Documentary Recommendation: Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies (2020)

Posted on 12/22/2020 by Pisaries Creator

If something doesn’t capture my attention within the first few minutes, I take it out of my queue and watch something else. Two hours and 10 minutes later, I was watching the last remaining minutes of this documentary. Malcolm McDowell was speaking about his experience during Caligula. There is great commentary throughout Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies. It is more than a bunch of naked women and men. It is an informative documentary about the irregularities when the film industry began in the U.S and how social and political events changed the way movies were rated. The Woodstock era was a turning point of nudity being viewed as an accepted form of entertainment. It no longer ended an actress or actor’s career and sometimes catapulted her or him to another level. There was discussion of good and bad movies. Some had ridiculous plots with seemingly gratuitous nudity. Some movies I had seen because they had a great story and had a more definitive reason for the nudity. If you are a movie history buff and can get past all the nakedness (yeah, right), this documentary is for you. As all great documentaries should be, it is informative and one where I learned something new.