Nudity?

scottspears said:
This is a complex issue for a number of reasons.

Societal: I think we're way too uptight about nudity and sex in general. It's like sex is dirty and bad. It's natural and we wouldn't be around without it.

Logistical: Adding nudity can hurt your film because most of the time actors who are willing to get naked can't act.

Artistic: I really can't stand unneccesary nudity in movies and I have shot more than my share of it in some horror films I've shot. It's sad that when they can't come up with a plot decent enough to captivate an audience without throwing in some cheap nudity. I try to avoid it if possible. Now, this doesn't need mean there should be no nudity in movies. There are films where it's appropriate, like "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" or "Last Tango in Paris".

Physilogical: We'd like to pretend that we're highly evolved beings, but we're just a teenie-tiny step away from our ancestors, the cavemen. We are still hardwired to respond to nudity. That's the reason filmmakers throw in some nudity so some 15 years olds can get some jollies.

In the end, it's up to the filmmaker because we live in a free society and people can say and film what the want. If people don't like it, they watch or buy it.

My 2 cents

Scott
Click to expand...

This stuff is good. I was gonna talk about us being hardwired to respond to nudity (this is why breasts and genetalia are different than legs and arms), but you took the words out of my mouth Scott.

Poke
 
Nudity is as much a part of the art of movies as explosions and special effects. Used (that sounds wrong...) tastefully, and not overdone, a little bit of nudity has the power to bring a scene to a whole new level. Especcially since Hollywood has used evey "sheets drawn up to the man's waist, but up to the neck on the woman beside him" they can find. In a lot of ways, to me anyway, a little bit of nudity is less offensive than a bad way of hiding it - it gives the scene some reality, some down to earthness. Am I really expected to believe that every time someone has sex, the sheets are tucked under the matress?
 
I think it's like anything in films, it's not what you do, so much as why you do it.

I've got a project coming up next year that has a lot of nudity in it, but the whole film is about voyeurism, so it's essential to the plot. I feel completely comfortable about it because I'm using the medium to explore the relationship between the audience (essentailly voyeristic) and a voyeristic character.

However, I'm also of the opinion that nudity thrown in just for the sake of getting some moolies (London slang for, well, work it out for yourself, the clue is in the plural) is on a par with violence for the sake of it. It just gets more and more boring the older I get.
 
That's true Mr. Miss. Blonde. Like in Troy, that scene with Brad Pitt and the other girl staying with him, the one where at first she tried to cut his throught and ends up sleeping with him (how did that happen? lol) That was well done. You can't see anything, bust their sides and it was well done. (too bad there are so many things wrong with the rest of that movie...)
 
I agree that we're programmed culturally to react to nudity in a certain way. I believe that there's nothing wrong with a naked body, or with sex, or even with filming sex. The problem lies in exploiting it.

Granted, to a degree, it's impossible NOT to exploit nudity ebcause even if you're completely comfortable with it, there are people to the right who think you're ruining the fabric of morality and there are people below you who will gladly pay a fee to see a naked woman (or man) they haven't seen before, just because it's a taboo.

If it weren't a taboo, it wouldn't be an issue. But if it weren't a taboo, people wouldn't make so much money exploiting it, which is why it will always be a taboo.

What's rare is to see a film that handles nudity or sex in a mature fashion, and by that I mean "legitimately mature," not "for mature audiences only," aka "we paid this chick to get naked for us, woo-hoo!" But so few people are ready to be comfortable about nudity and sex that exploiting it is sometimes the only way to get people to talk about it -- how ironic, and unproductive, in the long run.
 
you know, if stupid adam and stupid eve would have said "hey appetite, im not aloud to eat that apple" then they wouldnt have become ashamed of their body parts and hide them with foliage, therefore we probably wouldnt have ever had clothes. LOL. ooh, this is my first post here at indietalk. im so proud.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top