This past year, I've been watching the films on theAFI Top 100 Listto follow along with an incredible podcast calledUnspooled. I love to listen along with the hosts, film criticAmy Nicholsonand comedianPaul Scheer who shouted out last week's article in their recent podcast. Do you know what that means Skin Central? We're doing good work over here showing the ways that nude scenes enhance the plot and overall meaning of the film in these iconic movies. Today I'm going to look at the nudity in the most recent films I watched - again,inspiredby the podcastUnspooled- Do the Right Thing, Gone with the Wind and Midnight Cowboy.
First up, let's talk about 1989's Do the Right Thing. Spike Lee's breakthrough film about racial tensions on an extremely hot Brooklyn day in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood is a must-watch. The film mixes humor with drama and violence in an expert way that showed the world that Spike Lee was a director to watch. There are fantastic performances in this movie, but the real star of the show in Mr. Skin's eyes is Rosie Perez. The film actually starts with Rosie Perez dancing in the opening credits. It isn't a smooth, sensual dance. Rosie wears a black sports bra, boxing shorts, and gloves as she gyrates rhythmically to "Fight the Power". She's dancing like it's a battle cry. She's dancing like her life depends on it. She's dancing like she has a message for the world and she does. The entire film has a message and you feel that from this dance opening. It's a great way to start this film, instantly drawing us in with Rosie's energy, and keeping us wanting more from her and the movie as a whole.
She also has a visceral nude scene that features her wet breasts as she tries to cool down by rubbing an ice cube over her yabos. That's the kind of tantalizing scene that has us feeling the heat in more ways than one.
Next up, let's talk about a classic. Actually, it's one of THE classics. It's a film that has countless references in society from making a dress out of curtains to not giving a damn. That's right! It's time for Gone with the Wind. My mother literally made me watch Gone with the Wind when I was a child so that I could understand all the cultural references to the movie. That was the last time I saw the film and in this recent rewatch I have to admit that it felt more nostalgic than anything else. Before sitting down for this three-hour epic, I tried toremember the sexuality in Gone with the Wind. I was having a hard time remembering anything other than Vivien Leigh in tight corsets. That might have been because that's about all there is. Viv does bend over to show a good peek at her pair in one scene, but otherwise, it's a major Hollywood film from 1939. We're talking Hayes Code territory where everything in major movies was highly censored and repressed. There was no sex, but this steamy southern drama definitely could have used it!
Finally, let's talk about Midnight Cowboy. I had never seen Midnight Cowboy before. I think I avoided it and I have no idea why - it's great. It's a solid film with two fantastic leading performances about deep friendship, love, expectations and sex work in the swingin' sixties. I could go on and on about how much I love the complicated and sweet relationship between the film's leading men played by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight (Ratso is SUCH a great character), but that's not what this article is supposed to be devoted to. Jon Voight plays a sweet hustler named Joe Buck from Texas who thinks he's going to make bank in New York City. It's New York in the sixties - he's dead wrong. Instead, he meets gorgeous and self-assured women like Sylvia Miles who do not want to pay for sex.Look at Sylvia. She doesn't need to!
We learn through flashbacks that Joe Buckhad a rough childhood. He was brought up to learn how to pleasure women and had a horrifying experience with his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Salt in which she got attacked. It's a scene - and love lost - that clearly haunts Joe Buck. The juxtaposition of her two nude scenes, living in his memory in both color and black-and-white, serves to show just how much this woman meant to him. Jennifer in color is a very tender sex scene while the black-and-white memory is traumatizing. Jennifer's nudity in the black-and-white scene is a little more straight forward, rather than being coy and seductive when her breasts are just barely visible beneath Joe Buck in the color scene. This serves to show how vulnerable Jennifer was when they were attacked and the color difference shows just how harsh this moment actually was.
Finally, he has a transformative scene with a brunette hippie babe played by Brenda Vaccaro while on LSD. This babe with big areolas is the first time we see him unable to perform. She laughs it off, but he feels emasculated and tries harder. They have a lot of fun, but ultimately he learns in this scenethat he doesn't have control like he thought he did. He's tripping, so his grasp on reality is skewed, and he isn't impressing this woman the way he does so many others. This scene is fascinating because the power dynamics flip throughout and in the end, Joe Buck feels like a changed man. The things he thought he knew about all women in bed, may not have been right across the board.
Now those were great films! Join me next week to see what films from The AFI Top 100 we'll talk about next and their legendary nude scenes.
