In our weekly seriesAnatomy of a Scene's Anatomy, we're going to be taking a look at (in)famous sexscenes and nude scenes throughout cinema history and examining their construction, their relationship to the film around them, and their legacy. This week—in honor of the star's birthday—we're tackling one of the most talked about nude debuts of all time, Isabella Rossellini in David Lynch'sBlue Velvet, and why it was filmed in such an intentionally unsexy manner.
Isabella Rossellini was—and still is—Hollywood royalty, daughter of legendary Italian director Roberto Rossellini and all-time screen beauty Ingrid Bergman, and counts among her ex-lovers such Hollywood luminaries as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch, and Gary Oldman. She didn't seem to want to follow her mother into acting, at least at first, and avoided the industry for quite some time. She made three films in her native Italy between 1976 and 1980 and spent some time as the face of Lancôme cosmetics before finally making her English language film debut in Taylor Hackford's White Nightsin 1985.
The following year,Isabella landed her biggest role yet in Blue Velvet, David Lynch's follow-up to his big budget fiasco Dune.
It's a dark scene, both in content and presentation, which is why Rossellini's nude scene that follows ismuch more famous. The context of her first nude appearance on screen is disturbing—we only see her boobs and bush after he hits her and she falls back onto the bed—but it gets even worse when we get to her second nude scene.
In an excellent article about his own troubled relationship with Blue Velvet, Roger Ebert shares a quote from a chat he had with Lynch about the film. Init, Lynchexplains where the idea of Rossellini wandering naked through the streets of suburbia come from...
He told me, for example, that the scene of Rossellini naked in the night was inspired by his childhood: "When I was little, my brother and I were outdoors late one night, and we saw a naked woman come walking down the street toward us in a dazed state, crying. I have never forgotten that moment."
He recreates this moment from his childhood with a shocking matter-of-factness 101 minutes into Blue Velvet, as Rossellini wanders fully nude into a developing situation between Jeffrey and some local toughs outside his house...
As the shot moves closer, we notice that she is bruised and clearly in a daze...
As I pointed out in my SKIN-depth Look at Lynch's films, it's clearly not meant to titillate...
Rossellinimade her nude debut in the film, though Lynch chose to de-sexualize her nude scene by having her mimic the famous "Napalm Girl" picture that brought the Vietnam War into American homes in the most uncomfortable of ways. Never before had a Hollywood legend made such a brutal and confrontational nude debut, and it remains among the most powerfully unsexy nude scenes ever put on film.
The notion of a legendary beauty like Isabella Rossellini choosing to show her naked body in this way on film for the first time spoke volumes about her commitment to the craft. That's such a ridiculous sounding statement, but it's rare that you see an actress do a nude scene that had to have really taken her outside of her comfort zone as a person. It's one thing to have a closed set nude scene during an intimate sex scene, it's another to appear fully nude, dazed and bruised, in front of a bunch of your fellow cast members and, according to Rossellini's autobiography, an assembled mass of Wilmington, NC locals wanting to see the big Hollywood production shooting in their town.
Typically when an actress speaks about the bravery it took to shoot a nude scene, itelicits a similar response to when an adult performer talks about why it was critical to her career to start doing DP. In this case, however, it was brave of Rossellini to throw off all the trappings of a typical nude debut and truly "bare all" on camera. I would imagine that most actors are vain enough to want to see themselves as sexy and desirable when they do a nude scene. Rossellini didn't seem to care about either, and put her trust in Lynch's vision, making it stand as one of the unsexiest nude debuts in film history...
Catch up with our other editions of Anatomy of a Scene's Anatomy...
—The "Real Sex" ofDon't Look Now
—Scarlett Johansson's Nude Debut inUnder the Skin
—The 2 Very Different Sex ScenesofBasic Instinct
—How Halle Berry's Nude Debut Led Her toMonster's Ball
—HowMulholland Dr.'s Legendary Lesbian Scenes Deepen the Film's Mystery
—Showgirlsand the Dangers of High Camp
—Rosario Dawson Laid Bare for Danny Boyle'sTrance
—Katie Holmes MakesThe GiftWorth Remembering
—Jennifer Connelly Comes of Age inThe Hot Spot
—Lisa Bonet's Bloody Nude Debut inAngel Heart
—Monica Bellucci Gets Brutalized in Gaspar Noé'sIrréversible
—Stanley Kubrick, The William Tell Overture, and A Clockwork Orange
—Wild ThingsPresents Every Man with His Dream Threesome
—Chloë Sevigny Goes Down in History forThe Brown Bunny
—Helen Hunt Does Her Best Nudity at 48 in The Sessions
—Anne Hathaway Wreaks Havoc on Her Disney Image
—Body HeatBrings Noir Into the 80s, Sexes Up the Genre
—The Master Gives Serious Drama its Horniest Protagonist Ever