Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies

Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies makes an attempt to be what its subtitle implies: the definitive chronicle of disrobing for the camera and the cultural, psychological, and historical repercussions and ramifications of over a hundred years of watching naked bodies on screen. But the resulting film is more akin to flipping through the virtual pages of www.mrskin.com, the prurient online database that collects and ranks every nude appearance by Hollywood actresses in movies, while some insightful film scholars, filmmakers, and actors try to make interesting points about what you’re looking at as you rush on to the next page before they've been able to complete their thoughts.

This unsatisfying feeling might not be such a surprise when you consider the film was executive produced by Mr. Skin himself, Jim McBride, who is also one of the more prominent talking heads featured in this movie. The history of nudity in the film industry for both art and exploitation is a worthy subject for a film documentary, with the last fifty years having seen an almost 180-degree swing in practices.  In the pre-internet era, horny teenage viewers and opportunistic (sometimes predatory) movie executives led to naked female flesh being inserted into practically every type of filmed story. Today, Gen-Z viewers seem to consider any depiction of nudity or sex into any story as gratuitous, unwanted, and some kind of violation of their human rights.

Unfortunately, Skin never gets more than skin-deep. Directed by Danny Wolf and written by Wolf and Paul Fishbein (founder of the magazine Adult Video News), the movie plays like eleven or so 15-minute YouTube videos covering the use of nudity in movies by decade. These segments come across as hastily assembled and strung together with no editorial rhythm and no room for real reflection. While this talking-head/movie-clip feature film boasts some impressive interview subjects and is competently photographed (Skin doesn't look like an amateur YouTube doc), it's a prime example of the more-is-less approach to documentary filmmaking that the YouTube era has wrought.

In the pre-digital, pre-YouTube days, making documentaries about the movies was far more difficult. Filmmakers had no option but to use expensive celluloid, and if they were making movies that necessitated using clips of other people’s work, they were required to get permission and pay fees to the owners of the images that would make up such a film. Directors, producers, and editors of movies like That's Entertainment and Terror in the Aisles had to get creative in terms of how they shaped and structured their thesis and presented any clips that weren’t owned by the studio producing or releasing their movie. Part of the art of this type of talking-head-film-clip doc was working around the limitations of available footage (as all documentaries were). Now, savvy contemporary applications of the 1976 Copyright Act has made it much easier for documentarians and video essayists to capitalize on the “fair use doctrine. They now have near carte blanche as to what images they can use from other people's work, as long as the clips are brief and fit into the forgiving realms of “parody, criticism, news reporting, teaching, or research.” If the clips meet those criteria, the people using the clips no longer need obtain permission from the copyright holder nor make payment for the right to use.

This new freedom sounds like a good thing, and it has democratized the world of documentary and YouTube-essay filmmaking. But it has also led to a flood of sub-par infotainments like this one, which crowd out the really excellent films made about the film industry. It might be unfair to compare a quickie movie like Skin with a first-rate documentary like The Celluloid Closet (1996), except that they cover similar territory and follow a similar pattern of presentation—respectively, the depiction of nudity on screen and the depiction of homosexuality on screen, during the first 100 years of movies. The opening segments of these two docs present almost identical historical content about cinema’s virtually unregulated silent era. In these early years, nudity and many forms of sexuality were often hinted at and sometimes explored in detail on the screen. Both Skin and The Celluloid Closet then move to cover the subsequent pre-code and production code eras through the creation of the Motion Picture Associate ratings board. The two films even share many of the same clips from the same early pictures. But Skin is to The Celluloid Closet what an all–you–can–eat binge at McDonalds is to dining at Spago. There is no care or craft on display in Skin, just an onslaught of disconnected information and opinions. On-screen commentators point the film in several potentially fascinating directions, but their thoughts are discarded as quickly as they're brought up.

The rapid flow of musings and ideas in Skin is especially frustrating because of the bounty of first-rate interview subjects who agreed to speak on camera about their experiences and views. We hear from directors, such as indie legends from the ‘70s, like Peter Bogdanovich and Joe Dante, and from the ‘90s, like John Cameron Mitchell and Kevin Smith. We get analysis from writers and historians, including film critic Amy Nicholson, author Mike McPadden, and former senior vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Joan Graves. We even get some of the few male actors who have done full frontal nudity talking in Skin notably Caligula's Malcolm McDowell, Last Summer's Bruce Davison, and Borat's Ken Davitian.

The film's greatest impact comes in hearing from a multitude of female actors who've bared it all on film. The actresses who speak in Skin span most of the decades that the documentary covers—Mamie Van Doren, Girls Town (1956) and 3 Nuts in Search of a Bolt (1964); Sylvia Miles, Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Heat (1972); Diane Franklin, The Last American Virgin (1982) and Second Time Lucky (1984); and Cerina Vincent, Not Another Teen Movie (2001) and Cabin Fever (2002). These women express a wide range of feelings and opinions about being asked to take their clothes off for roles.

Blaxploitation legend Pam Grier (The Big Doll House, Coffy, Foxy Brown) talks of the empowerment she felt by doing nude scenes and redefining American standards of Black female beauty, sexuality, and agency in the 1970s. Linda Blaire (The Exorcist, Chained Heat, Savage Streets) speaks of being manipulated and mistreated on the sets of the low-budget films she was reduced to doing when she first tried to transition into adult roles. The '80s ingénue Sean Young (Young Doctors in Love, No Way Out, The Boost) explains how performing an ease and comfort around being naked in public is all about good acting, since there's nothing easy or comfortable about it. Whereas millennial teen sex-comedy star Shannon Elizabeth (American Pie, Tomcats, Dish Digs) considered nudity her best way into show business, and she has no qualms or regrets about that path. Camille Keaton (What Have You Done to Solange?, Sex of the Witch, I Spit on Your Grave) explains how she worked closely with her fellow cast members and directors to film harrowing scenes of rape and revenge. Mariel Hemingway (Lipstick, Personal Best, Star 80) touches on her choice to get breast implants in order to be considered for certain roles. Erica Gavin (Vixen! Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Caged Heat) tells of how she had no issues doing nudity but that seeing herself naked on giant screens tuned her into an anorexic who had to be hospitalized. Even Traci Lords, the former porn star turned iconic actress notorious for using a fake birth certificate to enter the world of adult films before she was legally an adult, shows up to talk about her distinctive experiences with nudity in the hardcore and legit film industries.

All these stories deserve far more screen time than they are allotted. But the biggest missed opportunities are the interviews with female directors like Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl, Joy of Sex, Rambling Rose) and Amy Heckerling (Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Look Who's Talking, Clueless). Both of these women have fascinating tales to tell about working within the Hollywood system and the sacrifices and compromises they made to get their perspectives on screen. It would not have taken much more time to let these directors convey these anecdotes and share their experiences, which makes it all the more infuriating that the documentary rushes past the opportunity. I get that a movie produced by Mr. Skin would need to present the perspective of former horny teenage boys. But why not use that view as a jumping-off point for a movie that then goes beyond adolescent fantasy and titillation? Instead, Skin cuts away from important memories and reflections—made by people who actually participated in these films—to once again provide us with the recollections of people who merely consumed the films.

In 2023, three years after this film was made, Kristy Guevara-Flanagan's documentary Body Parts was released. That documentary also suffers terribly from trying to cover far too much material—the entire 100+ year history of how Hollywood has depicted the female body and female sexuality! But Body Parts was also hampered by a lack of participation from major female directors and actresses—many of the very people featured here. Did these women feel burned by appearing in the sloppy production of Skin and, therefore, gun-shy about agreeing to be in another doc on a similar topic? It's hard to know. But the subject of how women, sex, and the naked human form are depicted and exploited in movies certainly deserves a more in-depth exploration.