Majorthebys Charming and brutal

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Brendon Jones It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Jenni Devyn Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

artisticengineer Art and nudity have been together in the Western world for thousands of years-dating back to the Ancient Greeks who viewed the body as one of the if not the most beautiful work of art. That, at least, is the western viewpoint. Other cultures vary; not so much as to whether the body is beautiful or not but rather as to when it is appropriate to display the body to all. Mr. Tunick, in this film, goes around the world to try to show the "body is beautiful" viewpoint belongs worldwide. And, to a significant degree, he succeeds. Actually, his film could be viewed not so much as a film about the human body or nakedness but rather about cultural differences overall. For example, his ease of obtaining volunteers in London versus the problems he had in Ireland shows the cultural differences still existing between those societies.Particular mention and praise should be made to him going to a post apartheid South Africa and attempting to recruit (mostly) black models. Virtually all of the models in his previous photo shoots have been white; and this is certainly understandable in places such as Russia (only Black Russian I know of is a drink!). However, other peoples with much different skin tones exist and by going to South Africa he certainly attempted to diversify his selection. I commend him for that even though he seemed to be less than totally successful in that endeavor. The only part of the show that I really object to is the Antarctica session. He wanted to do a worldwide show and, in that regards, I understand his decision to go to the Antarctic. But, I still object for a couple of reasons. The first one, most importantly, is that the Antarctic does not have any indigenous human population-the one part of the landed world that does not. The second objection is more of an artistic nature, and that is due to the environment a nude human being is in no way "natural" in Antarctica. What we see in this movie is the coastal region in SUMMER; the most benign area and time of the year for that entire continent and it is still way too cold for people to venture out without insulating clothes. The models are nude for just a few minutes at a time; yet it is obvious that they are at their limits even then and certainly could not survive for much longer in a nude condition. Nude humans and the Antarctic are therefore oxymorons; they do not go together and Antarctica does not belong in Spencer Tunick's portfolio. Having mentioned that I will say that overall this film is a good example of artistic figure studies.

rcoss2001 Hello, Well I am not in "Naked World", or in "Naked States" but maybe in the next one...? There is an old, very hard to find documentary on Spencer called "Naked Pavement" 1998 by Joshua Tunick (no relation) which was done in his early career. "Naked States" was next, by Arlene Donnelly, the same who did "Naked World". Arlene is a friend of Spencer's and while there is no critical voice in the movies, the movies are more to document what those of us who pose for Spencer feel and to show Spencer at work. Spencer is a visually oriented person, not verbal and when working is highly pressured by the changing light, the fact that we are naked and cold, etc. So he comes across as more abrupt than he really is. Is he an artist with artistic temperament. Oh yes! But as more and more museums have his work, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox I would say it's art. Will it last? I don't know. Wouldn't you like to have a documentary of past artists at work?

bob the moo The New York based artist Spencer Tunick takes pictures of nudes in public places – contrasting the naked bodies with the harsh architecture of the cities etc. Fed up of being arrested in New York for public indecency he decides to set out to go across the globe taking nude shots as well as doing group shots of nudes. With each country he gets different problems and benefits – the French are the most reserved, the Japanese afraid of losing jobs for being naked and the Australians barely need to be asked twice.I generally seem to have a problem with modern art because some of it deliberately tries to be controversial and actually have very little merit other than shock value. The argument that this type of art is good because 'it gets people talking and brings people to all art' is nonsense and never washes with me. However, I generally try to reserve judgement on things until I actually see it – hence me watching this film. I have already seen some of Tunick's work and was quite unimpressed by it, I didn't get the point and just saw it doing stuff that gets headlines. Watching this film I got an impression of the logistics of organising the shoots as well as the motivation of the people who had agreed to get naked. Other that this the film manages to deliver very little other than the interest/curiosity factor of watching lots of people pose nude in public places.What I wanted was insight: basically Tunick is given lots of chances to really talk about his work and his aims but he doesn't take any of them, only giving vague comments about his intentions – in fact he contradicts himself when he agrees with a South African's concept of his work (in order to get him to pose). As well as missing this chance to help us philistines understand his work, Tunick also comes over as selfish, rude, pushy and full of his own sense of self-importance. He insults people on the street and calls them 'rude' for walking past him as he hands out fliers (we all walk past these people everyday), he gets angry for the police for arresting him (accusing them of basically being idiots). When he is asked what makes his picture special, he replies 'because I took it'. The film only allows about three critically voices in the whole film – and all three of them are Australians who are given seconds to say a quick soundbite or two each. Contrast this with the huge amount of adoring voices surrounding him – only the head of the Russian Museum dares to question him, but even then she concedes to him. All those around him seem to hang on his every word and treat him as if he is doing the most important thing in the world. Even more insulting is how people who 'don't get it' are viewed – they are seen as idiots, the Japanese are openly attacked as being corporate drones.Those looking for critical insight will also be disappointed because nobody dares ask anything challenging of Tunick. Where does his money come from is what I was interested to know – he flies all over the world but then ends the film complaining about not selling enough pictures. He loves the media and he acts up for the camera, seemingly overjoyed at the chance to talk one to one to the camera. This greatly weakens the film's value – if you love his work and see him as an important artist doing important things then it is likely you will enjoy this. However if you dislike him or are unsure of your stance, then this will do nothing for you – Tunick shows himself to be lacking ideas and comes across as arrogant and self-important, completely wasting the chance to just honestly and without pretension say what his work is about.Overall this is an interesting film in terms of logistics and the chance to see unusual sight of lots of people getting naked in unusual places. However I came to it willing to be won over to Tunick's vision but only found a rather empty film that lost ant potential I thought it had. Novelty interest - yes; but artistic value or creative insight? No. (And, as an aside, what was with all the use of subtitles? The film uses subtitles for people speaking English! Understandable with one or two very thick accents but it also subtitles people in Australia and London! Did HBO an American audience would struggle with anyone not speaking with a raised inflection?!)

arson83 It was 2 in the morning and I couldn't sleep even though I had to wake up in 7 hours. So I put on something called "Naked World" - which my DirecTV described as "An artist asks people to pose nude in the streets." Obviously, I was intrigued.What I saw was NOT porn at all. Unless you consider 73 year old men standing naked in a field a good turn-on. And then, you have issues.However, this was actually really good. This artist went around 7 continents (yeah, Antarctica also) and took pictures of random, common people (some good looking, some old, some the anti-supermodel) standing naked, in non-sexual poses.It wasn't all nudity. It showed culture, reactions, and how everyone is diverse, yet we are all the same. Yeah it kinda had a message. Granted, the 400 people naked in the last scene was a little weird.If you have time, check it out.7/10.