I, too, have to go with A. ROOM. WITH. A. VIEW as well. The sort of naughty joy the men experienced was almost as though they were reliving a childhood skinny dipping escapade. They frolicked in the water with such energy while running, swinging on limbs and splashing like school boys but continually lovely and innocent to where they simply scampered off laughing once theyd been caught. YENTL was quite erotic because of the slower pace but because of the more clearly viewable bare buns. The ground breaking male nude scene experienced in my filmgoing has been the wrestling scene lit by the fireplace in that gothic-revival library in WOMEN. IN. LOVE with Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.....very erotic and beautiful all at the same time.
Yeah, I agree. The Women In Love reference is a little off topic since it's not a swimming scene, but it's a beautiful and very memorable scene in a great memorable movie, so relevant to any discussion on nudity in film or nudity in general. I'm glad you mentioned it.
I agree with what you say about Yentl. The view and the whole way the scene unfolds between the two of them is slightly erotic because of what we can see is going on in Yentl's experience and reaction to seeing Mandy Patinkin's openly nude and exposed body. At the same time, the scene is beautifully composed and the setting is gorgeous. When I see it I imagine taking my own clothes off and joining him. I feel the same way in the playful water splashing and running scene previously mentioned in A Room With A View. I want to be naked with them and I think that is a quality that adds to a nude swimming scene's memorability.
I just stumbled on a new one yesterday on Turner Classic Movies - "The Narrow Corner" (1933), starring Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Patricia Ellis & Ralph Bellamy. I tuned in right as a nude Fairbanks, who had just swum to shore from his boat, was striking up a conversation with Ellis on the beach. Bellamy walks up, joins the conversation, and eventually strips down so that he can join Fairbanks in a swim back to the boat.
Absolutely nothing is shown, but it's how the nudity of the characters is treated that really struck me. The scene isn't played for laughs or shock value or anything like that. Swimming nude is just treated as the only natural way to swim, an everyday part of life.
Reminded me of the articles I've read about nude swims at the YMCA and swimming holes and how common that was until 50 or 60 years ago. This scene was like a time capsule of what it must have felt like back then. Since the movie predates the institution of the "Hays Code" in 1934, they were able to get away with implied nudity in this movie that wouldn't have gotten past the Hollywood censors just a few months later. Really fascinating.
"The Narrow Corner" is based on a book by Somerset Maugham and the movie is hard to find, but if you get TCM they have it On Demand until the middle of May.
I am gonna definitely check out The Narrow Corner. I know there were quite a few nude or nearly nude scenes in films before the Hays Code. I've seen the clips from the movie Ecstasy where Hedy Lamarr puts her clothes on her horse's back and swims nude, with close ups of her naked body. And in the 1934 movie Tarzan And His Mate, Tarzan (Johnny Weissmuller) and Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) wear only tiny loin cloths. Then Tarzan and Jane do a very long and very beautiful three minute underwater swim where Jane is completely nude. Weissmuller was an Olympic swimmer and the woman was O'Sullivan's body double, actually another competitive swimmer. The scene is quite lovely but I expect many audiences were surprised at the extent of the nudity. I think of all those kids at Saturday matinees seeing their idol Tarzan almost naked himself, swimming and embracing underwater with his nude mate. The Catholic Decency Board wanted it banned.
I just watched The Last Picture Show again and I have to say it is an absolutely excellent film. Just beautiful, so well done. I had first seen it on television many years ago and they cut out all the nude scenes. I later did get to see the nude swimming pool scene and I had remembered it for the nudity. After seeing it tonight I realize how effectively nudity is used throughout the movie. The scene in the pool with a dozen high school kids going through this rite of passage together was well done. Their nudity is casual and they seem a bit jaded and callous even at 18. They are experienced at hanging naked. There's a sexuality to the scene, but there's a hollowness to it too. Their youthfulness adds attractiveness and thats enjoyable but here nudity is used almost aggressively. I think it I'd used to present a "bared" world of experienced youths deliberately pressuring the young Cybill Shepherd to strip and join them. She of course is only too willing to join them. She came there knowing everyone would be nude and planned to do it and she does. It's not a gratuitous scene. It shows us who these kids are, so completely comfortable with their own nudity, and who she is, manipulating her way through the movie, and now adding a new moment of exploration to her self absorbed summer of discovery. Interestingly, as effective as the nude scene is, it wasn't a significant scene for me. There is so much richness to the rest of the fun and the characters and relationships that it ends up just a short scene to help support the plot. This film is excellent.
For me, the most memorable was Jenny Agutter in Walkabout. A really sumptuous film, with great acting and such a beautiful swimming scene. Was besotted with Jenny Agutter from that film on. Not sure watching her in The Midwives now does it for me though now!!
Actions
Back to TopicsReply to TopicShare this topic
Get paid just by sending us users/traffic.
Signup takes seconds, start now!
Signup as an affiliate!