Author: Moyra J. Bligh
Email: moyra@interlog.com
Date: 1998/10/23
Forums: alt.fan.mira-furlan
Message-ID: <36335ed6.28910604@news.interlog.com>
On 17 Oct 1998 19:36:23 GMT, "Mark Maher"
<markamaher@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Regarding an earlier posting wondering about Mira's attitude towards
>appearing nude in her earlier movies. I'll let her speak for herself.
Since the original post didn't turn up on my news server, I'll add my
two cents on the subject here.
I think Mira's own words on the subject of nudity in the movies, best
elucidate her feelings on the subject. While at the Farpoint
Convention in Baltimore in October of 1997 she was asked a question
about actresses taking roles where nudity was involved, to further
their careers and what she thought about it and was it that way in her
country. Her answer was as follows.
"It was that way in Yugoslavia in a major way. Nudity to further your
career, I can only despise it, but nudity as a part of an artistic
idea, I can only welcome it. Although one has to be incredibly careful
with those things because people, the audience, the media, the world
is hypocritical so if you go and do something out of the bottom of
your heart with the conviction that you are doing something for the
project, for the artistic truth and so on, you get to be
misinterpreted by the audience. With women, it's a misogynist world,
and it's a macho world, it's a man's world. It's true, it's true. In
Yugoslavia movies were full of violence and sex and rapes and so on.
The best movies, I mean the best movies that were made in our country
were like that. It's so sad, and you have to admit, yah it's a great,
it's a great movie. 'When Father Was Away on Business' which I brought
with me is, I think, such a movie. But to me, I am sincere I never, I
never really, or maybe just stupid, I never saw that aspect, that
everything can be misinterpreted, and that you basically have to take
care of yourself, because nobody else will and be very careful with
those things."
When I originally started to look for Mira's European work, I was
given the impression by someone who allegedly knew about such things
that Mira had done nude scenes (or that there were nude scenes) in
just about all of the movies that she had done. Now that I have seen
roughly half of the movies on her list of credits, I know that in fact
nothing could be further from the truth. True, there is nudity in a
few of the movies that she has done, and yes she has done a couple of
such scenes herself, however, in my opinion every single one of those
few scenes are necessary to the artistic integrity of the movies. The
absence of those scenes would severely diminish the movies.
In "The Beauty of Vice" much of the action of the story is set in a
nudist colony on the sun drenched Dalmatian Coast. The couple who play
the English tourists (Ines Kotman and Alan Noury) are almost never
seen with their clothes on. Mira's character is an innocent from the
mountains of Bosnia, who finds employment as a maid in the colony, and
as befitting a Muslim woman of her stature she is clothed from head to
toe in black rarely even removing her head covering. Even when she and
her husband engage in marital relations she is completely covered,
including a cloth over her face. The brief scene where she is in puris
naturalibus on the beach, with the English tourists represents the
symbolic unveiling of a side of her character that until that moment
had been completely repressed and buried and covered up by her culture
upbringing. The plot of the movie hangs on that scene, without it the
rest of the movie makes no sense at all, and in my opinion it would be
impossible to make that particular film without that scene.
Artistically it is perfect within the context of the movie. Mira won
the Zlatna Arena (Yugoslavia's equivalent of an Oscar) for best
actress at Pula in 1986 for that role.
The other thing that has to be taken into account are the vast
cultural differences between North America and Europe. Europeans in
general have a much more mature and sophisticated view of sex and
nudity, to them it is a normal and natural part of life and culture.
They therefore use it in their films when and if it suits the
character or advances the plot. I don't recall ever having seen it
used simply for the titillation of the juvenile mentalities in the
audience, as it so often is in Hollywood when they just decide to
chuck a little nudity into a second rate flick to expand the audience.
North Americans in general tend to be very provincial and infantile
about the subject, possibly a by-product of the puritan ethic.
--
Moyra J. Bligh - moyra@interlog.com
FAQ maintainer - alt.fan.mira-furlan, moderator mira-f mailing list
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