Product Description

In a five month journey photographing nudes in every state, the critically acclaimed film Naked States follows artist Spencer Tunick’s quest to photograph nudes in public settings across the country.

Naked States is a visual American odyssey that brings

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41769 in DVD
• Brand: New Video
• Released on: 2002-07-30
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 80 minutes

Amazon.com
Art, publicity, and "the politics of nudity" go under the cultural microscope in this award-winning documentary. Photographer Spencer Tunick specializes in nudes--large groups of them, usually in public places. Naked States follows Tunick from one of his many arrests in New York through a national tour in a quest to get a nude photo in each state and a gallery showing at the end of it. Naked States combines footage of Tunick (at times uninhibitedly whiny) at work with interviews with his subjects and the occasional wry comment by his girlfriend. Tunick's images are undeniably compelling, as are many of his subjects' reasons for stripping off and posing. Most interesting are the sequences involving a genial Burning Man crowd and some surprisingly uncooperative nudists. The film contains, obviously, quite a bit of full-frontal nudity, but none of it is eroticized--an interesting phenomenon in itself. Well worth watching. --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews

Intriguing look at this artist's work
This is a very interesting and enlightening look at Spencer Tunick and his work. It's incredible to see how he clearly has an idea of what the images should look like, but even as they're being constructed in front of the documentary camera it's difficult to see his vision -- it only becomes really clear when the final print is viewed. The documentary itself is "camcorder-gritty" and that works for the most part, but I would've liked more detail in places. This documentary is also a fun look at the widely-varied people of the United States. This is definitely a film I will recommend to others.

A well done documentary about Mr. Tunick and his unique work
I found out about Mr. Tunick's work from an article in Wired. The photographs are interesting studies in how the human body can be used to create a unique work of art. I found the documentary to be very interesting as I got to see how such work is accomplished and the kind of difficulties that he has experienced in New York City with those who would consider the nude human body to be obscene or something that needs to be covered at all times.

It was also great to be able to listen to the actual participants of these events and get their reactions to the whole experience and how liberating it was to pose nude for Mr. Tunick. It was especially touching listening to the poor lady who had been physically attacked 6 months prior to the photo shoot and how posing nude for Mr. Tunick was therapeutic to her and helped her to regain a positive self image of herself.

I also have to give Mr. Tunick a medal for his courage to ask people to pose for him at a biker convention. This part of the film was an excellent documentation as to how people have such pre-conceived notions of the nude human body and the negativety he experienced until he became better known.

I hope that Mr. Tunick decides to do a photo shoot in my neck of the woods soon as I would love to be able to pose for him. By the way, he has a official website where you can provide your email address and sign up to be informed of upcoming photoshoots and maybe pose as well.

Definitely I recommend this DVD. I hope the sequel "Naked World" is released in DVD format as well soon. I would love to see the one about the shoot in which there were 7,000 partipants. It must have been an amazing experience to behold.

Doco Exposing An Artist's Naked Ambition
NAKED STATES is a fascinating documentary about New York photographer/artist Spencer Tunick as he embarks on his "Naked States" tour, getting people from every state to shed their clothes all for the sake of art. Tunick just picks regular people off the street to model for his photos. You've got to admire these people; figuratively speaking, I wouldn't have the balls to do something like that. Not surprisingly the moralists manage to get him arrested in several states for "aiding and abetting disorderly conduct". Ironically, Tunick is listed on the DVD profile as being "notoriously private"! And despite his hunger for publicity he doesn't want the tabloids to cover his art as he feels they will cheapen its merit!
Even just seeing the different backgrounds and personalities of his subjects is fascinating. There's an amusing scene of a tough biker guy getting aggro at Tunick when Tunick asks his daughter to pose for him, and another subject is a rape victim being photographed as part of her healing process. One photo even shows the twin towers of the WTC in the background (Yes, I DO notice other things when there are naked women in view!). It's also good to see that Tunick is willing to strip too to get his work done, as we see when he photographs several thousand people at a Phish concert. The finished pictures look amazing. I found it funny how the news item on the doco censored the nudity- especially when on any other day you see gruesome war footage and the like. This would probably never happen in NZ (Unless the artist was Maori, Helen Clark just can't say "No" to them). NAKED STATES is highly recommended. The only extra with the Australasian DVD is a written profile of Tunick, but it's still worth seeing.