Shawshank Redemption,...

     as Kenneth Braun
  • John McMartin
    John McMartin
    John McMartin is an American actor of stage, film and television.-Early life and career:McMartin was born in Warsaw, Indiana and raised in Minnesota. He attended college in Illinois and New York. He made his off-Broadway debut in Little Mary Sunshine in 1959, playing opposite Eileen Brennan...

     as Huntington Hartford
    Huntington Hartford
    George Huntington Hartford II was an American businessman, philanthropist, filmmaker, and art collector. The heir to the A&P supermarket fortune, he owned Paradise Island in the Bahamas, and had numerous other business and real estate interests over his lifetime including the Oil Shale Corporation...

  • John Krasinski
    John Krasinski
    John Burke Krasinski is an American actor, film director, and writer. He is most widely known for playing Jim Halpert on the NBC sitcom The Office...

     as Ben
  • Lynn Redgrave
    Lynn Redgrave
    Lynn Rachel Redgrave, OBE was an English actress.A member of the well-known British family of actors, Redgrave trained in London before making her theatrical debut in 1962...

     as Final Interview Subject

Awards and nominations

According to its IMDb profile, Kinsey won 11 awards and received 27 other nominations.


Won
Chlotrudis Awards
*Best Supporting Actor (Sarsgaard
Florida Film Critics Circle
Florida Film Critics Circle
The Florida Film Critics Circle is an organization of film reviewers from fourteen Florida-based publications and websites. In December, the FFCC meets to vote on their awards for films released during that year.- Categories :* Best Actor...

*Best Supporting Actress (Linney
GLAAD Media Awards
GLAAD Media Awards
The GLAAD Media Award is an accolade bestowed by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation to recognize and honor various branches of the media for their outstanding representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives...

*Outstanding Film – Wide Releas
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...

*Best Actor (Neeson
National Board of Review
*Best Supporting Actress (Linney
Phoenix Film Critics Society
Phoenix Film Critics Society
The Phoenix Film Critics Society is an organization of film reviewers from Phoenix-based publications.In December of each year, the PFCS meets to vote on their Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards for films released in the same calendar year.Categories of awards include:* Best Actor The Phoenix...

*Best Supporting Actress (Linney


Other nominations
Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

*Best Supporting Actress (Linney
American Cinema Editors
American Cinema Editors
Founded in 1950, American Cinema Editors is an honorary society of film editors that are voted in based on the qualities of professional achievements, their education of others, and their dedication to editing itself. The society is not to be confused with an industry union, such as the I.A.T.S.E...

 (ACE)
*Best Edited Film – Dramatic (Katz
Broadcast Film Critics Association
Broadcast Film Critics Association
The Broadcast Film Critics Association is the largest film critics organization in the United States and Canada , representing approximately 250 television, radio and online critics....

*Best Fil
*Best Supporting Actor (Sarsgaard
*Best Supporting Actress (Linney
*Best Writer (Condon
Casting Society of America
Casting Society of America
Founded in Los Angeles, California in 1982, the Casting Society of America is a professional society of about 350 casting directors for film, television, and theatre in Australia, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States. The society is not to be confused with an industry union. The...

 (CSA)
*Best Film Casting – Drama (Tolan
Golden Globe Awards
*Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Neeson
*Best Picture – Dram
*Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture (Linney
Independent Spirit Awards
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...

*Best Actor (Neeson
*Best Fil
*Best Screenplay (Condon
*Best Supporting Actor (Sarsgaard
Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...

*Best Supporting Actor (Sarsgaard
*Best Supporting Actress (Linney
Satellite Awards
Satellite Awards
The Satellite Awards are an annual award given by the International Press Academy. The awards were originally known as the Golden Satellite Awards.- Film :*Best Actor – Drama*Best Actor – Musical or Comedy*Best Actress – Drama...

*Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Neeson
*Best Director (Condon
*Best Film – Dram
*Best Screenplay – Original (Condon
*Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Sarsgaard
*Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Drama (Linney
Screen Actors Guild
Screen Actors Guild
The Screen Actors Guild is an American labor union representing over 200,000 film and television principal performers and background performers worldwide...

 (SAG)
*Outstanding Female Actor in a Supporting Role (Linney
Vancouver Film Critics
*Best Actor (Neeson
Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....

 (WGA)
*Best Original Screenplay (Condon

In Japan

Kinsey was the first film permitted to show human genitalia uncensored in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, known for its strict censorship policies regarding genitalia.
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