Our new column,Staff Picks, takes 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 of Staff Picks has a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, saddle up with some films from the last fifty years that took a different look at the old west with our Staff Picks in the Revisionist Western genre!
Today's genre goes back to the age of the western, depending upon when you consider its true beginning. I like to place it around the time of the Italian spaghetti western, which aligns with the dissolution of the Hays Code and the adoption of the current MPAA ratings system. Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked off the genre in terms of big budget Hollywood filmmaking standards. Some people say it existed as far back as Shane and High Noon, but while those films operate in those moral grey areas that tinge the Revisionist Western, they ultimately adhere to censorship laws of the time: Bad guy dies and good guy wins, even if it's only a moral victory.
When it comes to the Revisionist Western, think Clint Eastwood's entire output in the 1970s. Amoral or downright immoral protagonists, chasing down a bounty, a kidnapped woman, a violent offender, or some combination thereof. As the patriotic days of the 1940s and 50s gave way to the age of distrust in American institutions, so too did cinema reflect this cultural shift. As people began really digging into the history of this country and saw the violence that actually "won the West," films set in that time period began showing the savagery and brutality wrought by the men who conquered the land.
Revisionist Westerns aren't always civil minded in this way, however. The commentary can be subtle or sometimes not exist at all. Sometimes it was just an excuse for a director to go overboard with violence. And sometimes, as with most of Peckinpah's work, that excessive violence became a commentary in and of itself. For a gross oversimplification of the analogy between Western and Revisionist Western, think John Ford's My Darling Clementine compared to George P. Cosmatos' Tombstone. Same basic story, way different presentation of its characters and incidents, one rooted in old Hollywood values and the other in new Hollywood excess. Both masterpieces, however.
Unfortunately, this is one of those genres where the best examples have the least amount of skin. So let's get this out of the way right now, four of the quintessential Revisionist Westerns we won't be covering are 1970's Little Big Man, 1992's Unforgiven, 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and 2010's remake of True Grit. See all of those too, once you're done being horned up by these five flicks! I've selected one from each decade, 1970s to the 2010s, all of which have non-exploitative nudity—something you find quite a bit in this subgenre...
McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)
In 1971, Altman was hot thanks toM*A*S*H's box office and awards season success, and Warren Beatty was the biggest actor/producer in the industry. Since taking the reigns on producingBonnie Clyde, Beatty had built a reputation as a shrewd businessman with an eye for films that he could produce and star in. At the time he was also in a relationship with British actressJulie Christie, making them a perfect pairing for first-time producer David Foster (The Thing,The Mask of Zorro) and his adaptation of the book "McCabe."
The story goes that Beatty pursued Altman for the directing job, though Beatty denies this saying only that he thoughtM*A*S*Hwas terrific and approved him as director.The production itself was apparently fraught with tension between Altman and Beatty,with the leading lady caught between the two oversized egos,Julie Christie.Set in the Pacific Northwest during a typically terrible mid-19th Century winter, the film tells the story of a man named McCabe (Beatty) and his dream of building a saloon/whorehouse in the small town of Presbyterian Church. He partners with the other name in the title, an experienced madam named Mrs. Miller (Christie), and business booms, eventually attracting the attention of some rather unscrupulous business men.
Being set predominantly in a whorehouse means there's quite a bit of skin in the flick, though the film's natural light interiors make a lot of it hard to see.Maysie Hoy,Linda Sorenson, andJanet Wrightplay three of the tavern's best call girls, all of them going fully nude throughout the film's second act...
Heaven's Gate (1980)
What have you ever heard said about Heaven's Gate beyond negative things? It sank United Artists as a studio, ruined lots of reputations, and became synonymous with large scale failure in Hollywood. But have you actually seen it? I go to bat for a lot of legendarily despised movies from Ishtar to Hudson Hawk, but Heaven's Gate is among the most unfairly maligned films ever made. Yes, it's long. Yes, it's messy. It's also astonishingly gorgeous. Like, one of the top ten greatest looking films ever made.
Director Michael Cimino's quest for cinematic perfection bankrupted United Artists and more or less blacklisted him from the Hollywood establishment, but it left us with one of the most beautiful looking films ever made, and one of the most sobering tales of violence ever perpetrated on Americans by Americans. It sounds like a blast, doesn't it? Yeah, it's not. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon movie. The best available version of the film through the Criterion Collection clocks in a shade over three and a half hours, so take whatever viewing approach you took to The Irishman and apply it here.
As for the nudity, Isabelle Huppert was a complete unknown in America outside of art house circles and Cimino fought for her to appear in thelead female role opposite Kris Kristofferson and Christopher Walken. She balances the love triangle brilliantly, though she obviously wrestles with the accent throughout the film, but she also brings some of her European attitude toward sex and nudity to America, going nude several times throughout the film...
The Ballad of Little Jo (1993)
Before she became Mrs. James Cameron number five 20 years ago, Suzy Amis earned herself an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Female Lead for thisfilm from director Maggie Greenwald (Songcatcher). Expelled from her high society life when she births an illegitimate child, Josephine (Amis) is faced with daunting prospects as a woman in the wild west. She scars her face and disguises herself as a man, living for many years among people who had no idea she was born a woman.
Along with McCabe, this is among the least action-oriented films in the genre, more seeking to tell a story about a woman learning to live as a man in a man's world. Amis delivers a quietly powerful performance andshe's surrounded by some solid supporting players like Ian McKellen, Anthony Heald, Melissa Leo, Amis' fellow Independent Spirit nominee David Chung, a young Heather Graham, and René Auberjonois, who is also in McCabe. The film's nudity comes courtesy of Amis, who spills her secret to Chung's character and begins a romance with him...
Renegade (2004)
Released everywhere else in the world under the title Blueberry, this flick dolessome Native American mysticism that sets it apart from many other examples of the genre. Think of it being in the same vein as Richard Harris' A Man Called Horse. Vincent Cassel stars as the titularUS Marshall, whose path to capture the film's villain (Michael Madsen) will find him undergoing a shamanic peyote ritual that will not only help him hunt his prey, but also make him confront his deepest, darkest secrets. It's better than it sounds, trust me, seek this one out.
This film also fits nicely in another western subgenre, the Acid Western. If you're familiar with the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky and his film El Topo, you'll have a pretty good grasp on that subgenre. If not, look at the two words and figure it out for yourself. The film has a hazy, drug-induced quality to it that keeps you off guard for most of the film's second half, and the film closes withJuliette Lewisand Cassel going skinny dipping, with Lewis swimming fully nude, showing off everything and flaunting it for the camera...
8 minutes into the flick, we also get terrifically ample TA fromVahina Giocante, as a prostitute that a young Blueberry sleeps with...
This is another flick on our list with a stacked cast including Temuera Morrison, Tchéky Karyo, Colm Meaney, Ernest Borgnine, Djimon Hounsou, Juliette's dad Geoffrey Lewis, and Eddie Izzard, who turned his experience shooting this film into a hilarious bit of comedy on his "Sexie" tour.
Sweetwater (2013)
The most recent pick on our list has another fairly stacked ensemble including Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Jason Isaacs, Stephen Root, country singer Jason Aldean, and the star of the show, January Jones! This is a female revenge flick set in the old west, with Jones playing Sarah, a woman living a simple life with her husband on a farm. Their neighbor is fiery preacher Josiah (Isaacs) who murders Sarah's husband and assaults her, leaving her for dead. Hell hath no fury, as they say, and she stops at absolutely nothing to have her vengeance.
Before he sets about murdering folks, Isaac's character has two skinsational sex scenes with Jenny Gabrielle baring full frontal and Jiji Hise showing off her heaving hooters as he bangs her on the ground...
Of course, the most memorable moment comes appropriately enough at the 69-minute mark, when January Jones makes her topless debut! Standing topless by the water, she lures one of Isaac's men into thinking she's a helpless damsel, but she's wielding a pistol and whips around to shoot him dead...
