Ourweekly columnStaff Pickstakes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme andthe "Staff Picks" section was the placetofind outwhat films were worthy of one's time.Of course, our version ofStaff Pickshas a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, we take a look at those movies that skewer the entertainment industry, whether it's movies, Broadway, or porn, these Inside the Industry movies all give Hollywood what'fer!
Films about showbusiness in all its many forms have a tendency to get a bit too "inside baseball" for the average audience member to care. For every great movie on the subject like8½orThe Player, you've got equally awful examples like Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee FilmorJames Franco's Zeroville, films so hopelessly far up their own asses they couldn't possibly hold appeal to anyone working outside the industry. Striking a balance between specificity and universality isn't easy when dealing with the entertainment industry, because who's to say what is and isn't common knowledge?However, there are some absolute masterpieces of the genrewhichexpertly walk that line.
Some films without nudity that would be considered essential examples of the genre include Federico Fellini's 8½,François Truffaut's Day for Night, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories, Frank Oz and Steve Martin's hilariously underrated 1999 flick Bowfinger, and of course, the grandfather of Inside the Industry films, Preston Sturgess' 1941 masterpiece Sullivan's Travels. Other films from the that are either hard to track down or have substantially less nudity that the ones we're talking about today include E. Elias Merhige'sShadow of the Vampire, Jeff Nathanson's The Last Shot, and the aforementionedRobert Altman's The Player.
And just to be clear, we're not talking about biopics here. These films are often either completely fictional or fictionalized to a degree that protects the filmmakers against any potential retaliatory action by people upset with the way they were depicted. At least three of the films we're looking at today are indeed at least tangentially based on real people, but none of them feature enough specific biographical details to land in the biopic genre. Let's start with one such example, where a filmmaker takes himself and everyone around him to task for their devotion to such a heartless industry...
All That Jazz (1979)
Director Bob Fosse's fourth feature film,All That Jazzfollows the life and loves of Joe Gideon—Roy Scheider, in the performance of his career—a demanding choreographer and director who is exhausted from simultaneously mounting a big Broadway production and directing a film about a controversial comedian. He spends his mornings popping pills and his nights hopping from bed to bed with a bevy of women, many of whom sleep with him for the promise of better roles in his productions.
Any of this ringing a bell? The film is based on Fosse's own experience attempting to make the 1974 film Lenny while simultaneously mounting the first Broadway production of Chicago. It's a fairly ballsy conceit, to say the least, but for Fosse to pull it off as spectacularly as he does is nothing short of a miracle. He explores his relationship with Gwen Verdon viaLeland Palmer's Audrey Paris, and even cast his real life mistress, Ann Reinking, to essentially play herself. It sounds masturbatory, but Fosse never takes any pains to make Gideon the good guy. He does, however, more or less excuse his terrible behavior with the film's thesis statement playing out along the lines of, "I'm not gonna change my bad behavioreven though it's gonna kill me eventually, and I'm okay with that."
Some of the film's nudity is almost an afterthought, with the focus staying on Gideon, even as a woman takes off her top in the frame. Poor, unsuspecting dancer Victoria (Deborah Geffner) catches Gideon's eye during an audition and he invites her over the night he casts her in his new show. This early nude scene demonstrates that Gideon is almost over sex at this point, but not to the point where he won't follow her upstairs...
All That Jazzalso features what may be the sexiest dance number ever put on film. As away of expressing his displeasure witha corporate sponsorship of his new Broadway spectacular, Gideon re-choreographs an entire dance number set on an airplane into a treatise on anonymous sex in the late 70s.It's an amazing collision of bodies that are the model of perfection—both male and female—that titillate and tantalize the viewer. This is seriously steamy stuff, especially thanks to the no-holds-barred antics of the fantastically flexibleSandahl Bergman! Check out the scene below and click here to read our Anatomy of a Nude Scene column on this very scene...
Not Currently Streaming, Available on DVD Blu-ray via The Criterion Collection
S.O.B. (1981)
Director Blake Edwards' mid-life crisis genre takes a detour into the sublimely wacky with this incisive dig at the industry in which Edwards made his livelihood. The crisis character this time around is frazzled movie producer Felix Farmer (Richard Mulligan), whose most recent film was a disaster and caused him to have a complete mental breakdown. After trying and failing several times to kill himself—in increasingly comedic fashion—Felix eventually determines that the lack of sex and nudity is what caused his last film to fail. He now becomes resolved to mount the sexiest film of his career, a softcore musical extravaganza, at great professional and personal risk.
Like all of Edwards' mid-life crisis movies, this one is chockablock with skin! The film marks the third film appearance ofRosanna Arquette, who whips off her top, exposing her breasts and starting her down a long and fruitful career going nude on film...
Smoldering beautyMarisa Berenson, from such flicks asCabaretandBarry Lyndon, also makes a topless appearance here, smoking a cigarette topless in bed while Robert Vaughn goes down on her...
Felix's big coup is going to be convincing his movie star wife Sally—played by Edwards' own real life spouseJulie Andrews—to shoot a topless scene for his new film. This is despite the fact that, much like Andrews herself, Sally'sentire career is built around a squeaky clean and wholesome image that a topless scene would surely shatter. Much of the film'sconflict revolves around whether or not she's going to do the topless scene, but Felix is finally able to convince her that the film will flop without it. On the day the scene is to be shot, Sally hits her mark and whips off her top, giving the audience the double thrill not only of the payoff for the character, but also the fact that those are Mary Poppins' tits...
Available to Rent on Amazon Prime
Identification of a Woman (1982)
While many film geeks worship at the altar of Michelangelo Antonioni, I've consistently found myself cool to his stylistic approach to filmmaking. Much like Led Zeppelin in the world of music, I can appreciate what Antonioni did for the medium, but I personally don't care for his films. With two notable exceptions,1966'sBlow-Up and this 1982 effort that takes his detached style into the world of filmmaking. Just two years after fellow countryman Federico Fellini gave the world his female-centric Inside the Industry flick City of Women, Antonioni released his take on a similar topic, Identification of a Woman.
Successful directorNiccolò Farra (Tomás Milián) isblocked bothcreatively and romantically in his life and his work, struggling to find a subject for his next film. "I'm looking for a face," he tells a colleague, but his search is substantially more deep than that reductive statement. He eventually finds two women who fit the bill:Mavi (Daniela Silverio) and Ida (Christine Boisson), the former a sexually experimental wealthy socialite, the latter a down-to-earth romantic actress. While pursuing Mavi, he finds himself beset on all sides by a series of threats to avoid becoming romantically entangled with her. With Ida, on the other hand, Niccoló finds that his biggest obstacle is overcoming her blunt honesty, which leads him to more self-examination than he is comfortable with.
He does bed both beauties over the course of the film, with both Daniela Silverio and Christine Boisson baring all during their romps...
What makes this film stand apart from the other examples of the genre we're talking about today is that it's not a comedy. Most successful Inside the Industry flicks tend to go sardonic with their digs at the industry, but Antonioni's view of filmmaking is that it's a humorless occupation.
Available to Stream via The Criterion Channel and on DVD Blu-ray via The Criterion Collection
Living in Oblivion (1995)
Writer/director Tom DiCillo (The Real Blonde) has made a career out of cynical comedies that lampoon the seriousness with which "important" people carry themselves. Never has that wit been sharper than it was with this send-up of the independent film industry of the mid-90s, which takes shots at everyone on a film set from pretentious directors to diva actors and apathetic crew members.
Told in three vignettes, the film follows director Nick Reve (Steve Buscemi), a man desperate to get his film made despite all of the forces of nature seeming to conspire against him. His leading lady (Catherine Keener) and leading man (James LeGros) recently had a disastrous one night stand, his cinematographer (Dermot Mulroney) undermines him at every turn, and the actor (Peter Dinklage) he hired for a dream sequence demands to know if he's ever actually had a dream with a dwarf in it, stating, "Idon't even have dreams with dwarves in them!"
The film doesn't hold back from skewering anyone and everyone in the indie film scene of the 90s, with LeGros' character allegedly based on Brad Pitt (with whom DiCillo made Johnny Suede) and Tarantino getting name dropped by Buscemi. Best of all, Catherine Keener makes her nude debut here, showing off her breasts and hairy pits while lying nude in bed and again when climbing into the shower...
Available to Stream on HBO GO
Boogie Nights (1997)
Set in the world of the porn industry from the late 70s to the early 80s, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson's second film takes us on a harrowing journey frombacchanal to tragedy, before ultimately endingwith a rather bleakly optimistic conclusion. This theme of an optimism that's ultimately attained by first bringing the film's characters to their lowest point is one that runs throughout Anderson's work. Make no mistake about it,P.T. Anderson believes in the notion of a happy ending, but he more fervently believes that characters must go through hell to attain that happy ending.
Boogie Nightsis ultimately a film about family. Sometimes our real family disappoints us by rejecting or abandoning us, so you look for your own family, one that won't abandon you no matter how much or how often you screw up. It's a truly beautiful film in that regard, showing that even the most fucked up misfits among us can still find love and family in the end.While the money shot ending is perhaps the film's most remembered moment, the biggest contribution it made to many of our lives—and spank banks—was the nude debut ofHeather Graham...
Julianne Mooreearned an Oscar nomination for her role as the "mother" of the family, Amber Waves. Never shy about going nude on film, Moore does an amazing nude scene when Dirkdoes his firstporn shoot early in the film...
Also on hand to lenda modicum of verisimilitude to the proceedings is adult film legendNina Hartley, playing the philandering wife of Assistant Director Little Bill (William H. Macy). The adult star's two scenes are among the most memorable in the film, particularly considering her murder at the hands of her husband ends the 1970s on a rather ominous note...
Available to Rent on Amazon Prime
