Fishbein, McBride Team on 'Skin' Doc Examining Nudity in Cinema

LOS ANGELES—AVN founder Paul Fishbein and Mr. Skin chief Jim McBride joined forces to produce new documentary Skin: A History of Nudity in the Movies, which debuts today on VOD platforms including Amazon, iTunes, Apple TV, Vudu, Fandango Now and more.  Beginning in the silent movie era, Skin runs through the present day, examining the changes in morality that led to the depiction of nudity in films while emphasizing the political, sociological and artistic changes that contributed to it, as well as the gender bias surrounding it. "I always wondered why no one had ever done a definitive history of movie nudity. Obviously it's one of my passions," McBride said. "We live in the Golden Age of documentaries, with great ones being made on every subject from The Last Dance to Tiger King, and I figured now was as good a time as any to do this." "Also there's a deep discussion of pre-code Hollywood and its amoral roots, the censorship that 'cleaned up' Hollywood and how the MPAA was formed," Fishbein added. "That leads into a discussion of how nudity changed cinematic culture through the decades and it culminates in a discussion of 'what are nude scenes like in the age of the #MeToo movement?" Directed by Danny Wolf, who also produced Fishbein's three-part doc of last spring, Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time, Skin features appearances by Pam Grier, Malcolm McDowell, Sean Young, Mamie van Doren, Sybil Danning, Shannon Elizabeth, Diane Franklin, EG Daily, Cerina Vincent, Kristanna Loken, John Cameron Mitchell and Oscar nominees Bruce Davison, Linda Blair, Mariel Hemingway, Eric Roberts and Sylvia Miles, for her final interview.  In addition, directors Peter Bogdanovich, Amy Heckerling, Joe Dante and Kevin Smith lend their observations on the topic, as does the notorious Traci Lords and many critics and experts on film history.