Speaking of Cox

A seminal line from "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," from Sarah after she has been informed that her TV show has been cancelled.


"Seemingly, the only actresses that can survive are the ones that show their cooter and I refuse to that. Excuse me, but I have a little dignity."


She is speaking out against doing nudity in a film. And she is equating being nude with being a slut. The time has come to set the record straight about nudity in film. First off you don't "do nudity," you just get naked. We have all been naked throughout our lives. There is no loss of dignity in being naked. And nakedness doesn't have to be about sex. I am naked everyday and I'm not having sex. I bathe daily. Being naked is a daily normal occurrance. So nakedness isn't always about sex and it isn't undignified. I recognize that we are in a society with prudish values. I understand that we shouldn't go walking around buck naked. Clothing serves quite well in our quest to protect ourselves from the elements. But being naked is a part of life. Films show all aspects of our lives. But somehow filmmakers have decided that nudity is the one thing they can't show. Or when it is shown it must be so limited or in such a distant shot, or filmed in such a way as to make it difficult to discern particulars. Nudity is labeled bad. There is plenty of bad in films. Certainly there are bad films; judgement of some films may be subjective, but there are objectively bad films. "Dan in Real Life," comes to mind. There are bad things in films: dismembered bodies, scenes of incest, racist depictions of ethnic groups, etc. But is nudity really the worst thing that they can display?

It is the recent incarnation of the ratings board that brought all this on. I remember in my youth seeing a PG rated movie called, "Hair." Argue the merits of that particular movie, if you will, but even back then a PG rated movie could display Beverly D'Angelo boobs. Even R rated movies have fallen under the ax of the resurgent prudishness. R rated movies made today aren't allowed to show nearly the amount or the extent of the nudity offered in such classics as, "Porky's." As I referenced before, shots with any actor being even partially naked are shot in such a manner that the camera shot distracts from the fluidity of the film. The camera pans through the bedroom at shoulder height level, displaying the full extent of the room - ceiling to floor - and then either zooms in to an actress's face only or suddenly drops its height to floor level and dips behind a chair back or side table leg or in some way obstructs the vision of the camera. Or, and this is not realistic in any sense, the actress gets out of bed at right angles - feet hit floor, and the sheet falls away to reveal a perfectly perpendicular flat space of the back. Who the hell gets out of bed in such a manner? The effect is jarring. The whole film is shot in realistic settings and angles, until it is time to show actors in situations where certain body parts may be seen. These actors are all self-conscious. The society has made them so.

Again, nudity = bad. I get it. The sickness extends beyond the actors themselves. The internet is ablaze with websites which exist for no other reason than to catch stars, or even non-stars (Paris Hilton/any Kardashian), naked. Gonzo photographers go to great lengths to shoot pictures of sideboob, internet sites exclaim that they have the shots, advertisers support the internet sites and encourage the photographer's behavior. And the stars feel stalked and violated and cheap. Nudity, in any form, becomes nasty. So actors refuse to ever be filmed naked. They don't want to be considered undignified.

Let's examine this. One bedroom scene where the actress didn't freak out about being naked and where the camera pan didn't have a jarring effect was in the movie "The English Patient," a movie made in 1996, starring actors all well respected for their craft. It won a total of nine academy awards, including Best Picture. Hardly a smutty, disreputable film. The scene is Ralph Fiennes and Kristin Scott Thomas lying around in bed, making cute, post-coital small talk. Ralph Fiennes absent-mindedly draws circles with his finger on Kristin Scott Thomas's belly. Kristin Scott Thomas unselfconsciously displays her upper torso. She languidly revels in her lover's presence. She is comfortable, even blissful. It is as if the film is being shot with the unacknowledged fourth wall. The actors are acting as if the cameras aren't there. Which is how films are supposed to be shot. Thus no jarring, self-aware, discordant body movements to avoid exposure nor swooping camera pans to avoid "inappropriate" displays.

All actors, if they are serious about acting, must be just as comfortable with themselves. Martin Sheen in an episode of "Inside the Actor's Studio," explains the true exposure that an actor must be able to commit to. He relays the story of when his father died. He was away, New York I believe, and not nearby when his father died. His siblings took care of the particulars of planning the funeral and he said that he would arrive late, but still make it to the wake and the funeral. Well, complications ensued and planes were late, the result being that he could not attend the funeral of his own father. There was no animosity between he and his father. He loved his father very much and was sorry that he couldn't pay his last respects. Life continued at its usual hurried pace and he never really in his mind got a chance to say goodbye. Some time later he was in a movie and there was a scene where he had to display deep sorrow. The director shot and re-shot the scene, but just couldn't get the right feeling out of Martin. He approached Martin with his concerns and asked if Martin could reach a little deeper into himself and bring out true emotion. Martin reassessed what he was giving out and how better to really act. And he told the director "Okay, I'm going to do this one time, so you better get the shot." And Martin called out from within his own subconscious all the emotions he had sublimated about the death of his father. Sheen let out all the anguish and sorrow he felt. He finally mourned the loss of his dad. To expose that much, to have that private a moment shared and permanently captured on film, is far more intimate than having your naked body filmed.

The current standard is that if you want to be taken seriously, you would never allow yourself to be talked into "doing movie nudity." What self-respecting actress would allow herself to be filmed nude? Helen Mirren, Helen Hunt, Halle Barre, Diane Keaton, Charlize Theron, Jessica Lange, Barbra Hershey, Meryl Streep, Anne Hatheway, Sally Fields, Kathy Bates. Oscar winners and respected actresses. You will be taken seriously if you do serious, good work, if you have respect for your craft. You add to your range of expression by not discounting nudity. Your job as an actor or actress is to expose yourself. All of yourself. Your humiliation in third grade. Your joy at the birth of your child. The loss of loved ones. The craft calls on actors to express all their privacy. All of it. Every aspect, including the body. There can be self-consciousness in acting. There can be no restraint.

In another part of his interview on "Inside the Actor's Studio," Martin Sheen reflects on his most infamous nude scene. The one in "Apocalypse Now." He had not been feeling well during the scene. He had wrestled these demons before and he thought "Maybe I should go here again. It is the search for a transcendent experience." He started doing some karate moves and he misjudged the distance to the mirror. He cracked the mirror and cut his thumb pretty deep. Francis Ford Coppala tried to stop the scene, but Martin Sheen was into something deeply personal. He had the demon by the throat and he was not going to let it go. For his own sake. And he said, "No. Let me have this." As the scene went on and on, Martin got more into his personal pain, into the guilt that he had been carrying. That should be the only concern of a true actor. How best to express the nature and feel of the scene. There should be no awareness of the camera, no awareness of the fourth wall.

Another actor, Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame, famously did a nude scene. On stage this time instead of on film. This kid obviously has a profitable franchise. Financially there is no impetus to extend beyond his comfort zone. There is no call for exposing himself. But a true actor desires to act. To take on a challenge. To explore his psyche. He relates that it was far more emotionally daunting to play his part in 'Equus,' in the clothed scenes versus the nude scene. "Doing it naked, you take on a vulnerability" He dismisses having qualms about the nude scene. "If you take the job, you take everything that comes with it."

Refusing to expose every part of yourself on screen is infantile and a repudiation of the nobility of the craft of acting. If the audience only shows up out of prurient interest, that is their issue. This is a call for actors to just do their job. Well. Completely. Unabashedly.

So tying this tirade to the title of the blog. Jason Segal, John C. Reilly (or whoever that was in "Dewey Cox"), and yes, even Will Farrell (see Old School), stay true to their craft, even if it is just comedy. They have all committed to doing what is necessary to perfectly convey the needs of the scene and the movies they are in. Can Hollywood start producing movies that are unashamed of the actors' bodies? Can the ratings board mature in their definition of what is appropriate viewing for adults? Can actors let go of their inhibitions and their stilted misconception of the indignity of nudity in film? Can nudity become as accepted in film as blood and dismemberment and other true indignities?

Matthew