Interesting observations on film criticisms in the "Other Crap" yesterday. I have my pet peeve which is what makes a great nude scene for the male audience. Below I've listed eight things that I think are important to have a good nude scene. Since you're in the business of showing nude scenes, I'd be curious as to how you would add or change the list. These are mine:
1. Establish Specific Actress in Nude Scene: Never cut from the actresses face to her body which will always look as a body double. Always pan from her face to her body or from her body to her face or pull back enough to show her face in part of the nude scene.
2. Never Show an Actor’s Ass: Very few heterosexual males want to see another man’s bare bottom in the scene. Either show it very briefly (a few seconds) or not at all. Some gay director’s or cinema photographers are so obsessed with seeing the male’s ass that they’ll show the actor moving up and down the actress in a simulated sex scene just to see the actor’s ass flex in and out. PLEASE!!! Spare us this crap. On the other hand, if you want to show the actress moving up and down that’s perfectly acceptable.
3. Breasts Are Not The Only Part of a Woman’s Body: For some reason in America, everyone assumes that showing an actresses breasts is sufficient for a nude scene. You might be able to sell that to an eighteen year old, but as men get older, they want to see other parts of the body. Foreign productions tend to show much more of the actress full body than in America. My rule of thumb is always to show the actresses nude bottom in every nude scene. If she doesn't want to show it, go to rule six.
4. Find the Best Part of an Actresses Body: Every actress has her good parts and bad parts on her body. Study the body of your actresses to know what is her best part and incorporate that into the scene. If she has a bad body, don’t embarrass her by having her do a nude scene. Use lingerie on her instead of her being nude. Better yet, cast someone who has a good body and wants to show it.
5. Never Show Out of Focus or Dark Scenes: Out of focus nude scenes went out in the seventies and please don’t think that crap is artful. And dark scenes almost always tell the audience that something is wrong. Either the actress has a bad body and you don’t want to show it (then don’t) or your gay photographer is trying to make it look like great art because he isn’t to seeing a nude woman. Either way dark scenes are never successful in nude scenes and leave male audiences frustrated.
6. Never Ask the Actress Her Opinion of the Nude Scene: Who is your audience? The actress or the people that pay to see your movie. Actresses always want to have a “classy” nude scene which means show little or nothing. Don’t fall into that trap. In fact, before you start filming, sit down with your actresses and explain you’re the director and you’re paying her to act which includes the nude scene. Deal with it or find another actress. Honestly, there are thousands of actresses that would be happy to have her role.
7. Study Great Nude Scenes: Even though you’re the greatest director in the world, always spend time studying great nude scenes before you film one. For example, Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. This movie made her career but understand how the director sat down with her before the movie started and explained exactly what he wanted. He had a vision and wanted the nude scenes to play a specific way. Develop your vision and once you have thought the scene out and it plays properly in your mind, explain to your actors what you specifically want. If you can’t tell them what you want, you’ll never do a great nude scene.
8. Put Yourself in the Nude Scene: So many times, an erotic scene is filmed that has no eroticism whatsoever. Ask yourself how you would make love in that scene and act it out with your wife or girlfriend or whoever, but the important thing is that you put yourself into the scene. For example: A man is seducing a woman in a scene and he kisses her and then kisses her neck and starts slowly down her body. When he comes to her breasts – what would you do? Would you kiss her breasts – first one than the other. Would you lick her nipples and suck on them a little. Of course you would – any red blooded guy would spend some times on those breasts and kiss them and lick them and suck them. That’s the natural order of the seduction. Yet how many times do we see a scene where the guy kisses her, lips kisses her neck, kisses between her breasts and moves down. WTF? Nobody does that in real life. You say, some actresses don’t want their nipples licked and sucked. Fine…go to rule six – find another actress who will give you want you want in the scene.
Scoop's response
Good list.
Personally, I have no problem at all with male nudity when there is also a naked woman in the scene. You could ask me afterward, and I wouldn't even remember whether the guy was naked! (My eyes were elsewhere.) But I do agree with you that the director should not use the guy's naked body to hide parts of the woman's body.
Also, I don't really care if there are naked guys in the film in general. They don't interest me, but they don't bother me either. And, let's face it, women and gay guys also go to the movies at the mall and sit next to us, despite our best efforts to direct them to really good nearby shopping.
My other rule of thumb is that long sex scenes slow down the pace of a movie. You have only 90 minutes to tell a story, perhaps to cover years of someone's life. You can't waste 7 of those minutes on a sex scene, which by its nature moves in real time, not the movie's time. Annaud's "The Lover" is a beautiful movie with some of the best cinematography in history, but the long sex scenes make me forget about the story and put me to sleep.
Plus, directors need to realize that every thrust is boring except the first and last one. It's just the same stuff again and again. This is why porn is so soporific.
In general, I like nude scenes in other contexts better than I like sex scenes. I have found that a beautiful woman standing up or walking by herself - in good light, in a gorgeous setting, within an established context - is much more cinematic, as well as much more erotic, than some lovers groping and coupling in the dark.
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