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Post by foxa on Oct 28, 2016 22:41:24 GMT
I'm not that keen on nudity on stage because it tends to pull me out of the play. I begin worrying about the actors. Are they okay with it? Will they regret doing it? Did they work out a lot when they discovered it was required for this part? Of course, sometimes it makes sense and yada yada - but it certainly isn't a draw for me. I agree the nudity in The Elephant Man is necessary and makes sense, and I would say the same for The Effect and a v. good Romeo and Juliet I saw some years ago.As Duchess Constance mentioned there is a fair amount of exploitation. I met a young actress in New York whose acting teacher had convinced her that she had to be able to 'act with my breasts as much as my face' so she did a series of topless scenes in scene study class to perfect that.
I also hate it when actors have done nude scenes and then are ridiculed/quizzed about them. Women used to get a lot of this (RIP but Terry Wogan just couldn't get over it if an actress had done a nude scene and in interviews really couldn't move on) but I think men are getting quite a bit of it now (saw an excruciating interview with Michael Fassbender.) And I hated when Seth McFarlane did his 'I saw your boobies' song at the Oscars a couple of years ago - I suppose because for whatever reasons the actress did the topless scenes it was reduced to his adolescent reaction._ Actresses like Halle Berry and Demi Moore who had made a point of not doing nude scenes were then offered huge financial incentives which they accepted, which seemed a bit tawdry.
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Post by mallardo on Oct 29, 2016 7:44:37 GMT
Re this ^ sort of, I once had a rewrite job on a low budget action thing and was startled when the director - an established guy - asked me to insert, somewhere, a shower scene for his leading lady. Why? He wanted to see her naked. I thought he was joking but he was not. I guess I was so junior and insignificant that he felt he could tell me the truth. I wrote it (I needed the job) and it was shot although the actress (who knew exactly what was going on) went topless only, to the director's fury. Nothing like it ever happened to me again but I assume a lot of those incongruous nude scenes we see all the time happen for reasons exactly like that.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 29, 2016 8:07:57 GMT
I met a young actress in New York whose acting teacher had convinced her that she had to be able to 'act with my breasts as much as my face' I wonder if the Maggie Smiths and Angela Lansburys of this world were ever given such advice. |
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Post by foxa on Oct 29, 2016 9:57:48 GMT
I met an Oscar winning actress who told me that when she was young she had a nude scene. The set was supposedly cleared, and she lay down naked on the bed. She heard a click and she looked up to see a man she didn't know in the rafters taking photos. She imagined those photos were circulating somewhere.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 29, 2016 10:11:44 GMT
Re this ^ sort of, I once had a rewrite job on a low budget action thing and was startled when the director - an established guy - asked me to insert, somewhere, a shower scene for his leading lady. Why? He wanted to see her naked. I thought he was joking but he was not. I guess I was so junior and insignificant that he felt he could tell me the truth. I wrote it (I needed the job) and it was shot although the actress (who knew exactly what was going on) went topless only, to the director's fury. Nothing like it ever happened to me again but I assume a lot of those incongruous nude scenes we see all the time happen for reasons exactly like that. Reminds me of that scene in Star Trek into Darkness, when Alice Eve was shown stripping down to her underwear for no conceivable reason other than giving the guys a chance to ogle her. They then tried to justify it by saying Chris Pine was topless earlier on (in a scene where his female co-stars were also in underwear), and that they'd shot a scene of Cumberbatch in the shower that was cut for not being important to the plot... God bless Tom Hiddleston for insisting that if he's filiming a love scene he should be just as naked as his female co-stars (actually more, in Crimson Peak) but the rather unfortunate side-effect of his scene in The Night Manager with her is that Elizabeth Debicki is now being asked about his bum in interviews. The fact that she was frequently naked in the series has hardly been commented on - normal and expected as it is. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 14:42:54 GMT
Elizabeth Debicki is now being asked about his bum in interviews. What is she supposed to answer about it? Unless it can play the piano or has won a Booker prize I can't imagine there's an awful lot to say. |
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Post by d'James on Oct 29, 2016 15:01:54 GMT
She probably barely saw it, if at all, from where she was standing. I didn't even notice it when I was watching. It's only because it got cut out in America that it's got all this attention.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 15:06:04 GMT
Male nudity on television merits a separate thread, maybe?
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Post by kathryn on Oct 29, 2016 22:14:17 GMT
She probably barely saw it, if at all, from where she was standing. I didn't even notice it when I was watching. It's only because it got cut out in America that it's got all this attention. Her actual answer was 'I was looking at his face'. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2016 22:14:45 GMT
If only we could take those separate threads and weave them into items of clothing, HG.
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Post by Snciole on Oct 31, 2016 14:42:31 GMT
I wrote a blog back in April as there seemed to be lots of nudity going around viewfromthecheapseat.com/2016/04/13/may-contain-nuts-nudity-on-the-stage/ but I went to Lear yesterday and definitely more men than woman get naked. Harry Melling gets completely nude (I thought he had a lovely bottom,my boyfriend was complaining that his own didn't compare to Edmund's) as Edgar/Poor Tom. Nudity is expected in Lear now, people still talk about Ian McKellen's penis like it was utterly magical. |
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Post by lynette on Oct 31, 2016 14:45:25 GMT
I wrote a blog back in April as there seemed to be lots of nudity going around viewfromthecheapseat.com/2016/04/13/may-contain-nuts-nudity-on-the-stage/ but I went to Lear yesterday and definitely more men than woman get naked. Harry Melling gets completely nude (I thought he had a lovely bottom,my boyfriend was complaining that his own didn't compare to Edmund's) as Edgar/Poor Tom. Nudity is expected in Lear now, people still talk about Ian McKellen's penis like it was utterly magical. I think we take the cue for the nudity from the text but I'm intrigued- surely the Elizabethans/Jacobean didn't take off their clothes? Or maybe just a token garment. This might be similar to the lines about the weather: if they say it is stormy we must imagine it so. Oooo imagination. |
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Post by Snciole on Oct 31, 2016 14:49:41 GMT
I would argue the expectation is recent but for an elderly man to show his madness he needs to extreme behaviour, and it seems, ripping off your clothes if you haven't got a young hot body (Ian McKellen's enviable appendage aside) is seen as an act of madness. I think that is an outdated view, people get naked all the time now-see Naked Attraction.
I am sure productions from bygone ages had actors flashing their ankles.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2016 14:52:40 GMT
Nudity in Lear is textual. Edgar says "Brought near to beast: my face I'll grime with filth; Blanket my loins: elf all my hair in knots; And with presented nakedness out-face The winds and persecutions of the sky." So it suggests he's not going to be wearing anything except the meanest garment around his nether regions. (In the same speech he also suggests he's going to stick pins in his arms; happily I've only ever seen one production where Edgar actually did that!) Gloucester later refers to him as the naked fellow, indicating Edgar has indeed gone through with his plan to only wear minimal clothing while in his Poor Tom guise. Then, later, Lear cries: "Off, off, you lendings! come unbutton here." It's obviously down to the individual production how far Lear gets with this disrobing, but the text doesn't not support the appearance of Sir Ian's wizard staff, if you will. I don't know how far the Elizabethans went though, as I was not there, so I don't know how entirely helpful this reply is, but I've got an idea that if Shakespeare's writing explicit (and in fairness non-sexual, and quite probably only partial) nudity then it must have been at the very least a realistic option for actors of the era...  |
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Post by kathryn on Oct 31, 2016 15:33:58 GMT
I remember in my 'Invention of the Novel' lectures at university being told that the modern definition of 'naked' differs from the 18th century definition, and that 'naked' meant partially dressed - in a shift or other undergarment. Not sure if that holds for the Early modern period but that quote does suggest that 'naked' can involve loins being covered.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 31, 2016 16:19:47 GMT
I would argue the expectation is recent but for an elderly man to show his madness he needs to extreme behaviour, and it seems, ripping off your clothes if you haven't got a young hot body (Ian McKellen's enviable appendage aside) is seen as an act of madness. I think that is an outdated view, people get naked all the time now-see Naked Attraction. I am sure productions from bygone ages had actors flashing their ankles. Ahhhh so this would be the male equivalent if the classic female "I'm going mad so I'm going to apply this lipstick but smear it all over my face like a crayon"? Now I get it! Germaine Greer described Ian MCKellen's "that grotesque, rubbery appendage" and questioned the suitability of his performance for GCSE students  |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 31, 2016 16:39:48 GMT
In his book Covering McKellen, David Weston was the understudy for Lear. He was sorry that he never got to go on, although he reports that he was incredibly nervous about showing his willy which would be significantly smaller than Mr M's.
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Post by longinthetooth on Oct 31, 2016 17:14:42 GMT
Ah, McKellan's 'Lear'. I remember many, many moons ago (if you'll pardon the pun), my friend dragged me along to see this as she fancied the pants (again, apologies) off Sir Ian. We were oh, so innocent in those days .......
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Post by Deleted on Nov 1, 2016 12:46:43 GMT
Teaching Lear a few years ago one of my students first comments on the play was "I saw Ian McKellan's penis in that" ...
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Post by lynette on Nov 2, 2016 20:46:59 GMT
Talk about lowering the tone....
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2016 8:43:42 GMT
Talk about lowering the tone.... Me? the student?
In a thread about nudity I don't think (nor was I trying) to lower the tone, the McKellan conversation reminded me of a mildly amusing story. As for the student he was actually one of the brightest and best in his year, but for a then 16 year old I'm hardly surprised that "Gandalf's staff" was something he was amused at (and having taught Secondary School and Uni I assure you I've had tones lowered further in a classroom)
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Post by Deleted on Nov 3, 2016 11:32:34 GMT
Talk about lowering the tone.... Impossible on this board, without actually ending up in Australia, surely? Well that production of Lear made it all the way to NZ so they must have REALLY lowered the tone! |
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