Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies

7/7/2022

More of a "greatest hits" of nudity in film than a balanced examination of the subject. This is not surprising considering that one of the producers of the documentary as well as an interview subject is Mr. Skin, who operates a website that features clips of movie nude scenes. The documentary starts off reasonably well by discussing the earliest appearances of nudity in film and the forces inside and outside the motion picture industry that tried to suppress nudity and realistic depictions of sexuality on the screen. The time of the Production Code and its many restrictions on content is foundational to our understanding of the more permissive policies of today. However, once the film moves into the 1960s and the establishment of the modern rating system, it starts to lose its focus.