Ok Skin fans, we’re looking at period pieces with nudity that notoriously used un-period music in their soundtracks and dividing those up into two categories: films and television. But you can take out those earbuds because the reason we’re forgoing including them in Songs in the Key of Nudity is that the nude scenes don’t actually take place when those modern soundtracks are being used. Does that mean these nude moments are missing something? You be the judge!
First, our look at the movies, starting with the life of the queen consort of France told by Sofia Coppola and featuring Kirsten Dunst nude.
Marie Antoinette
The film is known for its mix of New Wave, electronic, and post-punk combined with classics from Vivaldi and Rameau. A few scenes featuring hints of skin get the modern treatment, but the best nude scene of them all - where Kirsten’s kiester is visible while she’s being undressed - is only serenaded by the sound of chirping birds.
****
House of Pleasures
Also known as House of Tolerance, this 2011 film has a whopping fifteen nude scenes, which makes perfect sense when you realize it takes place within the walls of an early 20th-century Parisian brothel called L’Apollonide. Yet one of the most powerful and sensual moments - set to the Moody Blues banger "Nights in White Satin" - is one of the few times the ladies don’t have their goods on display.
****
Corsage
It’s a movie about Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie, the Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary in the late 1800s, so of course the soundtrack features five different versions of a song called “She Was” by French singer/songwriter Camille, as well as Marianne Faithful’s “As Tears Go By.” But Vicki Kriep’s amazing full-frontal nudity went by in tense silence despite how hot she was.
****
Django Unchained
It’s hard to talk about modern movie soundtracks without mentioning a Quentin Tarantino flick, so we won’t even try. The 2012 western had a Swizz Beatz remix of James Brown and Tupac Shukar, a Jim Croce song, and more, but even the work of epic Italian composer Ennio Morricone couldn’t put a sweeter spin on the sight of Kerry Washington nude when she gets pulled out of the hot box.
****
Moulin Rouge!
The jukebox musical that started it all, this 2001 Oscar nominee from Baz Luhrmann is full of over-the-top theatrics, but what else do you expect from a film set in 1900 that has its characters sputtering Elton John songs as it were improv poetry? Well, we’d have trouble remembering the lyrics to “Your Song” if Nicole’s nipple went over the top of her corset in front of us too!
****
