In our weekly series Anatomy of a Nude Scene, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sex scenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around it, and their legacy. This week, Christina Ricci makes her nude debut in Prozac Nation, which sat on a shelf for four years because of Harvey Weinstein.
A few weeks back, we talked about notorious producer and predator Harvey Weinstein's efforts to directly influence the content of the film Frida. The stories of his abusive behavior are now well documented, but he also practiced a much more subtle form of abuse with his former company Miramax that isn't as well documented. One of the first bouts the producer had with notoriety came when multiple directors dubbed him Harvey Scissorhands because of his proclivity for re-editing films that Miramax acquired for distribution. Every Hollywood studio certainly has a policy by which they are legally allowed to carry out such actions, but Weinstein and Miramax took it to new levels.
So all of this is horrible and completely antithetical to the creative process, but sometimes he would exert an even more sinister form of control over vulnerable filmmakers. The case of director Erik Skjoldbjærg's adaptation of the late Elizabeth Wurtzel's novel Prozac Nation is but one example of this devious habit of Weinstein's rearing its ugly head. Norwegian director Skjoldbjærg had made quite an international splash with his second feature film, the 1997 thriller Insomnia, which was remade five years later by Christopher Nolan. For his follow-up and first film in English, he chose Wurtzel's memoir about her substance abuse issues starting with her first year at Harvard and continuing for nearly a decade.
Former child star Christina Ricci had recently reinvented her image with a pair of late 90s indie flicks—The Opposite of Sex and Buffalo '66—that helped turn her into a beloved late-Gen X femme fatale. The petite, doe-eyed brunette got close to nudity in both of those films, but filming both of them at 18, one can see how she might have been reticent to make her nude debut immediately after becoming an adult. Still, for fanboys who grew up having had their first crush on Ricci's Wednesday Addams, she really couldn't make that nude debut fast enough.
When Ricci signed on to play Wurtzel and produce the film, the script was streamlined at her request, condensing most of the novel's events into her first year at Harvard. One thing that was not in either version of the screenplay, though, was nudity. However, the actress revealed in an interview with ABC News at the Venice Film Festival in 2000 that she would be making her nude debut in the film. While promoting the film The Man Who Cried, Ricci contrasted the role with her upcoming role in Prozac Nation...
Ricci’s first nude scene for Prozac Nation, she admitted, was “much more frightening” than her lovemaking in Man Who Cried. On the set of Man Who Cried, a decision was made early “that Johnny and I would never be unclothed because in gypsy culture women are forbidden to be nude.”
But in Prozac Nation, director Erik Skjoldbjaerg decided that a nude scene would show the character’s complete emotional nakedness. Naturally, Ricci called for a closed set and then she called her co-star, Dawson’s Creek’s Michelle Williams. “Even though it wasn’t her day to work, I made Michelle come and watch the monitor and let me know that everything looked OK”
The even better news coming out of this was that fans also wouldn't have to wait long as the scene comes just four minutes into the film as Ricci sits completely nude on the bed...
The film had its premiere screening on September 8, 2001 at that year's Toronto International Film Festival, where Weinstein's Miramax purchased the film for distribution. Likely using the tepid reviews as a justification to tamper with the film, Weinstein set off down his usual path wherein he would order two to three different edits of the film be made. He would then present the different versions of the film to test audiences to see which version tested best. When director Skjoldbjærg's original cut got the highest scores of the existing versions, a furious Weinstein shelved the film.
All manner of excuses were offered by Weinstein to the various creative people involved. In a 2004 investigation into the then-still-unreleased film, The Guardian's John Harris conducted several interviews with people involved with the film to find out what happened. One popular theory that circulated was that the film was shelved because of controversial comments author Wurtzel made in the aftermath of 9/11. Co-screenwriter Frank Deasy, though, thinks it has much more to do with the fact that it's just not a crowd-pleasing good time of a film...
"It's a truthful depiction of depression," says Frank Deasy. "And I think the reason Miramax has struggled is the fact that it doesn't have a traditional dramatic structure, in terms of a clear, unqualified ending. Look at the book: Elizabeth is very clear that Prozac has helped her, but you're left with a dilemma, because perhaps she no longer knows who she is. We didn't want to come down heavily on one side or the other. People who've experienced depression like that aspect of the film, but a lot of people don't like it. Miramax certainly don't seem to like it."
Weinstein never revealed his reason for shelving the film, though it's clear there was at least a sliver of vindictiveness to his actions. The film was released in director Skjoldbjærg's native Norway in 2003 but never received a theatrical release in North America. When the Weinsteins left Miramax in 2005 to form their own company, several unreleased films like Prozac Nation finally saw the light of day. The film was dumped onto the premium channel Starz! in March, 2005, before coming to DVD several months later.
Finally, fans and audiences alike could see Ricci's nude debut as it was shot and not in some impossibly bad "cam" quality copy of the nude scene that had circulated in the four years between the film's premiere and its release. Still, it's a damn shame that Ricci's excellent performance and nude debut sat on a shelf for four years just to serve the whims of an abusive producer. The more stories that continue to come out about Weinstein only reinforce how lucky we are to have him out of the industry once and for all.
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Catch up with our most recent editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene
—A Salute to Tanya Roberts' PG Nudity in Sheena and The Beastmaster
—Sarah Silverman is Seriously Sexy (and Topless) in I Smile Back
—Jessica Chastain's Nude Debut in Salomé Takes Director Al Pacino Over a Decade to Finish
—Salma Hayek Knocks Our Pants Off with Her Performance in Frida
—Kirsten Dunst Goes Topless for the First Time in All Good Things
—Kristen Stewart Pops Her Top Off in On the Road
—Uma Thurman Steals Dangerous Liaisons Out From Under Her More Famous Co-Stars
—Did They Really Kill a Chicken During That Infamous Pink Flamingos Sex Scene?
—A Naked Julie Michaels Kicks Keanu's Ass in Point Break
—Alexis Dziena Gives Aging Lothario Bill Murray an Eyeful in Broken Flowers
—P.J. Soles Establishes a Key Horror Movie Trope in John Carpenter's Halloween
—Can We Talk About Linnea Quigley's Barbie Doll Crotch in Return of the Living Dead?
—Innocent Blood Finds John Landis Trying to Get His American Werewolf Mojo Back
—The Insane Japanese Horror Movie House Features Equally Insane Nudity
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Click Here to Read All Past Editions of Anatomy of a Nude Scene/Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy
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