Welcome to my new short series called Hippie Hotties where I plan to talk about a hippie-era movie that stretched the limits of free love and sex by showing off some sexy nudes on the big screen. This era of experimentation led to some pretty far-out films, so let's take a look!
1969. Pink Floyd. Drugs. Hippie hotties with no clothes on. Do we need to say more? I will: MORE. That's the title of the movie today, so let's talk about this experimental and sexy forgotten classic.
Barbet Schroeder directed More about drugs and politics in the late 60s. The movie takes place in the gorgeous Spanish island Ibiza and deals with drug romanticization which leads to heroin addiction in the movie. It's a poignant commentary on the 60s counterculture's relationship with drugs.
The movie follows a German student traveling through Europe and making bohemian friends everywhere he goes. He is obsessed with a mysterious American girl named Estelle whom he follows from Paris to Ibiza. They become lovers and that is when the sexy and nude sunbathing begins!
Ibiza really is the perfect place to zone out in the sun, make love, and do drugs. Or at least that appears to be what this movie suggests...until things get out of hand. This couple gets increasingly addicted - to drugs, not to sex. It would be a lot better if things were the other way around!
As their addiction gets the better of them, there is a rather "famous" scene from the movie where they are very high and decide to fight a windmill. It's a little homage to Don Quixote with the two high hippies hitting a windmill's panels with sticks. It's the last moment of levity before the movie gets darker. But all of the nudity happens before that, so let's focus on the positives here.
Estelle is played by Mimsy Farmer who is positively filled with whimsy in her multiple nude scenes. She is joined by Louise Wink in a bedroom scene where the two are nude and discussing their affair. Estelle is a really kinky young lady! When Stefan discovers their, um, relationship he decides to join the lesbian lovers in a threesome that is filled with plenty of grass and ass.
Unlike some of the other "drug scare" movies of this time, More shows much more realistic looks at drug use. That is probably because of this little piece of trivia: REAL drugs were used in some of the drug screens. That means that the actors were actually smoking pot and taking heroin and LSD.
Pink Floyd wrote and performed the score for this movie with some additional songs by Roger Waters and David Gilmour. Music was very important for the director who, according to Roger Waters, "wanted the soundtrack to relate exactly to what was happening in the movie, rather than a film score backing the visuals." That's groovy!
More was initially panned by critics at the time. Roger Ebert described the movie to be SO focused on drugs that the message was "sure, speed kills, but what a way to go". Shockingly, its reception has changed slightly over time. I personally think that is in large part thanks to the killer soundtrack from Pink Floyd.
Either way, it was given a Criterion Collection release in 2005 and was screened at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for the Cannes Classics section. That's quite a change from a shoddy drug movie to an artsy film worthy of being studied. Maybe audiences in the 2000s were just seeing what we were seeing at Mr. Skin: nudity worth watching decades later!
Watch Mimsy sunbathe in the buff here:
