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 head down to the Bible Belt for one of the most enduring subgenres of them all, Southern Gothic.
Southern Gothic has its roots in Gothic Horror, an age old literature subgenre that often mixes elements of horror and romance in a decaying or otherwise derelict setting. The Southern Gothic movement in literature is most often associated with the works of the great American writers William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Flannery O'Connor,Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, and award-winning belcherEudora Welty. It gained substantial popularity thanks to playwright Tennessee Williams, who worked exclusively within the genre throughout his long career.
Southern Gothic stories often tread a fine line between accurate depiction and exploitation, but the best writers working in the genre never let it slip too far over that line. Perhaps the most egregious trend within the genre is what is known as Poverty Porn, in which filmmakers will glamorize squalid living conditions and abject poverty in an attempt to appeal to the inner bleeding heart within us all. It's a ploy that certain filmmakers—most notably Beasts of the Southern Wild's Behn Zeitlen—use as a shortcut to eliciting empathy in an audience, but more often than not it just comes across as pandering.
The 1950s, 60s, and 70s were rife with films operating within the idiom, as it provided a nice segue out of the standard melodrama that took hold of early film audiences. Of course, all of the great works of the subgenre retain plenty of elements of melodrama, but the truly great ones supplement that with genuine emotions with which any audience member can connect. While the genre had much less prominence in the 80s and 90s, it has roared back to life in the new millennium, thanks in no small part to the indie cinema movement that has given voice to new voices from the South.
Some examples of films in the genre with either no nudity or less nudity than the ones we're discussing today worth tracking down include Stephen Roberts' pre-Code masterpiece The Story of Temple Drake, Elia Kazan's A Streetcar Named Desire, Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter, John Huston's Wise Blood, Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law, Bill Condon's Sister, Sister, David Gordon Green's George Washington, and Jeff Nichols' Mud. Without further ado, here are our Southern Gothic Staff Picks...
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Based on Carson McCullers' 1941 novel of the same name, John Huston's Reflections in a Golden Eyebrought togethertwo titans of the acting world for the first and only time on film, Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. Brando—replacing the late Montgomery Clift at the last minute—stars as Major Weldon Penderton, stationed at an unnamed Army base somewhere in the Southern United States at the end of the 1940s. He lives on the base with his wife Leonora (Taylor), who unbeknownst to him is having an affair with his Lieutenant Coronal, played by Brian Keith.
That seems to be the least of Weldon's problems, however, as he is clearly repressing latent feelings for the free-spirited Private Williams (Robert Forster), whom he and his wife observe riding naked on a horse early in the film.Once Leonora catches on to the fact that her husband is clearly no longer attracted to her, she cruelly taunts him after an argument one night by stripping fully nude and walking to the bedroom as if to say, "I dare you to follow me." Sadly, Taylor used a body double for this nude scene—one of the first in a major Hollywood production following the dissolution of the Hays Code—but it's still a damn sexy scene...
The film leans the heaviest into melodrama of the films we're discussing today, which no doubt helped to secure its reputation as a failure. While some of its emotional scenes lose their impact due to the enormity of the performances, Huston was a master director who helps steer the ship through those grand emotions to get a more universal truth. Plus it's got a young Robert Forster in it, and if that doesn't sell you on it, nothing will.
**Available to Rent or Buy on Amazon Prime Video
The Beguiled (1971)
Based onThomas P. Cullinan's 1966 novel The Painted Devil, this Civil War-set story was directed by Don Siegel and stars Clint Eastwood, long-time collaborators who made and released this film in the same year as their much more famous collaboration Dirty Harry. Set in 1863 in and aroundthe Miss Martha Farnsworth Seminary for Young Ladies in backwoods Mississippi, the film opens with one of the seminary's students—a 12-year old girl named Amy (Pamelyn Ferdin)—discovers the wounded Union soldier Cpl. John McBurney (Eastwood) hiding on their property. Geraldine Page's headmistress Miss Farnsworth at first insists that he be turned over to the Confederacy, but decides to first let him heal and recuperate at her school.
McBurney—affectionately named McB for short—then begins to endear himself to the various residents of the seminary, including Hallie (Mae Martin), theinstitute's slave. Of course, it isn't long before he's finding himself beset on all sides by horny women who have never been in such close proximity to a virile man such as McB. After a close call with some Confederate troops coming in to look for McB, the women decide to protect him, hiring him on as a handyman at the estate.
Even Page's repressed headmistress makes advances toward him, with a flashback showing her only sexual sexual relationship was with her own brother. When he rejects her advances in favor of the much younger Carol (Jo Ann Harris), he finds himself in for a world of trouble worse than anything the Confederacy may have in store for him.Page finds the two in a compromising position, with Harris revealing some terrific TA...
McB also finds the time to rough up poor Hallie, ripping open her shirt and smacking her across the face in a wise bid by both writer and director to ensure the audience doesn't fully sympathize with this otherwise abhorrent character...
The film received a nice looking but otherwise toothless remake from Sofia Coppola in 2017, and while that film has a better cast, it really can't hold a candle to the original.
**Available to Rent or Buy on Amazon Prime Video
Black Snake Moan (2007)
Writer/director Craig Brewer (Dolemite is My Name) made a huge impression with hisbreakout Oscar-winning feature Hustle Flow, earning him the leeway to make whatever crazy passion project he wanted next.Teaming up with Samuel L. Jackson—knee deep in his "I'll be in any movie with Snake in the title" phase—and Christina Ricci, Brewer crafted the first great original Southern Gothic film of the new millennium with this twisted tale. Jackson plays Tennessee blues musician Lazarus, who takes an interest in Rae (Ricci) a wild woman with a voracious sexual appetite that finds her putting herself in very sexually dangerous situations night after night.
Having recently split with his wife, Lazarus views Rae as a woman in need of strong guidance, so he takes her back to his place after she is beaten within an inch of her life, nursing her back to health and chaining her to his radiator. He tells Rae that he is compelled by God to help her turn her life around and that he will release her from her chains only when she has reformed her ways. The two eventually begin to soften toward one another, with Lazarus seeing that she may indeed be able to escape her vicious cycle. However, her boyfriend (Justin Timberlake) returns to town after being discharged by the National Guard, and he becomes hell bent on finding Rae and dealing with the man with whom he believes she's having an affair.
Full disclosure, a huge part of the reason this flick earns its spot on our list is that I'm a huge sucker for Christina Ricci. Like many guys with an affinity for petite brooding brunettes, I harbored a burning desire for her to go nude on film, and when she finally opened the floodgates starting with 2001's Prozac Nation, I became blind to the quality of the movies in which she was appearing nude. That's not to say that Black Snake Moan isn't a good movie, it's very well crafted and tells the kind of story that wouldn't be told had the Southern Gothic subgenre not come back into vogue when it did. Just make sure you've got a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief as your viewing partner.
Oh, and as for Ricci, she gets topless in the flick a bunch of times, something that absolutely, positively never gets old, no matter how many times I see these scenes...
**Available to Stream Free for Members ofNetflix and Amazon Prime
Killer Joe (2011)
As the heir apparent to Tennessee Williams, perhaps no modern writer traffics in deep, dark Southern Gothic the way Tracy Letts does. Teaming once again with director William Friedkin—who directed an 2006 film adaptation of his play Bug—Letts' most terrifying creation comes to life in 2011's Killer Joe. The following is excerpted from our SKIN-depth Look at Friedkin's Films...
This searing and pitch black show ingrained itself in the memory of any audience who saw it, and Friedkin tried to once more trap that lightning with his camera. The title character, played here by Matthew McConaughey, is a private detective who moonlights as a contract killer, roped into the world of a two-bit trailer park drug dealer named Chris (Emile Hirsch) who gets in over his head in debt and hatches a plan to make some quick money. He wants to hire Joe to kill Chris' mother, collect the life insurance, and then pay Joe and everyone else back.
Needless to say, nothing goes according to the plan, and matters are only made worse by Chris involving his father (Thomas Haden Church), stepmother (Gina Gershon), and sister (Juno Temple) in the plan. Joe takes a liking to sister Dottie right away, and when Chris can't offer money up front, he offers to take Dottie as collateral, and the two begin a sexual relationship almost immediately.Chris then has a change of heart about the whole plan, but Joe informs him that he's already killed the mother and things quickly spiral out of control.
The film was slapped with an NC-17 due to the explicit sexual content and one particularly disturbing scene we'll get to in a moment.Juno Templegets completely nude, the first time in a hallucination Chris has when he initially comes to his father's trailer...
The film's most disturbing scene, however, comes courtesy of Gina Gershon as dubious stepmom Sharla. It comes straight out of Letts' play as Joe has her get on her knees and holding a fried chicken drumstick from his fully clothed crotch and tells her to fellate it. It's disturbing and unsettling in all the right ways, and Gershon plays the scene with heartbreaking authenticity...
**Available to Stream Free for Members of Hulu
Stoker (2013)
Master South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook made his English language debut with this 2013 film, the last we'll be discussing today. It earns a spot on our list for many reasons, not least of which is that it's the only film we're discussing not made by an American filmmaker. The following is excerpted from our SKIN-depth Look at Park Chan-wook's films...
Park's 2013 thrillercovers a lot of firsts for the director. It was his first English language film, his first with a major established Western star (Nicole Kidman), andthe first film he directed which he did not also have a hand in writing. This was more than a little surprising considering it's very much in line with the other worlds and scenarios Park has dreamed up over the years. The film was written by, of all people, Wentworth Miller fromPrison Break, though Park had a very positive reaction to the script...
"It wasn't a script that tried to explain everything and left many things as questions, so it leads the audience to find answers for themselves and that's what I liked about the script... I like telling big stories through small, artificially created worlds."
Mia Wasikowskastars as India Stoker, a teenager of wealth and means, who loses her father in a car accident. Her intense hatred of her mother Evelyn (Kidman) reaches a crescendo when her father's long lost brother Charlie (Matthew Goode) shows up and announces his plans—made jointly with Evelyn—to stay indefinitely to help these two women get back on their feet. There's obviously a lot more to Charlie than he lets on, and an encounter involving him and India just prior to the one hour mark solidifies their mutual perversions.
A pre-SoloAlden Ehrenreich turns up as Whip, one of India's classmates, who goes to the woods withher for a makeout session. When she becomes aggressive with him, he feigns disgust, but ultimately ends up attempting to sexually assault her. Out of nowhere, good old Uncle Charlie shows up and kills Whip. India helps him cover up the crime, goes home, and masturbates in the shower about the whole ordeal, climaxing when Uncle Charlie snapped Whip's neck...
While there's not a ton of skin for a nude debut, the context is so twisted and disturbing that it makes for an instant classic.Wasikowskawas already a Disney "princess" at this point thanks toAlice in Wonderland, so to see her masturbating in the shower just three yearswas a real treat most of us didn't expect.
**Available to Rent or Buy on Amazon Prime Video
